Why do more and more enterprises want to build cars? Are car profits that high? (Do you make money by making cars? )

Now the car has entered the most critical period. Traditional cars are facing extinction, and new energy vehicles have entered an explosive development period. This is the best time for enterprises that want to develop automobiles to enter the automobile industry. Such a chaotic and opportunity-facing period is certainly a good time for entrepreneurs who want to show their talents in the automobile industry.

In the future, its products will be positioned as * * * enjoyment+Internet plus new energy vehicles+wireless charging and autonomous driving. However, unlike the previous LeTV-made vehicles, in this multi-party cooperation, Alibaba will be mainly responsible for the Internet, mainly providing operating systems, maps, music and data services for cars.

Not only Alibaba, but also many internet companies have announced plans to build cars before.

First of all, more and more competitors

In recent years, stimulated by various favorable factors, more and more Internet companies have entered the field of new energy smart cars. Tesla's success directly stimulated Internet companies' plans to build cars. At present, many Internet companies including Baidu, Tencent, Ali, LeTV and Easy Car have announced their involvement in new energy vehicles.

▲ Some Internet companies' plans to build cars.

At present, internet companies that build cars can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category is similar to traditional automobile manufacturing enterprises, such as Tesla, whose business is mainly vehicle manufacturing and sales; The second one focuses more on building an internet system based on new energy vehicles, such as LeTV, which was previously positioned as an "eco-car", and Alibaba this time. It is an important strategy to seize the entrance of automobile internet; The third is to make it clear that it will not manufacture the whole vehicle, but focus on the core technical fields that can change the shape of the car, such as Google.

There are multiple reasons why domestic internet companies have jumped into the automotive field recently: First, the country has vigorously promoted electric vehicles and relaxed industrial qualifications, and the rise of Tesla has played a good demonstration effect. In recent years, with the rise of the concept of internet plus, Internet companies have gradually set foot in traditional industries, leaving people with a lot of imagination, both in business expansion and in seeking new capital stories.

Second, the threshold for building a car has been lowered.

Of course, more importantly, with the gradual maturity of electric vehicle technology, the threshold for vehicle manufacturing is further lowered.

▲ Classic structure of pure electric vehicle

Different from the openness and enjoyment of the internet industry, the automobile industry has formed a complete but relatively closed system after nearly a hundred years of development. A mature automobile enterprise, from the core three technologies to the spare parts supply system, is often self-contained This complete technology and industrial system has also caused the automobile industry to become a capital-intensive and technology-intensive industry with high barriers to entry.

In the era of electric vehicles, the power system with batteries and motors as the core directly pried open the technical monopoly of traditional car companies. At the same time, because of the use of electricity, unlike the traditional structure in which the internal combustion engine vehicle transmits power through rigid mechanical devices, the electric vehicle transmits more energy through flexible wires, so the layout structure of the chassis and body of the electric vehicle has greater flexibility, simpler structure and lower manufacturing difficulty.

▲ General "autonomous" electric vehicle chassis

General "autonomous" electric vehicle chassis is a typical innovative scheme of chassis and power system integration. Chassis and power system are integrated on a "skateboard", and the drive system and control system are both designed on the chassis. By adopting the wire control technology, the vehicle control system, braking system and other on-board systems are realized by electronic control instead of traditional mechanical methods. Electric vehicles are directly driven by motors installed in wheels, which can realize decentralized power control. Compared with traditional internal combustion engine vehicles and electric vehicles driven by a single motor, the four-wheel drive mode realizes the independent decentralized drive of each wheel, and each wheel can recover braking energy, eliminating complicated mechanical transmission devices such as transmission, clutch and transmission shaft, and improving transmission efficiency.

Third, the car industry, in fact, has long set the boundaries.

The new industrial policy allows more and more non-traditional enterprises, including Internet enterprises, to enter the vehicle field. 165438+1October 5th, Miao Wei, Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that at present, dozens of non-automobile enterprises are applying for qualification, and a number of qualified enterprises will enter the scope of new energy vehicle production qualification license in the future.

▲ Google driverless test car

However, more challengers do not mean that Internet companies can easily subvert the pattern of the automobile industry. In fact, as far as product characteristics are concerned, this is an industry that has been set a boundary because of the bottleneck of existing battery technology and driverless technology.

For a long time in the future, we may see some electric vehicle products that are limited by battery performance and are not suitable for large-scale promotion. They are still driven by human beings, but they are constantly innovating in product form or business model.

Fourth, the advantages of Internet companies are not obvious.

▲ Concept car exhibited by LeTV at Shanghai Auto Show.

Within this framework, it is more reasonable to look at the "changes" brought by Internet companies. In fact, the advantage of internet companies in building cars lies in the industrial application of data, especially the various services and data analysis capabilities based on a large number of users. Specifically, this may give Internet companies an advantage in various human-computer interaction systems, car networking and other fields. Coupled with their innate creativity, this is probably why many internet companies have just jumped into the automobile industry and shouted subversive confidence.

Of course, this advantage and self-confidence are actually based on a common perceptual intuition. When it comes to building a smart electric car that is not so subversive and has certain Internet characteristics, Internet companies still have no advantage, even in the field of car networking.

▲CAN bus application

Since 1980s, with the development of electronic technology and the improvement of automobile performance requirements, various types of electronic control systems have been gradually applied to automobiles. 1986

In 2006, the German electric company Bosch developed the automobile CAN.

Communication protocols used to exchange data and information between different on-board electronic control units, such as engine management system and body comfort system, form an automobile electronic control network. So far, CAN has become an international standard, and almost all automobile manufacturers have adopted CAN bus communication technology in the body electronic control and power control system.

▲ Tesla cars: models

The information communication of each part of S in-vehicle entertainment system is completed through in-vehicle LAN. However, in order to exchange data with CAN bus, the vehicle LAN must pass through a special gateway.

In the era of mobile Internet, if cars want to achieve deep interconnection through the Internet and reflect the essential attributes of physical cars, then OBD system must cut into its underlying communication protocol CAN bus. A large number of user data obtained through CAN bus and ECU driving computer is not only the basic data for automobile enterprises to continuously improve various technical performances and improve automobile products, but also the basis for accurately judging the behavior information of users on board and providing various value-added services for vehicles.

▲ Automobile data acquisition system based on CAN bus.

Therefore, whether it is the basic vehicle control system, the gradually clear car networking, or the future automatic driving, it depends on a large number of CAN bus data accumulation. In fact, in the layout of a series of car networking products before "BAT", due to the lack of CAN bus protocol, it is impossible to obtain key car data and real-time information, thus providing differentiated services to users, so there is an argument that "car companies are not open to hinder the development of car networking". For traditional automobile enterprises, it is impossible to open the CAN bus protocol, no matter for safety or benefit.