Wen | East Fence
When the era of intelligent electric vehicles is coming, both car companies and technology companies hope to empower cars in the future, so that people and cars become symbiotic "partners", not just to see cars as cold machines and human subordinates.
Many companies are turning their eyes to software and services, after all, the more technology evolves, the closer it is to the form of life, and software is more like the brain and soul of hardware.
"The shift in the powertrain is relatively insignificant, the bigger change is that the car is gradually becoming a fully integrated internet device, and for the first time in history, we will see the car companies build a relationship directly with the customer." Herbert Diess, CEO of volkswagen group, stressed the need to take the software into his own hands and to control the dominance of intelligence.
Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, once stated at the shareholders' meeting last year that although it has cooperated with Huawei, Baidu and other companies in many fields, it is difficult for SAIC to accept that there is an overall solution for it, "This has become its soul, I am the body, and we cannot accept this." ”
On the other hand, when the software and hardware of the car began to decouple, after software such as automatic driving was "targeted" by technology companies such as Huawei, the car chassis, which accounted for nearly half of the cost of the vehicle BOM (bill of materials), also began to be "coveted" by newcomers.
The concept of a skateboard chassis is being hyped. It's just that with the success of the U.S. electric vehicle startup Rivian's successful IPO in the U.S. in November 2021, the sliding chassis technology and philosophy that the company, which was invested by Amazon and Ford, has attracted the attention of the capital market. China has also given birth to startups such as Yo-Run Technology.
These entrepreneurs want to create a "super chassis" that integrates core soft and hard components such as steering, braking, three-electric system, thermal management, and electrical and electronic architecture, but this is robbing half of the "body" of the automobile company, which is not an easy thing for traditional car companies.
As Li Peng, founder and CEO of Yo-Yo Pao Technology, said, "Once it enters the new car-making model brought by the skateboard chassis, it means some challenges of interests for traditional car companies." The transformation of the automotive industry brought about by the sliding chassis has begun.
The skateboard chassis rises in line with the trend
Skateboard, the concept of skateboard chassis is not new. Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association, said in December last year, "In fact, the technology of skateboard chassis was talked about at the Hundred Talents Association several years ago, and this concept has existed for a long time. ”
Back in 2002, GM proposed the concept and incorporated it into a concept car called the "Hy-wire." Although this concept car creatively incorporates the relevant technology of "hydrogen energy + control-by-wire chassis", it has not been mass-produced in the end. Musk, who embarked on the road to building a car because the GM EV 1 was not accepted by the market, also wanted to apply the skateboard chassis design, but also did not land the technology. Later, bosch and other suppliers have also introduced similar concept chassis.
In 2017, former BMW executives Stefan Krause, Ulrich Kranz and others who left Faraday Future founded a new car company ,EVELOZCITY, now renamed Canoo.
Canoo's skateboard chassis concept
Stefan Krause, the company's CEO at the time, told HD Auto that they were developing a skateboard chassis platform architecture that would house batteries and electric drivetrains, "all models will use the same chassis architecture, with different cabins, creating four unique models, including lifestyle cars for family leisure, private passenger cars for commuting, logistics vehicles for last-mile delivery, and customized ride-hailing cars that focus on the passenger experience." ”
It is rumored that Apple once hoped to acquire this company, that is, its sliding chassis technology, although the acquisition or cooperation between the two sides did not follow, but the company was listed in the United States through SPAC (Special Acquisition Purpose Company) in December 2020, earlier than Rivian. However, what has attracted the market's attention is the Rivian car invested by Ford and Amazon.
Among them, there are many capital factors, which cannot be ignored that the industrial logic is changing, and the advent of the era of intelligent electric vehicles has made the market pay more attention to the transformation of the automobile industry, including hardware manufacturing.
Ouyang Minggao believes that because the battery system is usually a flat structure, all the special platforms for pure electric vehicles are quite different from the traditional fuel vehicle platforms, and they all have the basic concept of flat skateboards. In his opinion, the chassis remains unchanged and can be easily made into various models. This is the result of the evolution of technology for many years, representing the development trend of technology, the shortening of the model development cycle, and the enhancement of personalization, which will bring a revolution to the design and manufacture of automobiles.
In April 2021, Li Peng founded Youpao Technology, upgrading the traditional "vehicle integrated development" to "upper and lower split development", hoping to redefine the top-level logic, technical form and supply chain of automobile research and development.
Yo-Run's "UP Super Chassis" and "UP SPACE Super Cabin" concept cars
On January 11 this year, Yo-Pao Technology officially released the first "UP Super Chassis", and based on the same "UP Super Chassis", it released the "UP SPACE Super Cabin" concept car covering mainstream passenger cars and commercial vehicles such as cars, SUVs, MPVs, pickup trucks, vans and other mainstream passenger cars and commercial vehicles.
Li Peng said, "In the era of new car manufacturing 1.0, car builders are committed to upgrading fuel vehicles to electric vehicles; with the increasing maturity of skateboard chassis technology, the automotive industry will usher in the era of new car manufacturing 2.0, more cross-field players can be lightly loaded, and cars will evolve to a smarter, more personalized, scene-driven mobile intelligent space." "
Where does the future go?
From General Motors, Tesla, Bosch to Canopy, Rivian, Yo-Yo Technology, skateboard chassis players are both traditional car companies, parts giants, and startups, how should participants position themselves and find the boundaries of business models?
The process of exploring boundaries is actually a process of reshaping the intelligent electric vehicle industry chain or creating a new ecology.
In early 2019, EVELOZCITY, then CEO of Canopy, told HD Auto that they were going to become the "Apple of the automotive world." They will take product development, design, service and customer in hand, outsource the asset-heavy project of automobile manufacturing, carry out OEM production, provide vehicles directly to users through subscription models, and do not carry out physical sales, further realizing asset-light operation.
Rivian is actually similar to it, will build its own car brand, but will also provide products for B-side large customers. The boundary set by Li Peng for Youpao is "a brand that does not do to C", and their customers can be OEMs that only need a chassis, or they can be operating service providers that need complete vehicles.
This can't get around one word: "manufacturing".
You know, as users are occupied by travel companies and robbed by traditional consumer electronics companies, especially car companies are also echoing the transformation of technology companies, when cars are "smart hardware", their brand power is being dissolved, and the only thing left is the proud manufacturing ability. Now, even the manufacturing field they are proud of has more players entering to share the cake.
The topic of OEM is once again put on the agenda, car OEM and skateboard chassis is not a new thing, like an Austrian company for the international advanced car companies to do OEM, are very high-end models, like two-seat sports cars, high-end SUVs.
At that time, Canoo was looking for a foundry, Krause told HD Auto at the time, and Weilai, Jacque's FOUNDC model is not the same, they will choose a company like Magna specializing in OEM production as a partner, "In the West, the OEM model has existed for more than 100 years, such as Magna, has been doing OEM, we will follow this model in the United States or Europe." We have a lot of experience in this area. ”
Guan Mingyu, a global managing partner at McKinsey & Company, told HD Auto that there must be some companies that will eventually become so-called platform suppliers, and after the threshold for car manufacturing is lowered, some of the original practices in the automotive industry can also work, which may give birth to new business models.
Yo-yo wants to let cross-field players "lightly load into the game", the cabin body can be extremely personalized on the basis of the standardized chassis, but the smart cockpit is the battlefield of technology companies and traditional car companies, as Chen Hong said the "soul theory", in the process of reshaping the industrial chain, some car companies will not only lose their souls in the end, or even lose their bodies, that is, they will be eliminated.
At the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, He Xiaopeng bluntly said that there may only be about 10 smart electric vehicle companies in the world in the future. Zeng Yuqun, chairman of the Ningde era, also stated before this that if it is a globalized environment era, there may not be 10 car factories left in the next decade, and similar to mobile phones, a global monopoly.
No one wants to be eliminated, and when the new ecology in the future has not yet arrived, the multi-point layout of traditional OEMs with strong funds and strong technical strength, or pulling allies together to build their own skateboard chassis, may be a better choice. Those car companies with weak brand power and limited capital and technical strength, cooperate with platform suppliers as soon as possible, focus on OEM, and seamlessly connect the hardware chassis, electronic and electrical architecture or software platform in the future, realize the mixed production between different models and even different brands, reduce costs, and greatly improve their competitiveness.
In the short term, the key to the success of the skateboard chassis is rapid scaling. Rivian's stock price fell more than 50% from its peak due to lower capacity than expected and a partnership between Amazon and another OEMs, and the chief operating officer left during this period.
Of course, short-term fluctuations in the capital market are normal, but with a future-oriented skateboard chassis, the manufacturing capacity of these new entrants still needs to face great challenges.
According to Li Peng's introduction, on the basis of existing partners such as Kaiyi, traditional car companies, new car-making forces, and technology companies have interested partners. Of course, he also knows that traditional car companies are also facing a dilemma, which will be "the most difficult problem in the industry in the future period of time".
At the same time, the skateboard chassis will inevitably be able to create value, but whether it is a car company or a participant like Yo-Yo- Pao, before the arrival of the unknown ecology, it is not clear where the profits come from, only that where it can generate profits.
Such uncertainty comes from repositioning oneself and exploring the boundaries of the company. After all, the first question for all policymakers is whether today's automotive industry is in the midst of continuous improvements in the same industrial curve or in the process of jumping from one curve to another.
-END-