Geely builds satellites, "benchmarking" Tesla? Will space become a new track for car companies to fight?

A job advertisement made Geely's satellite plan appear in advance.

On March 2, a recruitment notice named "Geely Satellite-Future Travel" was quietly posted on the photo website, covering more than 30 positions, covering communication engineering, aerospace manufacturing, automotive engineering, software research and development, administrative support, business sales and other dimensions, with a monthly salary ranging from 7,000 to 50,000 yuan.

This company, named Space-Time Fishway, tries to promote the commercialization and upgrading of China's satellite industry chain, and is called AICT (Aerospace Information and Communication) infrastructure and application solution provider. ?

On March 3rd, the Geely satellite project started in Taizhou. As the first pulsating modular satellite intelligent AIT (assembly integrated test) center built by Geely Science and Technology Group in Taizhou, it is planned to build satellite R&D center, intelligent component manufacturing center, measurement and control center, cloud computing big data platform and other facilities. This is also the first private enterprise satellite intelligent AIT center in China.

In 2020, Geely Holding will launch two low-orbit satellites to fully launch the commercial verification of the world's first low-orbit navigation enhanced satellite system. Geely also became the first automobile company in China to independently develop low-orbit satellites. Geely said in the official press release that all the core technologies of the space segment, ground segment and application segment of this commercial system are completely autonomous and controllable.

"When your constellation can cover China, it means covering most corners of the world." Lan Tianyi, an industry consultant, told a travel reporter that for private entrepreneurs, expanding the territory to aerospace is behind the test of global vision. After all, it is difficult for Africa, Latin America and even other regions to copy Google's infrastructure standards and realize high-precision navigation under the ground Internet of Things. In the future, communication satellites will become part of the global infrastructure.

This means that Geely has entered the stage of "building roads" and infrastructure construction from building cars. This also means that in the future, when the Internet of Vehicles and autonomous driving are popular, Geely, who can't wait, will have a deeper voice.

A radish and a pit. As a non-renewable resource, satellite frequency orbit is under the competition mechanism of first come, first served. Starting from Tesla, Geely, who became the second car-making star, began to catch up. ?

Geely's ambition

Recently, Geely has frequent ambitions in the field of three-dimensional travel. In addition to the layout of cars on the ground, high-speed trains and low-flying cars, we began to turn our attention to space.

In Geely's industrial layout, satellite projects are used as boosters for technological transformation. Covering the whole industrial chain from R&D, manufacturing to application. By laying out low-orbit satellites, Geely has built a communication network infrastructure and communication system integrating heaven and earth.

Space-time has long existed. In the early days, it was called GeeSpace. In 20 19, the prototype design of the first binary star was completed, and the prototype passed the appraisal test and test and put into production. Earlier on 20 14, the core members of the team started their business and established the first private commercial aerospace company in China, focusing on the research and development of low-orbit satellites.

According to Qixinbao, the Space-Time Fish Road was established on 20181month, with a registered capital of 500 million yuan in the first year. The legal representative is Xu Zhihao, CEO of Geely Technology. Through equity penetration, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding, holds 63.06% of the shares.

Geely Technology Group, a subsidiary of Geely Holding Group, focuses on industrial investment in the field of eco-technology. After several years of development, a large number of promising companies have been invested and hatched, and they continue to focus on new energy technologies, material technologies, travel services, aerospace and other fields. Up to now, more than 30 enterprises have been invested and operated, including Cao Cao Chuxing, Guo Tiejixun, Qianjiang Motorcycle, Juke Aluminum, Geely Baikuang Group, Time and Space Fish Road Technology, Lee Tae Flying Car and Flying in the Air? Volocopter et al. With assets exceeding 654.38 billion yuan.

This move means that Geely has turned from selling cars to building roads.

"Where there is no network coverage, satellites will be just needed," Lan Tianyi, founder of Beijing Yuqian Aerospace Consulting Co., Ltd. told a traveler. High-speed satellites in the eastern region and cities will enhance the service experience, but in a wider area, it will become necessary to provide corresponding services. ?

According to the forecast of PricewaterhouseCoopers, by 2030, 50% of cars in China will be driverless, and the number of 4/5 driverless cars in the world will reach about 80 million. ?

In fact, the low delay and high accuracy of LEO satellites will directly contribute to the landing of high-level autonomous driving. Previously, the industry relied on the improvement of the accuracy of the vehicle's own radar and camera, as well as the instant communication between the road and the vehicle, but they all faced problems such as high investment cost, difficulty in comprehensive popularization, and low efficiency in specific scenarios.

Of course, high-precision positioning service under high-level autonomous driving requires not only satellites, but also ground reference stations to correct errors. ?

Geely's layout in the field of autonomous driving is quite positive. Geely plans to provide participants with automatic driving operation in the Asian Games area during the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games in order to collect data and run the scene. At the same time, Geely also participated in Hangzhou-Shaoxing Smart expressway, the world's first intelligent expressway supporting intelligent driving and unmanned management, trying to understand the technical application of V2X Internet of Things from the perspective of infrastructure.

Not only cars, but also high-precision positioning and wider coverage of instant messaging will directly contribute to broader traffic scenes such as airplanes and ships. And remember the layout of infrastructure construction, Geely will gain a broader voice outside the circle.

"When your constellation can cover China, it means covering most corners of the world." Lan Tianyi bluntly said that for private entrepreneurs, expanding their territory into the aerospace field is a test of global vision. After all, it is difficult for Africa, Latin America and even other regions to copy Google's infrastructure standards and realize high-precision navigation under the ground Internet of Things. In the future, communication satellites will become part of the global infrastructure.

An industry expert introduced a broader application scenario to a traveler: such as agricultural plant protection and high-voltage transmission network inspection; In the future, smart cities will monitor important buildings in real time. ?

More interestingly, the general assembly comprehensive test center adapted to different types of satellites has a modular and flexible concept of building cars, which helps to reduce costs, flexibly adjust manufacturing concepts, and is more helpful to realize cooperation with existing hardware manufacturers in the industry. ?

Just like Geely's own opening to the Internet. In the final analysis, in the future travel format, hardware becomes simpler and simpler, and the technical ecology behind it, even the underlying infrastructure, is the key to the right to speak.

Industrial influence

According to ITU statistics, the growth of global Internet users has been slowing down in recent years, with 20 19? What is the global penetration rate of the Internet? 53.6%, nearly half of the population is still not online. ?

Behind this is the result that traditional communication infrastructure is difficult to achieve economic benefits in front of non-aggregated population. To this end, the use of satellite communication has become the core scheme to achieve "inclusive" communication. ?

At present, the high-orbit satellites mainly used have narrow bandwidth, few access users, high cost and large time delay, which can not meet the needs of a large number of individual users. In contrast, LEO satellites are more suitable for commercial modern communication, with low propagation delay, low loss, short development cycle and low cost. After constellation networking, global coverage with high bandwidth and high performance can be achieved.

The battle for chairs has begun.

Orbit and frequency spectrum determine the running quality of satellites after networking. Under the background that a radish is a pit and hundreds of satellites can achieve seamless coverage of the constellation system. Frequency orbit has become a non-renewable strategic resource that countries compete for.

However, in international rules, satellite frequency orbit resources are allocated in the form of "first declaration, first use", so many countries have launched constellation plans to occupy space.

On a global scale, China and the United States form two camps here.

This year 1? Month? , America? Space exploration technology company? Space company launches as planned? 60? Star? Star alliance? Satellite. 20 19 and 10. On the basis of the original plan of12,000 satellites, we applied for an additional 30,000 satellite orbits. China's central military enterprises and many private enterprises, including aerospace science and technology, are also building their own satellite Internet. Among them, Hongyan constellation project is the first national commercial aviation project with the largest investment scale. 200? A billion, already there? 20 18? The launch of the experimental star was completed in 2008 and is expected to be commercialized in recent years.

Therefore, "Guiding Opinions of the State Council on Innovating Investment and Financing Mechanism in Key Areas to Encourage Social Investment" once put forward: "Encourage private capital to develop, launch and operate commercial remote sensing satellites and provide market-oriented and professional services". ?

On a global scale, in addition to Tesla, Geely is the second company to build cars and make stars.

According to "Aerospace Report 20 19", commercial aerospace products and services created a value of 22,965,438+7 billion US dollars in 20 18, while related infrastructure and supporting industries created a revenue of 99.69 billion US dollars. According to Morgan Stanley's forecast, the scale of aerospace industry will increase from $350 billion in 20 16 to more than $1 trillion in 2040. Half of this growth will come from new internet satellites.

Although it has a very broad market prospect. However, how to achieve high-precision positioning service with more technical means is still being explored by all walks of life, and the geometry of the effect remains to be seen. (Editor/Yang Peiqian)

The article comes from WeChat official account Traveler (ID: carcaijing), which was founded by the transportation industry group of Caijing magazine. It focuses on the news in the field of transportation and is committed to exploring travel, technology and the future.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.