When will car manufacturing by Internet companies no longer be a war of words?

After smartphones, what other hardware platform has attracted so many Internet companies? The answer is obviously cars. An Internet company that doesn't make cars is not a good car company. Making a high-tech concept car is enough to make people cry.

On April 1 this year, American electric car manufacturer Tesla released the low-cost Model 3, and the number of orders in a single week exceeded 325,000. Tesla founder Elon Musk repeatedly lamented on social networks that the era of electric vehicles is coming. Although it is still a long way from delivery, this cannot stop Model 3 from setting a new record.

As Tesla has become popular again with the Model 3, domestic Internet companies are increasingly making cars. This year, LeTV has come up with a concept version of a super car and has built a factory in a high-profile manner. The electric cars of CHJ Automotive, founded by Li Xiang, the former founder of Autohome, will also be put into production. Tencent , Alibaba , and Baidu are also making intensive arrangements in the field of Internet cars, and Xiaomi and Gree are also eager to try.

Intelligent new energy vehicles are an irresistible trend. The development of new energy vehicles has long been a national strategy, and the technical standards and roadmap for the development of intelligent networked vehicles will also be released in August.

With the entry of giants, the strengthening of national policies, and the entry of Internet companies, the automobile industry is becoming hot. However, due to problems in technology accumulation, capital, talent, etc., cross-border car manufacturing is not as easy as shouting a few slogans and holding a few press conferences.

Targeting new energy and connected vehicles

If you ask what the next generation of cars will look like, the "new energy" and "intelligence" that Internet car manufacturers constantly mention at press conferences may be their answer.

New energy vehicles are regarded as the development trend of the next generation of automobiles, and their advantages are obvious. Using electricity as a power source for automobiles can reduce dependence on oil. At the same time, the use of clean energy such as electricity also reduces exhaust emissions caused by the use of fossil fuels, which is also important for environmental protection. From a consumer perspective, electricity is also more economical than fuel and can reduce the cost of using a car.

Intelligence is also one of the directions of automobile development. Cars are replacing smartphones in certain scenarios. In the future, cars will not only be able to communicate and connect to the Internet in real time, but also provide entertainment. Various apps will be transplanted to the car side for use, becoming the largest mobile smart terminal besides smartphones. Navigation, location services, and Internet content services can all be seamlessly grafted.

Tesla has already established an example of combining new energy and the Internet. Before Model 3, Tesla was already well-known in the technology circle. Even in the absence of charging piles, many domestic technology giants still became the first batch of car owners. In addition to Tesla's own performance, the large screen also gives Internet companies more room for imagination.

New energy intelligent cars are not only the technical carriers of big data, high-definition maps, etc. accumulated by Internet companies, but also the next traffic entrance that cannot be ignored.

Key technologies are not mature yet, car manufacturing is still a war of words

In the field of electric vehicles, Internet companies such as LeTV have begun to invest in building factories. However, from a purely technical perspective, Internet companies still find it difficult to escape industry-wide challenges when building cars. Compared with traditional car manufacturers, they do not have much advantage in battery technology and driverless driving.

There is still a lot of room for improvement in key technology areas such as batteries. Currently, there are only a handful of electric vehicles that can reach the standard of at least 400 kilometers per refueling of fuel vehicles, except for Tesla. In addition, technologies such as fast charging have not yet been solved. Tesla, which is at the forefront of electric vehicles, takes several hours to fully charge a car once, which is too inefficient compared to the 5 minutes it takes to refuel a traditional car. At the same time, the entire automotive industry has not yet solved the problem of power loss caused by repeated battery charging.

As the next competitive focus of the automotive industry, the newly joined cross-border car manufacturers still face challenges in new technologies such as driverless driving. Tesla, which is equipped with some driverless functions, attracted great attention in June this year when its first driverless accident was exposed. In Beijing, after an accident, Tesla also revised the introduction on its Chinese official website, changing the original selling point of "driverless driving" to "advanced driver assistance". The driverless driving and intelligent recognition touted by Internet car companies still cannot stand the test in actual application.

In addition to technology, the heavy assets and long initial investment in the automotive industry will also put Internet companies under pressure. A car company needs at least several years to prepare for the launch of a new model. After Tesla was founded in 2003, it took three years to launch its first improved product based on other people's cars. After 13 years of establishment, it has only launched four models, but still has to bear hundreds of millions of dollars in losses every year. The newly launched Model 3 still encounters delivery problems.

Traditional car companies are not optimistic about Internet companies getting involved in the automotive field. BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu once made it clear in an interview that "Internet companies making cars is just a concept and hype." Geely Chairman Li Shufu also believes that the success rate of "outsiders" making cars will not be too high, Internet companies will not subvert the automobile industry, and the future will definitely be dominated by automobile companies, not Internet companies.

At present, most of the Internet companies that have entered the automotive industry have not yet achieved mass production of their first models. However, car manufacturing ultimately depends on products, and sentiment alone is obviously not enough. Internet cars with clean power, networking, and driverless technologies are obviously still on the way. As long as such cars are not available, the Internet companies' car manufacturing will remain at the stage of a war of words.

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.