Image source @ Visual China
Wen | light cone intelligence, author | Sun Guangxin
Recently, the news that Tesla is going to establish a design center in Beijing has caused an uproar.
In the notice of beijing's "2022 municipal government work report key task list", article 60 shows that it will promote the construction of xiaomi automobile manufacturing plant, Weilan new energy solid-state battery phase I and other projects, and support Beijing Benz to increase production capacity and launch new energy products. Completed the renovation and expansion of the ideal automobile manufacturing base to ensure the smooth installation and commissioning of the equipment. Support the transformation and upgrading of traditional car companies such as BAIC Group.
Previously, the "Tesla Design Center" and "Toyota Fuel Cell Research and Development Center" were also included, but then, the two were removed from the document.
Screenshot of the "List of Key Tasks in the 2022 Municipal Government Work Report", source/Beijing Municipal Government website
This stems from Beijing's desire to "vigorously promote the leap in the energy level of high-tech industries", and new energy and intelligent vehicles, as the focus of them, have also been vigorously supported.
Among the projects disclosed in the "List", Ideal Automobile is the only one of the new auto forces "Three Musketeers" to land in Beijing, and the headquarters of Weilai and Xiaopeng are in Guangzhou.
Ideal Automobile's Beijing plant, formerly known as Beijing Hyundai's manufacturing plant, is expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2023, and after the completion of the renovation, the expected production capacity of the Beijing plant will be 100,000 units.
It is worth noting that taking over the Beijing Hyundai plant is only part of the ideal expansion of production capacity, and the current Changzhou plant of Ideal Automobile is also expanding production capacity, and the production capacity will be expanded to 200,000 units after the completion of the new workshop. On January 27, Ideal Automobile's wholly-owned subsidiary acquired a piece of land in Chongqing's Liangjiang New Area for 431 million yuan, which may mean that Ideal Automobile will build another factory in Chongqing. According to relevant reports, the capacity of the Chongqing plant may exceed the combined capacity of the two plants in Changzhou and Beijing. But Ideal Car said it would "not comment" on this.
The settlement of Xiaomi Automobile in Beijing has been confirmed, which includes not only design, research and development, but also automobile manufacturing. Xiaomi Automobile's plant, located in Yizhuang, Beijing, is divided into two phases, with a planned production capacity of 150,000 units per phase.
In terms of batteries, Weilan New Energy is a supplier of semi-solid-state batteries to Weilai, and also provides batteries for traditional car companies such as GAC, with a research and development base located in Beijing and a production base in Fangshan, Beijing. In November 2021, Weilan New Energy received about 500 million yuan of C round financing from Xiaomi, Huawei, Weilai and other enterprises. However, whether Weilan New Energy will be a supplier of Xiaomi and Huawei, and what cooperation between the two sides will be disclosed.
But what is certain is that the industrial chain of new energy and intelligent vehicles is quietly moving north.
Beijing's new energy war escalated
Tesla's layout in China already includes production and research and development, and the design center is not empty.
As early as 2017, Tesla registered a science and technology innovation center in Beijing, responsible for the research and development of electric vehicles and spare parts, batteries, energy storage equipment and information technology; in October 2021, Tesla's Shanghai R&D center has been put into use, which has 28 laboratories and is responsible for the development of software, hardware, processes and technologies in China.
Tesla Shanghai R&D Innovation Center - Low Voltage Electronics Laboratory Source/China Economic Weekly
When Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory was completed, Musk had revealed the idea of setting up a design center in China and designing a "Chinese-style" electric car. In April 2021, Tesla's global vice president Tao Lin also said that "Tesla is ready to start vehicle research and development from 0 in China, and new products will have a lot of Chinese elements, and based on the research of Chinese consumers, some product and functional design."
Unlike R&D centers that focus on hardware and software technology, design centers are the core of vehicle positioning. Taking NIO as an example, the appearance, interior, and human-computer interaction of NIO Are all completed at its Munich Design Center, and the engineering development and specific implementation are completed by Shanghai. The impact of appearance, interior, and human-computer interaction on people's driving experience is more intuitive, and in the process of car intelligence, design also provides guidance for the research and development of car companies' technology, such as Weilai's human-computer interaction system NOMI was born at the Munich Design Center.
Munich gathers a large number of well-known car companies' design centers, and automotive design talents emerge in an endless stream, but the staff of WEILAI design center also often travels to China to understand the Situation of the Chinese Market. The reason why NIO has gone through so much trouble, in addition to obtaining excellent automotive design talents and technology, is also partly because it is convenient to open up the market in Europe in the future.
Tesla wants to develop products for the Chinese market, and it is also an important choice to follow the example of traditional international car companies to set up R&D centers in China.
China is a market that all world-class car companies can not say lightly, many car companies have design and development centers in China, developing models for the Chinese market, BMW, Volkswagen, Honda and other car companies have R & D centers in China, Mercedes-Benz in China's design center was also in Beijing before.
BMW Beijing R&D Center
With the rapid development of China's new energy vehicles, many foreign car companies have seen China's development potential in automotive technology, Albert Biermann, president and head of the R&D department of Hyundai Motor Group, once said that with the world's largest automobile market solid position, the Chinese market has begun to transform to technological innovation, and many foreign car companies have also begun to do research and development work in China. Beijing is not only one of the largest auto markets in China, but also has a large talent reserve, and the construction of a design and research and development center in Beijing is also conducive to finding relevant talents.
Even if whether the Tesla design center lands in Beijing is still undecided, the increase in Beijing by xiaomi, ideal and other companies also reveals the trend of new energy and smart cars going north, and the new energy war in Beijing is escalating.
Xiaomi put the main position of car manufacturing in Beijing. Combined with the previous recruitment actions, Xiaomi is actively grabbing Auto talents in Beijing. Yu Liguo, deputy general manager of Xiaomi Automobile and political commissar of Xiaomi Beijing Branch, who was appointed on January 17, came from BAIC.
Autonomous driving, system software engineers and other software talents are the focus of Xiaomi's attention, recently some Xiaomi mobile phone users found that after the MIUI13 development version of the internal beta update, in the "connect and share" setting found a new "CarWith", it seems to be Xiaomi's car-machine interconnection system.
In recent years, the sales of new energy vehicles have increased significantly, which has also challenged their production capacity. The main reason for the ideal acquisition of the Beijing Hyundai Shunyi plant is the production capacity. In 2021, the ideal sales volume is 90,491 vehicles, an increase of 177.4% year-on-year, and the current production capacity of the Changzhou production base that can be used is only 100,000 vehicles, which can no longer meet the ideal production needs. In February 2021, Li Xiang said in an internal letter that he would achieve a sales target of 1.6 million vehicles by 2025.
At the same time, the problem of modern overcapacity in Beijing is prominent, and the first factory that is being ideally transformed is the first factory suspended in 2019, and the sale of idle capacity is also one of its ways to solve overcapacity.
It can be seen that although the specific reasons are different, more and more car companies have landed specific projects in Beijing to fill the gap in Beijing's new energy automobile industry, and the competition for resources and talents in Beijing will become more and more intense. In the future, more car companies may see the advantages of Beijing and even the entire north of new energy research and development and production, and actively invest in the north.
Why is new energy going north?
At the moment when new energy vehicles are gradually becoming popular, the gap between the north and the major cities in the south is still very large.
According to a report released by the Mob Research Institute in May 2021, consumers of new energy vehicles are mainly first- and second-tier cities, and the share of third-tier cities and below has increased, and the sinking trend is obvious. The distribution of northern regions such as northeast and northwest is only 3.5%, which is a depression of consumer cognition.
Most of the new car-making forces prefer to invest in the south and build factories.
For example, Weilai's factory is in Hefei, Xiaopeng Automobile's factory is in Zhaoqing, Guangzhou, wuhan; in the second echelon, Nezha's production base is in Tongxiang, Yichun, Nanning, zero-run cars are in Jinhua, Weima is in Wenzhou and Huanggang, and Aiways Automobile is in Shangrao.
In addition, the new energy vehicle industry chain is also more inclined to the south. Taking the battery industry, which has attracted much attention at present, ningde times is headquartered in Fujian, AVIC lithium battery is headquartered in Changzhou, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech's research and development platform in China is located in Hefei and Shanghai, respectively, and is also in the south.
Beijing, an important city in the northern automobile industry, has also been introducing a series of policies in recent years to try to change the lack of high-end automobile manufacturing.
In the notice of the "Beijing 14th Five-Year Plan period high-tech industrial development plan" released in August 2021, new energy intelligent vehicles were listed as strategic emerging industries. Specific to the region, in order to encourage investment by domestic and foreign new energy intelligent vehicle manufacturers, leading enterprises can receive up to 100 million yuan of innovation fund support, and the area including the 225 square kilometer planning area of Yizhuang New City has also become a policy pioneer area.
In the new energy vehicle consumer market, there is also a situation of "strong south and weak north". According to the new car traffic insurance data, in 2021, only beijing, Tianjin, Zhengzhou, Xi'an 4 northern cities in the top 20 cities of new energy vehicle sales, Guangdong Zhaoqing, Hubei Jingzhou, Guangdong Jieyang new energy vehicle sales increased by more than 600%, except for Special areas such as Tibet, the lowest sales of the cities are almost located in the northeast and northwest.
There have also been promising new energy vehicle companies in Beijing. Affected by favorable policies, BAIC BJEV, which entered the market early, was once a relatively good performer among Beijing's new energy vehicle companies, but its sales have been declining in recent years. In 2018, BAIC BJEV sold 158,000 units, but by 2021, BAIC BJEV sold only 26,100 units.
The glory of BAIC BJEV mainly comes from the online ride-hailing market with low requirements for intelligence. In 2009, BAIC BJEV was established, the main task of new energy vehicles at that time was to achieve electrification, through the mode of oil to electricity, BAIC BJEV quickly launched new energy vehicle products, relying on Beijing's huge online taxi market, BAIC BJEV sales rose rapidly.
Baic Motor BJEV EU series, which specializes in taxis
However, the online taxi market is only a small part of the automobile market after all, products and technologies are not good, and with the decline of subsidies, the sales volume of BAIC BJEV has also fallen sharply.
The new energy vehicle consumption market has changed from policy-driven to demand-driven, and energy policies are also forcing fuel vehicles to withdraw from the historical stage, although the consumption of new energy vehicles in the north is not as good as that in the south, it also means that the north has a very large market waiting for car companies to tap. However, new energy vehicle companies want to open up the northern market, there are still some other problems that need to be solved.
Winter endurance and energy supplementation problems are an important influencing factor for the popularization of new energy vehicles to the north, and many new energy vehicles are ridiculed as "electric daddies" in the winter. The "range anxiety" of winter in the northern region is forcing car companies and battery manufacturers to enter the charging field, whether it includes battery-related business or not.
According to the research report of CICC, in 2022, there will be a change of "a big outbreak of power replacement, car companies accelerating the self-construction of ultra/fast charging stations, and slow charging accelerating into the community".
With the continuous improvement of infrastructure, the problems encountered in the development of the new energy vehicle market in the north may turn around.
In addition to policy guidance and sales improvement, the most attractive to the migration of the new energy intelligent vehicle industry chain is probably talent.
According to the research report of Huaxi Securities, in 2020, new energy vehicles will usher in an outbreak driven by qualitative changes on the supply side, the penetration rate will continue to rise, in order to seek product differentiation selling points, new and old forces began to focus on intelligence, and the scheduling period to accelerate the process of electrification, 2021 officially opened the first year of intelligence.
In the era of smart cars for software-defined cars, Beijing has a rich talent pool for automotive intelligence compared with other automotive industrial cities. On the one hand, with a large number of top universities and research institutes in the country, Porsche, Audi and other traditional car manufacturers have maintained long-term cooperation with CAAM to obtain talents; on the other hand, Beijing has long laid out software-related industries, and there are a large number of talents from the industry.
Automotive intelligence may be the main direction for Beijing to reshape the automotive industry.
On January 25, 2021, Beijing officially opened the first pilot project for the commercialization of autonomous driving services in China, and supporting management policies were also introduced. Baidu Apollo and Xiaoma Zhixing obtained the first batch of pilot service licenses for the commercialization of autonomous travel services.
Baidu driverless ride-hailing
Xue Xu, an associate professor at the School of Economics of Peking University and secretary general of the Marketing Expert Committee of the China Market Society, said in an interview with the media, "The car manufacturing situation in different cities is related to its different urban positioning. As the capital, Beijing's urban space is more limited, with stricter regulations, and will not blindly 'follow the trend' to introduce a large number of car companies. ”
In Beijing's "14th Five-Year Plan" period of high-tech industrial development plan, there is also little information about new energy vehicles, replaced by intelligent networked vehicles. He also said that in 2025, the penetration rate of intelligent networked vehicles above the L2 level should reach 80%, and new energy vehicles that simply aim at carbon reduction may become a thing of the past.
According to the incomplete statistics of 21st Century Business Herald, there are 328 intelligent network-related enterprises registered in Beijing, 318 electronic and electrical related enterprises, 205 electrification companies, and 90 automotive software companies. Although autonomous driving is a complex system that combines software and hardware, the core technologies of autonomous driving are driven by software, such as the Internet of Vehicles, human-computer interaction, precise positioning, and planning decisions.
Shortly after Baidu and Geely established Jidu Automobile in Shanghai, they also set up Jidu Technology in Beijing, which is mainly responsible for technology output, to which Jidu responded, "Jidu is a technology-based automobile start-up company initiated and invested by Baidu and Geely, and Shanghai and Beijing are currently two important strategic center cities for Jidu business." Based on the current business needs of the enterprise, companies have been set up in the two places to facilitate the absorption of talents and better development of business across the country."
Source/21st Century Business Herald
Earlier, NIO built the Shanghai World Headquarters and the Hefei China Headquarters respectively, with the purpose of giving full play to NIO's international advantages in Shanghai and Hefei's industrial layout respectively.
With the improvement of the level of automotive intelligence, Beijing's advantages in the automotive intelligent industry will continue to expand, thus attracting more new energy vehicle manufacturers to migrate to Beijing.
At the same time, the automobile industry is a complex industrial system, and in the process of development, more and more subdivisions are also included, and it is normal for car companies to establish branches in combination with local advantages and their own layout. As Beijing's advantages in automotive software continue to expand, and China's voice in automotive intelligence is getting higher and higher, Beijing may become the next automotive software highland.