Traditional automobile competitors

Lead: It is nothing new for Internet technology giants to start cross-border car-making mode. There is no clear boundary between traditional automobile industry and high-tech intelligence and Internet industry. Terms such as "new energy" and "driverless" have built a bridge between traditional manufacturing industry and high-end intelligence. With Huawei, Ali, Didi and Baidu getting better and better, Apple has also changed from low-key research and development to high-profile "job-hopping". The automobile industry is no longer the home of the OEM and new forces, but has become a master in the fields of traditional manufacturing, artificial intelligence, new energy and 5G.

Written by Li Li, edited by He Zi.

"Apple is developing driverless technology and plans to produce driverless passenger cars in 2024, which will match the breakthrough battery technology independently developed." Reuters 65438+A news on February 22nd turned people's eyes to Apple again. In fact, since 20 13 Apple began to lay out the automobile industry, the rumors about Apple making cars have been going on. It is said that Apple will be released in September next year and will be released globally in 2022. Even the CEO of Volkswagen said on the social platform, "Compared with the competitors of traditional car companies, Apple's entry may bring greater challenges to the public in areas such as autonomous driving." By the end of 2020, has Apple really built a car for eight years?

In fact, a large number of new players in the field of cross-border automobile manufacturing are aiming at such a second largest consumer industry. While players are gearing up, it is not difficult to find that the new influx of car-making players involves more fields. The road to building a car is bound to be full of loneliness and uncertainty. No one can clap his chest and say that this must be a broad road to victory and light.

In the stage of increasingly fierce competition between new energy vehicles and future travel of major manufacturers, Apple's participation not only surprised the traditional automobile giants, but even the new forces of building cars and even technology companies were caught off guard. Shocked, the family will be more worried about this player who suddenly joined. After all, Apple had the ambition to build a car a few years ago, not to mention the name of this new player is "Apple".

As early as the Steve Jobs era, Joe himself said that Apple had enough ability to design a good car. Regardless of the outcome, Apple has been envious of the automobile industry since then. Sure enough, in the following year, on 20 14, Apple's vehicle plan "Titan" was born, which marked the beginning of Apple's official entry into the automobile industry.

From the actions taken at that time, it can be seen that Apple is confident about its technical reserves and cars. The story of digging people from Tesla on a large scale and even the once-circulated "Apple and Tesla discuss the acquisition" shows that Apple is not talking about building a car.

In addition to Apple's early preference for vehicle manufacturing, Apple also showed great interest in automotive software. Also in 20 14, in order to facilitate Apple's mobile phone users to better connect with cars, Apple specially developed the mobile phone map system "CarPlay", which is still active in the configuration list of most automobile brands until today.

From the practicality, praise and the status quo that the host manufacturers are still pursuing after many years, CarPlay is definitely an automobile-related work that Apple can get. Perhaps Apple has tasted the sweetness on the road of software, and at the same time, it does not rule out that it has repeatedly hit a wall in vehicle manufacturing, which has led Apple to shift the focus of automobile research and development to automobile software (autonomous driving) for quite some time.

According to an Apple financial analyst, although Titan's plan ran aground several times in the middle, it was not terminated. According to Apple's internal staff, as early as 20 16, Apple had changed its strategy: it turned to developing systems for other automobile companies instead of manufacturing its own automobile hardware. Most of Apple was influenced by Google and adjusted its future route to "cooperate with other OEMs". To put it bluntly, apple turned the original To C business into to B.

In 20 17, Apple tested autopilot software on public roads in California. By 20 19, Apple has accumulated 30 patents related to autonomous driving. These are still paving the way for autonomous driving and laying a good foundation for "selling software."

However, from 20 19 to now, many of Apple's new 10 patents are related to electric vehicles, intelligent cockpit and safety, which indicates that Apple will regain vehicle manufacturing. After all, if the first production car fails to roll off the assembly line, all the efforts will be in vain. For example, Dyson spent 2 billion pounds trying the water but failed, so Apple naturally didn't want to follow in his footsteps.

Some people say that "Apple has redefined the mobile phone, and this time Apple wants to redefine the battery". It is understood that Apple is eager to make a high-density innovative battery that combines the safety and stability of lithium iron phosphate battery and ternary lithium battery. Although Musk has repeatedly said that from the electrochemical point of view, Apple's single battery is not feasible, but Apple has not given up the pursuit of innovative batteries and vehicle manufacturing.

In terms of chips, such as baseband chips, RF chips and autopilot chips, Apple has strong chip research and development capabilities. According to Taiwan media reports, TSMC will become a cooperative manufacturer of these chips. In addition, Apple recently put forward stocking requirements for auto parts factories in Taiwan Province, China, such as Hoda, FTU, Heqin and Futian, and listed related enterprises in the first wave of supply chain.

Judging from Apple's car-making route, whether it is vehicle manufacturing or autopilot software, Apple has not fallen behind. Perhaps for Apple, this is just a two-pronged bet, and it is not known which route will succeed first.

In fact, the era of automotive intelligence 2.0 is not the only way to manufacture complete vehicles, and intelligence is not limited to the blessing of smart factories. For technology giants, providing technical support is a more front-end gameplay.

Technology supply is various, which can be software. Apple's research on autonomous driving software mentioned above not only supports Apple's own self-driving vehicles, but also paves the way for technical cooperation with other OEMs. After the maturity of Apple's autopilot software, it is not excluded that Apple will launch a new round of software supply and software payment model. After all, the previous mobile phone map has set a precedent.

For example, in China, Robotaxi, built by Baidu Apollo team based on its accomplishments in autonomous driving, has also greatly broken the status quo of the domestic taxi and online car market, and this trend will be more obvious in the future.

Technology supply can also be ecological. Like Huawei's intelligent network connection +5G technology for ARCFOX, compared with mainstream rivals in the fields of cloud computing, car networking and energy Internet, it brings Internet ecological advantages to Polar Fox.

Prior to this, Ali had teamed up with SAIC to build Zebra Zhixing, and Roewe RX5 became the first model of the system and was awarded the title of "Internet car".

Not only that, Ali also recently established Smart Car with Zhangjiang Hi-Tech and SAIC. Ali Morgan Stanley will provide continuous learning and improvement capabilities for smart car products through in-depth analysis of massive user data, so as to continuously iterate and optimize the user experience.

Like Huawei, HiCar integrates cars, mobile phones and even household smart appliances, creating a simpler and more complete full-scene intelligent Internet ecosystem.

It's normal for the giants to try the automobile industry, but unlike trying to make the whole vehicle, the technology giants generally focus on the future, using a new way of playing high-end intelligence-technology supply.

comment

The market share of new energy vehicles and smart cars is increasing year by year. Without the technical barriers of fuel vehicles, the threshold for technology companies to penetrate the automobile industry is getting lower and lower. In the future, major manufacturers may put more energy into the research and development of Sanpower, software and chips. For example, Mercedes-Benz announced that it is likely to become a company specializing in software services in the future, while Tesla is a software-oriented company. OTA, car networking and driverless driving are all inseparable from software and the Internet. Under such circumstances, those "lonely" traditional OEMs who refuse to hold a group are likely to become foundries, or even get lost in the alternation of the times.