OPPO executives will join Xiaopeng Motors. What does the convergence of digital and automotive circles mean to users?

Have you noticed that many bloggers and big Vs in the digital circle have begun to enter the automotive circle?

In fact, it is not just these self-media, but even the executives of major manufacturers have begun to go viral. On May 21, media reported that Yu Tao, the marketing director of OPPO's OnePlus brand, may join Xiaopeng Motors and be responsible for the marketing and public relations of Xiaopeng Motors.

It is worth mentioning that Yu Tao is not an "insider" in the automotive industry. Before joining OnePlus, he was the marketing general manager of 360 and was also in charge of marketing for Honor Mobile. Judging from these experiences, he is more like a person in the digital industry than in the automotive industry.

However, this is not a big problem for Xiaopeng Motors, or even the entire new energy vehicle industry, because this is not the only case of transitioning from the digital industry to the automotive industry. Prior to this, Guan Haitao, former vice president of Honor Mobile China, jumped to Zeekr Auto as CMO, and Song Ziwei, former product manager of iQOO mobile phones, also joined Ideal Auto.

In addition, Zou Liangjun, current senior vice president of sales and service of Ideal Auto, Li Wenzhi, head of the CFO office of Ideal Auto, and Xie Yan, CTO of Ideal Auto, were previously executives of Huawei.

On a larger scale, Xiaomi started to build cars as a mobile phone manufacturer. Huawei is the same. Although it does not build cars, it has entered the car market as a mobile phone manufacturer and created Hongmeng Intelligent Driving. Obviously, the deep integration of the digital circle and the mobile phone circle has become a trend. Judging from the current situation, this trend is still strengthening.

Making mobile phones and making cars seem to be completely different industries, so why is there a trend of integration between them? The reason is simple. Today's new energy vehicles are no longer just mechanical products. In the words of Tesla founder Musk: electric cars are large-scale electronic products.

This statement is not an exaggeration. Taking the hot intelligentization in the current new energy vehicle market as an example, in order to realize in-vehicle intelligence, a large screen, high-end chips and computing platforms are needed, and various Internet applications must be provided. The car has actually become a mobile terminal, but it is more complicated than a mobile phone or tablet.

So far, the smart cockpits created by major new energy manufacturers have a common goal, which is to make their user experience closer to the familiar smartphones. To give the simplest example, the OTA upgrade that is currently required for mainstream new energy models has been popularized in the smartphone market more than a decade ago.

In addition, the functions pursued by car companies, such as car-machine integration and multi-screen linkage, are also routine operations in the digital circle. Why can Huawei's Hongmeng smart cockpit become a golden signboard in the field of intelligence? Because Huawei itself is a super player in the smartphone market and is very familiar with this set.

To put it bluntly, smart cars and smart phones are similar in principle. People from the traditional automotive industry may not be familiar with intelligence, but for those who are executives of mobile phone manufacturers, cars are smart terminals like mobile phones, except that they are more complicated.

This may be an important reason for the high degree of integration between the digital circle and the car circle. Intelligence is the strategic high ground of new energy vehicles, and automakers need some high-end talents who really understand intelligence. In this regard, Geely can be said to be the most extreme. In order to solve its own shortcomings in software and intelligence, Geely Automobile directly acquired Meizu mobile phones.

Not only that, in terms of supply chain, smartphones and smart cars also have many similarities. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chip, which is currently widely used in the industry, is actually a "magic version" of the Qualcomm 855 mobile phone chip released in 2019, and Huawei directly uses the Kirin chip in Hongmeng Zhixing's models.

Of course, new energy vehicle manufacturers like to find talents in the digital circle, not only at the product level, but also at the marketing level.

Xiaomi SU7 was recently launched on the market and dominated the hot searches on major news platforms in a short period of time. People who want to buy a car and those who don’t are all paying attention to this car. A newly launched car has become a top trend in the car circle before it is even delivered. This is directly related to Lei Jun’s strong Internet marketing ability.

In fact, as early as ten years ago, the war of words in the mobile phone industry was already very common. People from the digital industry are very good at the topic of "how to generate traffic". The Weibo debates that have been popular in the car industry in the past two years have long been commonplace in the mobile phone industry. Manufacturers need traffic, but they cannot find a marketing master of Lei Jun's level to promote themselves, so the second best option is to find some "small-sized" Lei Jun.

Whether it is making cars or promoting products, talents from the digital world can play a big role, so the integration of the two circles is a natural thing. If nothing unexpected happens, there will be more such things in the future, and the boundaries between the digital world and the car world will become more and more blurred.

But from an objective point of view, new energy vehicles and smart phones are not in the same circle after all. In terms of complexity, mobile phones and smart cars are not on the same order of magnitude, which puts extremely high demands on the supply chain and quality control of smart cars. At the same time, in terms of marketing networks and after-sales network construction, the difficulty of mobile phones and cars is also completely different.

Simply put, mobile phones are short-cycle and asset-light. It may only take a year or even a few months to develop a mobile phone. If the product fails, you can continue to develop the next generation of products. However, cars are long-cycle and asset-heavy. It may take more than three years and an investment of tens of billions just to develop a car platform. If a car model fails in development, it may drag down the entire brand.

Although the digital circle and the automotive circle are merging, talents in the digital circle can only play a supporting role. While they bring the digital circle's gameplay to the automotive circle, they also need to learn the traditional gameplay of the automotive circle. After all, cars and mobile phones are ultimately two product forms.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.