Making cars! The last battle of 51-year-old Lei Jun is the real challenge that NIO and Xpeng have to face.
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Xiaomi’s plan to build cars has been finalized. Lei Jun said that this was the last battle of his life. For the new car companies he invested in, including Weilai and Xiaopeng, this battle was actually aimed at them. Xiaomi still has a chance to build cars . Entering 2021, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming more and more fierce. Tesla cut prices, Evergrande released three new cars, Baidu joined hands with Geely to join the car-building group war, and the delivery volume of Xiaopeng and Weilai reached a new high. At this point in time, many people will ask, Xiaomi Automobile has just entered the new energy vehicle market at this time, is there still a chance? The answer is of course clear. The new energy vehicle industry has just begun, and everyone will have a chance, and Xiaomi has even more opportunities. In fact, between 2015 and 2020, Xiaomi discussed "car-building matters" at least three times, but never had a clear opinion. Six years of "hesitation". What finally made the 51-year-old Lei Jun determined to build cars in Xiaomi's new decade? The overcrowding of the mobile phone track may be one of the factors. According to the report of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the shipment volume of the domestic mobile phone market in October 2020 has reached a year-on-year decline of more than 20% in both single-month and annual cumulative terms, with a single-month year-on-year decline of 27% and an annual cumulative year-on-year decline of 22%. Looking back at 2019, the shipment volume of the mobile phone market fell by 10%. Judging from the data, the saturation trend of the mobile phone market is already very obvious. Going down one path to the end is not a wise choice for a technology company that needs to constantly tell new stories. Faced with the saturation of the mobile phone market, Huawei and Apple have begun to lay out a new business-electric vehicles. Although Huawei has so far stated that it will not join the ranks of car manufacturing, its layout in automobile-related fields, such as three-electric technology and vehicle-mounted systems, is becoming increasingly in-depth, attempting to become a new "Bosch Group" that penetrates the blood of the automobile industry chain. Apple has also been repeatedly exposed to enter the automobile market. Not long ago, Hyundai Motor Company even took the initiative to reveal that it was negotiating with Apple for OEM production. There are also real and fake Apple car CG pictures on the Internet. A new "four modernizations" era for automobiles has arrived. Watching old rivals transforming overtly or covertly, coupled with the reality of the saturated mobile phone market and the continued underestimation of stock prices, Xiaomi has to seek new development directions for the future. As a hot direction in recent years, the new energy vehicle market will even be in the state of a blue ocean market for a long time in the future. When to build a car has become a question that Xiaomi cannot avoid at all. It is also worth pointing out that Xiaomi has actually been planning to build a car a long time ago. As early as 2013, Lei Jun visited Musk. At that time, the seeds of building a car should have been planted in Lei Jun's mind. Some media said that Lei Jun felt that "building a car" was a very fashionable thing, and the company had discussed it many times, but at that time Xiaomi was still concentrating on mobile phones, and the matter of building a car was temporarily shelved. Of course, there is another reason for Xiaomi to build a car, that is, too much money, too much to put. "We have money, and Xiaomi still has an account balance of 108 billion yuan." In other words, if Xiaomi does not build a car, what can it do with so much money? Whether it is finance or real estate, it is not a good time at the moment. Only building a car is a solid manufacturing industry. It not only fits the current policy orientation of moving from virtual to real, but also coincides with Xiaomi's gene of cultivating manufacturing for ten years. Weilai and Xiaopeng may become Xiaomi's starting point . There is a saying that Lei Jun built cars because he saw that the new energy vehicle market was so hot that the growth of the company he invested in that year exceeded Xiaomi, so he had the urge to participate in the competition. This is probably just a joke. For such a project with tens of billions of funds invested, Xiaomi jumped in at a fever pitch. Isn't it really the famous ridicule on Zhihu: Never make money beyond your own cognition. Lei Jun is a calm person who is extremely admired by Wang Xing of Meituan, calling him a "model worker and god of war". Building cars is definitely not an impulse. In fact, Lei Jun once participated in the financing of Xiaopeng and Weilai before they went public as an investor, and naturally has a deep understanding of car manufacturing. Just like Xiaomi also researched the market and visited Meizu and talked and laughed with Huang Zhang before making mobile phones. Therefore, although Lei Jun may not have known the various "tricks" of car manufacturing before, and has never been involved in the automotive supply chain, which is a hundred times more complicated than that of mobile phones, but with his previous investment in dozens of upstream and downstream automotive companies such as Xiaopeng and Weilai, his understanding of the automotive industry will definitely be far greater than that of ordinary people. And it is these few years that seem to have "passed by" the automotive industry that may have allowed Lei Jun to have a constantly iterative understanding of the automotive industry, filling in various potholes for Xiaomi's future road to car manufacturing. In fact, whether it is Jia Yueting, who has fought in the TV and mobile phone markets, or Weilai and Xiaopeng, who have invested earlier, or witnessing the major brands that have flooded into the car manufacturing industry in recent years, Lei Jun has witnessed too many new car-making forces in the past few years. When Xiaopeng went public, Lei Jun also personally gave He Xiaopeng a gold brick weighing 1 kilogram. So, have you ever seen a pig run before eating pork? In the process of investing in Xiaopeng and Weilai, although Lei Jun did not personally tighten the screws, he had already made a full judgment on the predictability of the car manufacturing process, and his experience would not be inferior to any opponent. In addition, Xiaomi has a mature control over the supply chain. If this experience can be brought to car manufacturing, and the domestic industrial chain is accelerating and mature, it is not impossible for Xiaomi to surpass Weilai and Xiaopeng as soon as it appears. The predecessors planted trees, and the descendants enjoyed the shade. Although Lei Jun's Xiaomi Automobile started late, it is the most promising one among the new forces in car manufacturing. After all, before Xiaomi was launched, Weilai and Xiaopeng were already an extremely reliable starting stone. So, Lei Jun's transformation from an investor to a competitor between Weilai and Xiaopeng, what impact will it have on Xiaomi Automobile? It is believed that some discussions can be carried out based on the advantages and disadvantages of Xiaomi Automobile in the field of car manufacturing. As the crown jewel of the manufacturing industry, Xiaomi is undoubtedly lacking the most in foundation and experience. For example, in terms of electric drive technology and intelligent systems, although Xiaomi has a certain accumulation of engineers, in general, Xiaomi is just getting started and everything still needs to be run-in. In addition, the common OEM practices in the mobile phone industry are unlikely to work in car manufacturing. So once conditions permit, Xiaopeng and Weilai will choose to set up their own factories instead of entrusting other factories to produce. Therefore, if Xiaomi wants to become popular, it should choose to build its own production line from the beginning, and build the first new energy electric car in the young people's life in the most ideal state. In other words, for Xiaomi, the most urgent problem to be solved at present should be the talents needed in each production link. Maybe Xiaopeng and Weilai will not share the existing technology with Xiaomi, but Xiaomi is likely to dig talents from the two companies. According to media reports, Xiaomi executive Wang Chuan has been surveying the entire automotive industry, looking for people, technology, and resources. A resigned executive of Weilai also told the media that after the Spring Festival this year, the Xiaomi team talked to him about car manufacturing and asked him to recommend talents. It is not terrible to have competitors, but it is terrible if the opponent knows your past very well. In addition to "knowing yourself and knowing the enemy", Xiaomi is world-class in price control and marketing methods. The smooth and flowing operations have made the mobile phone, TV and other industries feel the powerful power of Xiaomi. The mobile phone brand Honor once said that there is no brand in the market that has stronger Internet marketing than Xiaomi. If Xiaomi applies this set of marketing thinking to the automotive industry, coupled with the unbeatable price war, how many global car companies, including Tesla, can cope with it? Perhaps new car-making forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng can easily navigate the sluggishness of traditional car companies with their Internet genes, but facing Xiaomi, which has been deeply involved in the Internet for many years and has strong operational and marketing capabilities, they will also face unprecedented challenges. Remember at the beginning of this year, after Tesla Model Y significantly reduced its price, Weilai Automobile was reported to have a large number of order cancellations. If Xiaomi starts a price war in the future, how should the new car-making forces react? Xiaomi, who "does not care about life and death, and does it if he does not accept it", is here, and the real challenge for the new car-making brands is coming.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. |
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