FAW Nanjing, Haomo Zhixing, and Chery Lion are the intelligent driving subsidiaries behind Qidi’s independent brands

On April 9, FAW Group invested 50 million yuan to register and establish FAW (Nanjing) Technology Development Co., Ltd. in Jiangning District, Nanjing City. According to the description of internal employees, this is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the FAW Group that focuses on the research and development of intelligent driving

Similarly, a company called "Hao Mo Zhixing" was launched in November 2019. Beijing Fengtai was quietly established.

The legal person of this company, Zhang Kai, is the deputy chief engineer of the Great Wall Motor Technology Center and the director of the intelligent driving system development department, and the actual controller Zhen Longbao is the chief engineer of the intelligent driving system development department of the Great Wall Motor Technology Center.

Obviously, this is also a smart driving affiliate of Great Wall.

Earlier, Chery Automobile established Wuhu Automotive Industry Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd. in July 2014. The company was renamed Lion Technology in December 2017.

In the broader field of smart cars, there are also Geely’s affiliated company Yikatong, Weichai Intelligent established by the established commercial vehicle parts manufacturer Weichai Power, as well as FAW, Dongfeng, Changan and China Ordnance Group The "T3" technology platform jointly launched by other entities. Among them, T3 technology platform has the strongest financial strength. According to the cooperation and joint venture agreement between several parties, the company's registered capital is as high as 16 billion yuan.

1. Car companies must master the "brain" of cars

Behind the establishment of smart driving subsidiaries by car companies, there is a man who travels and immerses himself in the gap between Internet companies and traditional OEMs. Senior industry insiders who have been in the industry for many years told Automobile News, "It is impossible for car companies not to master the brain of the car."

In the car-making model of the traditional mechanical era, car companies mainly do project management and are responsible for proposing lists and indicators and other requirements (RFQ). The specific design and development are the responsibility of suppliers.

So, car companies have actually become system integrators, and the core technology of parts and components is mainly in the hands of major suppliers.

From the mechanical age to the intelligent network era, its core components are no longer the three major parts of the engine, gearbox, and chassis, but are intelligent components composed of new architectures, chips, software, and data. The "brain" of the car.

If the "brains" are still in the hands of external suppliers, car companies will lose their dominance over future development and even become OEMs. Tesla's rapid rise is largely due to its control and transformation of the "brain" of cars.

Today, domestic OEMs have also established technology innovation centers one after another, and their autonomous driving, Internet of Vehicles and AI technologies are gradually entering the stage of independent subsidiary operations.

The biggest advantage of establishing a separate company to develop and operate a new generation of technology products is that it can be independent from the parent company's structure and enjoy a higher degree of freedom based on the resources of the parent company.

The establishment of these companies means that China’s smart car industry chain is undergoing profound structural changes.

In the future, these companies will have the opportunity to change the current supply chain system and become new suppliers of smart cars.

2. FAW went south and built a Nanjing AI R&D team with high salary

On April 9, 2020, FAW Group spent 50 million yuan to build an AI R&D team in Nanjing FAW (Nanjing) Technology Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "FAW Nanjing") was registered and established in Jiangning District.

The new company’s office in Jiangning District has not yet been renovated, but it has begun recruiting AI talents from various places.

According to the official introduction of FAW Nanjing, this team will rely on deep learning, data mining and other technologies to strive to independently break through the software development of autonomous driving, intelligent interaction, and big data, and apply it to autonomous driving, smart cockpits, etc. field.

A headhunter close to FAW Nanjing revealed to AutoHeart that the subsidiary is currently recruiting talents in data development, algorithms, vision, and perception fusion.

FAW Nanjing is affiliated to FAW R&D Institute, which is called Laoqi Research Institute within FAW. One of the benefits of being an independent company without the original organizational structure is that "it can break through the original salary structure."

According to internal disclosures by FAW Nanjing employees, the starting annual salary for graduate recruitment is RMB 200,00, and the supervisor level is between RMB 350,000 and RMB 500,000.

For comparison, "the director of the traditional automobile direction may also be around 400,000." So there is a reason why this AI technology development team is not in Changchun.

In the new company’s governance structure, Chen Bo serves as general manager and Li Fengjun serves as executive director.

Chen Bo is the section chief of the network group of FAW Intelligent Network Development Institute. He was previously responsible for E/E vehicle network development; while Li Fengjun currently serves as the deputy director of FAW R&D Institute and intelligent network development Dean of the hospital.

At the entire group level, the establishment of FAW Nanjing is a brand new attempt.

Prior to this, FAW has established strategic cooperation with Baidu, Huawei, Zongmu Technology, Yitutong, Sagitar Juchuang and other companies within the group.

In July 2019, FAW Hongqi released the "2030 Technology Development Strategy", announcing that it would invest RMB 150 billion in the research and development and investment of new energy and intelligent network technology, and Increase the number of R&D personnel to 5,000 and make every effort to move towards new energy and intelligence.

In the same year, Hongqi also invested in a small-scale production line to mass-produce Robotaxi based on Hongqi EV at the same time as Baidu ***.

In terms of autonomous driving, the overall strategic plan announced by FAW is:

From 2019 to 2020, FAW Group will commercialize L3 autonomous vehicles and L4 level autonomous vehicle demonstration operations; from 2021 to 2025, L4 level autonomous vehicles will be commercialized and L5 level autonomous vehicle demonstration operations will be realized; from 2026 to 2030 In the next year, L5 level autonomous vehicles will be commercialized.

Recently, FAW Group has signed in-depth strategic cooperation agreements with 7 leading companies including Huawei, Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba Cloud, Autohome, IBM, and NTTDATA.

***The eldest son of the Chinese automobile industry has an urgent need to master the "brain" of autonomous and controllable automobiles.

3. Lion Technology, Wu Xuebin returns to Chery to take the helm of intelligence

Chery Automobile established the Wuhu Automotive Industry Technology Research Institute as early as July 2014. Then in December 2017, the company was renamed Wuhu Lion Automotive Technology (hereinafter referred to as "Lion Technology").

Lion Technology currently has R&D branches established or under construction in Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, Shanghai and other places. Like FAW Nanjing Technology, it is also recruiting senior intelligent network engineers in Nanjing.

In April 2018, Chery released the group's intelligent strategic brand "Chery Lion", including Lion Intelligent Driving, Lion Intelligent Cloud, Lion Intelligent Manufacturing, and Lion Intelligent Manufacturing. Lion Smart Win and Lion Smart Travel are five major platforms.

Among them, Lion Smart Driving, Lion Smart Cloud, and Lion Smart Win are the core business segments of Lion Technology, corresponding to autonomous driving, intelligent interconnection and data operation businesses respectively.

According to the official introduction of Lion Technology, the company currently has 564 invention patents and has completed the development of the third generation of driverless vehicles. The Lion Zhiyun system has been fully equipped with Chery Tiggo 8 ?Models and subsequent models on the market.

In September 2019, at an industry conference held in Hefei, Anhui, Wu Xuebin, who has a deep connection with Chery, made a public appearance and became the general manager and new helmsman of Chery Lion.

Wu Xuebin once served as director of the model development department of Chery Engineering Research Institute, vice president of BAIC Motor, vice president of Baidu intelligent driving business, vice president of Baoneng, etc. These experiences have brought him great experience in Internet technology, traditional Cross-border experience in the automotive and smart car fields.

After 16 years of going around in circles, Wu Xuebin returned to Chery to promote the "rising" of Chery Automobile's intelligent era.

4. Great Wall went north to establish the intelligent driving company "Hao Mo Zhixing"

In November 2019, a company named "Hao Mo Zhixing" was quietly registered and established in Fengtai, Beijing , its legal person is Zhang Kai, its actual controller is Zhen Longbao, and its registered capital is RMB 50 million.

Then in January 2020, Haomo Zhixing established a branch in Baoding, Hebei. The company's registered address is No. 2076, Chaoyang South Street, Lianchi District, Baoding City.

On this street, there is also a well-known independent brand - Great Wall Motors.

As for Zhang Kai and Zhen Longbao, the former is the deputy chief engineer and director of the intelligent driving system development department of Great Wall Motors Technology Center; the latter is the chief engineer of the intelligent driving system development department of Great Wall Motors Technology Center.

What is basically confirmed is that the intelligent driving forward-looking division of Haomo Zhixing, which was incubated in the Great Wall Technology Center, will specialize in the research and development of smart cars and autonomous driving technology in the future.

Great Wall Motors has previously released the "i-pilot? Intelligent Navigation" autonomous driving platform developed for intelligent driving vehicles.

In 2017, when this car company launched the "i-pilot" autonomous driving platform, the plan announced was:

In 2021, it will first launch the "i-pilot" ?1.0" Highway autonomous driving can operate on the main roads and ramps of China's highways and urban expressways. It can also independently handle special working conditions such as road maintenance, traffic jams, and tunnels. In 2021, the development of "i-Pilot 2.0" urban driverless technology will be carried out simultaneously, which can realize driverless driving on specific urban road sections and be used to support new functions such as shared travel and remote taxi hailing via mobile phones. In 2023, the "i-pilot" 3.0 full-time driverless system will be launched. Through the introduction of V2X vehicle communication technology, driverless driving can be achieved in urban areas and more areas. In 2025, through the introduction of new sensors, a safer and more adaptable "i-pilot 4.0" driverless system will be launched.

Currently, Great Wall Motors’ intelligent driving system development follows a collaborative R&D model in Baoding, China, Detroit, the United States, and Bangalore, India.

Among them, the Chinese team is responsible for the overall project management, defining scenarios and requirements, and carrying out technical solution definition, testing and verification. The American team is located in Detroit, recruiting outstanding talents and providing core technology support; the Indian team relies on local resources to specialize in software development.

5. Yikatong, Geely Automobile’s “Geek UI”

Yikatong was founded in May 2016, initially by Shen Ziyu and Ningbo Yijie Equity Investment Fund Management Partnership was registered and established with an investment of RMB 10 million.

Shen Ziyu was previously the CEO of PATEO Electronics Network. After leaving PATEO, Shen Ziyu served as the CEO of Yikatong while also serving as the vice president of Geely Automobile Research Institute.

Yikatong has built a very important TSP (Telematics Service Provider) cloud platform for Geely.

In 2018, GKUI, its main smart vehicle system, was released and is currently installed on 3 brands of Geely Holding: Geely, Lynk & Co and Proton, involving more than 20 models.

In February 2019, with the change of shareholders of Yikatong, Zhejiang Jichuang Auto Parts Co., Ltd. became the largest shareholder of Yikatong (accounting for 70% of the shares), and Geely Automobile? CTO Feng Qingfeng serves as chairman of Yikatong.

The current staff size of Yikatong is about 1,500, and it has set up branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Dalian, Shenzhen and Volvo’s hometown Sweden. Its business areas Involving digital cockpit, active safety, autonomous driving, Internet of Vehicles cloud platform and even chip fields.

In addition to Yikatong, Geely also has affiliated companies such as Fretech in the field of ADAS, and in 2019, it also chose Zenuity, a joint venture between Volvo and Veoneer, as a ?The preferred supplier of ADAS? and autonomous driving.

In April this year, the company was spun off again, and its high-level autonomous driving business returned to Volvo, and will subsequently become an independent subsidiary.

With the integration of Geely and Volvo, Yikatong, Freetech and Zenuity will become Geely’s core supplier lineup for smart cars.

6. Weichai Intelligent, the second spring of the established commercial vehicle supplier

Car Heart previously reported that in November 2019, Weichai Power acquired Intelligent in a low-key manner. Tianjin Qingzhi Technology, a driving start-up company, has entered into the field of ADAS for commercial vehicles. Its acquisition amount of RMB 660 million has also become the largest acquisition in the field of intelligent driving in China.

Internally, in November 2018, Weichai Power Co., Ltd. also initiated the establishment of Weifang Weichai Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 1.1 billion yuan. Baidu had no Zhan Jun from the Renche Meiyan team is also a shareholder of the company.

According to the introduction, Weichai Intelligent Technology is mainly engaged in the design, development, production and sales of intelligent assisted driving and driverless systems and related technologies.

Recruitment information shows that Weichai Intelligent is vigorously recruiting technical leaders in areas such as intelligent networking, with annual salaries starting at one million.

The positions being recruited include technical leaders in automotive electronic architecture, ADAS, domain controllers, functional safety, intelligent networking, engine ECU, cloud platform and chip design, etc., and they have a global layout. Including China, the United States, Germany, India, Japan and other regions.

7. 16 billion yuan in registered capital, backed by three major car companies: T3 technology platform

In January 2020, the three major car companies FAW, Dongfeng and Changan The company jointly signed a joint venture cooperation agreement with the China Ordnance Equipment Group and Nanjing Jiangning Economic Development Technology Co., Ltd. for the "T3" technology platform company.

The T3 Technology Platform Company signed this time has a registered capital of 16 billion yuan, which can be said to have the strongest financial strength among many car companies.

Of the 16 billion yuan, FAW, Dongfeng and Jiangning Jingkai Technology invested 4 billion yuan respectively, and Changan and its actual controller China Ordnance Equipment Group invested 5.5 billion yuan and 3.5 billion yuan respectively. The total amount is 4 billion yuan.

This automotive high-tech platform "Big Mac" project will focus on new energy, intelligent network and other technological trends, focusing on the development of electric platforms and advanced chassis control, hydrogen fuel power platforms, intelligent driving and central computing platforms Core technologies in other fields and obtain key resources in related fields to achieve a new round of automotive technology upgrades and promote the formation of the core competitiveness of the next generation of automobiles.

Some industry insiders believe that China’s major independent brand car companies have joined forces to establish T3 Technology in order to reduce cost control risks in the early stages of technology research and development.

A big bet? T3, whether the three major car companies can hit the "king bomb", wait for time to give the answer.

8. Why do car companies set up subsidiaries one after another?

In addition to the above-mentioned companies, there are also new smart technology companies of China's own brands, including Banma Zhixing jointly established by SAIC and Alibaba, Wutong Automobile Alliance established by Changan and Tencent, Xiandou Intelligence, a connected car connected company of Great Wall, etc. wait.

The establishment of a series of innovative technology companies and joint ventures fully demonstrates that the senior executives of OEMs have realized that independent research and development of smart car technology is urgent.

There are many considerations behind establishing an external subsidiary to operate independently:

The first is to facilitate the recruitment of high-end talents.

High-end talents mainly care about two factors: salary and development space.

Compared with the relatively stable internal salary system of traditional car companies, external subsidiaries have greater freedom and can provide high salaries, and the subsidiaries can also provide equity incentives.

The organizational structure of traditional car companies is stable, and decision-making power is already in the hands of existing senior executives. Talents who truly understand new technologies, new products, and new business models often do not have the opportunity to have a say in new projects.

If an external subsidiary is established, real talent will have more opportunities to take on greater responsibilities. Even if there is a temporary mismatch, the so-called "small boat can easily turn around" can be quickly adjusted.

Secondly, independent subsidiaries facilitate external financing.

The research and development of new technology products and the exploration of new business models all mean a large amount of capital investment. Splitting subsidiaries is conducive to independent financing of enterprises and obtaining more third-party resource support.

Furthermore, in addition to serving the parent company, independent subsidiaries can also provide products and services to other car companies in the future.

Although the feasibility of this model is not high in the early stage, in the later stage when the company develops and its technological leadership is fully established, it will have the opportunity to supply products and services to other car companies, which is also a healthier approach. mode.

Historically, Delphi, which was spun off by General Motors, Denso, which was spun off by Toyota, and Visteon, which was spun off by Ford, were all parts giants born during changes.

We also look forward to the opportunity for new top suppliers to be born among the independent subsidiaries of China's independent brand car companies to build the "brain" of China's smart cars.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.