The world's top technology giants frequently join hands with GAC Aion. What is the meaning behind this?

In recent years, the new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly. Driven by the "new four modernizations", cross-border alliances between enterprises are common. For example, on May 17, Didi's autonomous driving company announced a strategic cooperation with GAC Aion. It is worth noting that in just over half a year, the world's top technology giants including Huawei, iFlytek, Baidu, etc. have frequently joined forces with GAC Aion. Prior to this, Tencent AutoLink, a subsidiary of another technology giant Tencent, had already cooperated with GAC Aion a few years ago. At present, there are many car-making forces in China's new energy vehicle market. Why do all the giants "target" GAC Aion? What is the deep meaning behind these in-depth cooperations?

Leading technology companies all chose GAC Aion to build cars

At present, with the accelerated development of automobile electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing, market opportunities in the new energy vehicle industry have begun to emerge, and the resulting cross-industry alliances have also begun to increase. Technology giants such as Tencent, Huawei, Didi, and Baidu have all been rumored to be "making cars". However, for these major technology companies, if they want to enter the new energy vehicle market with huge potential, a major dilemma they face is the lack of vehicle platforms and vehicle design and manufacturing capabilities. Therefore, they must seek reliable partners among the many new energy vehicle manufacturing forces in order to occupy a place in the future "track" competition. An interesting phenomenon is that these top global technology companies all chose GAC Aion in the end.

It is understood that since 2017, global leading technology companies such as Huawei, Tencent, Didi, Baidu, and iFlytek have carried out multiple strategic cooperation deployments or signed contracts to deepen cooperation with GAC Aion in the fields of intelligence, networking, and autonomous driving.

Even Lei Jun, who recently announced that he would build a car, went to GAC Aion for research as soon as possible. It can be said that GAC Aion has become the object of pursuit by major technology companies.

Moreover, the cooperation between major technology companies and GAC Aion is not just a simple supply and demand or buying and selling relationship, but is extremely in-depth and unique. For example, Didi found GAC Aion not for customized online car-hailing like other brands, but to make Aion the first important partner of Didi in the future driverless shared travel market. Combining the respective advantages of both parties, a new definition and development of a fully driverless new energy vehicle model that can be put into large-scale application is being promoted at full speed for mass production. The future goal is to accelerate the large-scale operation of Robotaxi (driverless taxis).

Similarly, the cooperation between Huawei and Aion is that both parties have invested more than 100 people in R&D teams to work together, jointly develop and build cars, and aim to create an epoch-making super-intelligent pure electric car; the cooperation between Tencent and GAC Aion is not just about in-car WeChat, but deepening cooperation in all-round fields such as intelligent networking, intelligent travel, digital operations, and ecological chain construction. As for iFlytek, it directly chose to establish a new company "Galaxy Intelligent Connection" in a joint venture with GAC, making the two parties a community of interests.

The new energy vehicle market is the main battlefield of future technology, and cross-border cooperation is the only way forward

Why do leading technology companies choose GAC Aion?

Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that from January to April this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 368,000 and 360,000 respectively, up 58.5% and 59.8% year-on-year respectively. With the continued growth in domestic new energy vehicle sales, the resulting business opportunities for intelligent network applications are also huge, and major technology giants have also set their sights on this market "cake" with huge potential. GAC Aion, a leading new energy vehicle company with strong comprehensive system strength, a certain sales volume and a high ranking, has naturally become a "hot commodity" in their eyes.

First of all, GAC Aion has a solid foundation for success in the new energy vehicle industry. As the core carrier of GAC's development of intelligent networked new energy vehicles, it has been highly expected by the group since its establishment in 2017. In order to support the development of GAC Aion, GAC, with a forward-looking strategic vision, invested 45 billion yuan with its partners to build the GAC Intelligent Networked New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park, and also invested 4.5 billion yuan to build the world's leading GAC Aion Intelligent Ecological Factory, so that it stands on a high starting point from the beginning.

Secondly, GAC Aion also has the industry-leading GEP pure electric exclusive platform. In order to better build intelligent pure electric vehicles, GAC Aion has insisted on using a pure electric exclusive platform to build products since its inception. The platform has now developed to the second generation, leading the industry by two generations. The platform is centered on "battery + electric drive". While bringing more space, higher performance and safety to pure electric vehicles, it also has better software and hardware integration capabilities. Top technology companies in various industries have chosen to cooperate with GAC Aion, and they are attracted by this domestically unique pure electric vehicle exclusive platform. At present, the only car companies in the world that have mature pure electric exclusive platforms are Tesla and GAC Aion.

In addition, GAC Aion also has the industry-leading advantage of being "one step ahead" in technology. Thanks to GAC's many years of R&D investment and technological accumulation in the field of new energy vehicles, GAC Aion has become the only car company in the industry that has made simultaneous efforts in the EV and ICV fields and has the ability to lead technology. Among them, in the EV field, GAC Aion has mastered a series of forward-looking "black technologies" such as high-performance two-speed dual-motor "four-in-one" integrated electric drive, sponge silicon negative electrode battery technology, and super-fast charging battery technology. Not long ago, GAC Aion also launched the world's first magazine battery system safety technology. This technology has achieved the first time in the industry that the entire package of ternary lithium batteries will not catch fire after being punctured, redefining the safety standards of ternary lithium batteries.

In addition, from the perspective of ICV, GAC Aion is also a technological pioneer in the industry. Not only did it deliver the AION LX equipped with the ADiGO3.0 autonomous driving system in August last year, it was the first to achieve mass production of the world's first high-precision map L3 autonomous driving, and at the end of last year, it took the lead in mass production and delivery of the world's first 5G smart car AION V. The car is equipped with the world's first 5G and V2X in-vehicle intelligent communication system independently developed by GAC, as well as Huawei's new generation of automotive-grade 5G chips, thus opening the era of the Internet of Everything in the car. At present, GAC Aion is developing L4 autonomous driving vehicles with partners, which are scheduled to be mass-produced in 2024.

At the 2021 GAC Technology Day, the ADiGO 4.0 intelligent driving interconnection ecosystem was also officially released. In addition to achieving a higher level of autonomous driving scene experience and a more humanized use experience, it can also be continuously updated and iterated according to user usage habits. Through these industry-unique leading technologies, GAC Aion has not only successively solved the "pain points" of users' pure electric travel such as safety, endurance, and charging, but also brought many "sweets" to users, seizing the technological commanding heights of future industry development.

Thanks to advanced products and high-quality services, GAC Aion has been able to develop rapidly over the past three years, achieving both good sales and good reputation. In 2020, it not only achieved a historic moment of cumulative sales exceeding 100,000 vehicles, but also ranked among the top five in the industry with cumulative annual sales exceeding 60,000 vehicles, becoming a leading new energy vehicle company. In April this year, with the launch of AION Y, the fourth model of the AION family, the Aion factory also ushered in capacity expansion and upgrading. The production capacity will be expanded to 200,000 vehicles/year on the basis of the original 100,000 vehicles/year, and the level of intelligent manufacturing will also be comprehensively improved.

All models are exported to joint venture brands, and Chinese cars are accelerating their "overtaking"

Today, the trend of automobile electrification is irreversible, and the era of intelligent pure electric vehicles is bound to come. In order to win in this most critical "track" in the future of the world, major automobile brands around the world are scrambling to grab advantageous resources. In addition to the cross-border cooperation between the automobile industry and other industries, the integration of resources within the automobile industry is also accelerating. For a long time, because foreign brands have mastered the core technologies of the "three major parts" of traditional fuel vehicles, domestic brands have almost no say in joint ventures. At the same time, joint ventures can only passively accept the output of foreign brands' models and be willing to play a supporting role in their OEM. Today, relying on the world's leading new energy vehicle platform and electrification and intelligent technologies, Chinese new energy vehicle brands finally have the opportunity to become the protagonists of the dominant market, and joint venture brands have begun to reverse OEM for domestic brands.

Taking GAC Aion as an example, the brand's AION family has currently launched four intelligent pure electric vehicle products, namely AION S, AION LX, AION V and AION Y. Thanks to the excellent quality brought by the GEP2.0 pure electric exclusive platform and its leading strength in the core technologies of "three electrics", these models have all been exported to joint venture brands under GAC Group, including GAC Toyota, GAC Honda, GAC Fiat, GAC Mitsubishi, and GAC Weilai.

Moreover, this is not the first time that GAC Aion has exported new energy vehicle products to joint venture brands. As early as 2018, GAC New Energy, the predecessor of GAC Aion, had exported the plug-in hybrid vehicle GS4 to GAC Mitsubishi, GAC Fiat and GAC Toyota at the same time. GAC also became the only automobile group in the industry at that time to export new energy products to three joint ventures. The reverse export of GAC Aion's full range of models to joint venture brands not only marks the redefinition of the "joint venture relationship in the new era", but also means that Chinese automobiles are accelerating their "lane-changing overtaking" in the field of new energy vehicles, and global leadership is just around the corner.

The future competition in the new energy vehicle industry will be a competition of technology and cost. With the support of so many of the world's top technology giants, GAC Aion is even more powerful and will surely win in future competition and become the market leader. With the help of the four major system advantages of global R&D network, global supply chain, Aion production method, and new marketing service ecology, GAC Aion, which has opened a new era of brand independence, is constantly accelerating the pace of innovation and change. With the subsequent mixed reform and independent IPO, it will surely become another "super unicorn" in the field of smart new energy vehicles. Let us wait and see.

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.