Who can win Lei Jun's OEM order?

Produced by Tiger Sniff Automobile Group

Author | Wang Xiaoyu

The car has not been immediate, but Xiaomi has completely stirred up the domestic auto industry.

On September 1 1, according to the news released by official website, Jing Junhai, secretary of Jilin Provincial Party Committee, deputy secretary of provincial party Committee and governor Han Jun recently met with Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, and his party in Changchun. In addition, during his stay in Jilin, Lei Jun and his party also went to China FAW for in-depth docking and cooperation.

Lei Jun said that we must seize the favorable opportunity of the deep integration of the automobile industry and consumer electronics, give full play to our own advantages in scientific and technological innovation and ecological integration, actively strengthen the docking cooperation with Jilin automobile enterprises, better consolidate the automobile production foundation, and strive to build high-quality automobile products.

For a time, speculation and rumors about the production cooperation between Xiaomi Automobile and FAW spread on major social media platforms.

"In the short term, Xiaomi will focus on OEM, but it will also obtain qualifications simultaneously and gradually build its own factory. Because Xiaomi does not have the qualification to build a car at present, it can only build a car in OEM mode in the short term. " Senior analyst of Geshi Automobile Research Institute told Hu Wei.

OEM is an unavoidable choice for Xiaomi, a layman. The biggest question at the moment is, who can get the big order of Xiaomi Automobile OEM?

First, millet OEM, who will spend it?

Speaking of OEM mode, JAC Weilai must be on the list.

JAC Weilai Advanced Manufacturing Base is the sixth automobile factory in JAC Hehe. JAC's cars are not made here, but specially made for JAC. Construction started on 20 16 and was put into operation on 20 17, with an investment scale of about 2.3 billion yuan and an area of about 839.6 mu. At present, all the models sold by Weilai, such as Weilai ES8, ES6 and EC6, come from this factory.

The rise of OEM mode is related to the rise of new energy vehicles.

We should know that the original traditional cars can not fully meet the individual needs of car companies because of the existence of core components such as gearbox and engine, and car companies are not willing to share their core technologies.

Pure electric vehicles rely on three electric systems with batteries, motors and electric drives as the core, so the technical barriers are not so high, and most of them can be provided by domestic suppliers. At this time, the difficulty of OEM is objectively reduced, and car companies are more willing to embrace cross-border players.

Wang Xianbin, a senior analyst at Geshi Automobile Research Institute, told Hu Weiwei: "The OEM model can shorten the time to market. With the help of mature production resources, Xiaomi can not only make up for the shortcomings and lack of production experience in the field of automobile supply chain manufacturing, but also grow together with traditional leading automobile enterprises and gradually master the mature automobile manufacturing management system. In addition, the foundry model allows Xiaomi to focus more on core technologies and software technology resources such as autonomous driving in the short term. "

At present, there are two kinds of new energy vehicle products on the market, one is electric vehicle and the other is intelligent electric vehicle. The former is more like Nokia, which realizes the transformation of electric drive and has the function of smart car. The latter is just like the Android machine when the smart phone first appeared, which can support the continuous upgrade iteration of the software. It is easy to build an electric car, but it is difficult to build a smart electric car.

From the perspective of investment layout, autonomous driving will be an important breakthrough for Xiaomi to cut into the smart car industry. Previously, Mu Zong Technology, Jose Technology, Geometry Partner and Love Parking invested by Xiaomi were all start-ups in the field of autonomous driving. Among the recruitment requirements currently announced by Xiaomi Automobile, Xiaomi's first recruitment is aimed at the demand of L4-level automatic driving direction.

But in fact, there are not many manufacturers like Wei Lai who are willing to pay, give people and run unconditionally. He Zeng, CEO of XPeng Motors, who also chose the OEM mode, said that "the core of smart cars is operation, not manufacturing". At that time, Tucki found Haima Automobile to produce its first product, Tucki G3. But it didn't take long for Xpeng Motors to find that building a factory by itself was the way out.

In March last year, Xpeng Motors indirectly acquired Guangdong Foday Automobile and obtained the production qualification. Since then, the tail label of G3i, a modified model of Tucki G3, has been changed from "Haima" to "Tucki", which means that the new car was successfully put into production in Zhaoqing factory instead of Zhengzhou Haima factory. At the same time, in addition to Xpeng Motors' project in Wuhan, the second phase of Zhaoqing factory has also started.

Wang Xianbin, a senior analyst at Gaspar Automotive Research Institute, told Hu Weiwei: "The main disadvantage of the OEM model is that there may be defects in the complete system construction of R&D, production, sales and after-sales. Because of the decision-making, game and resource allocation problems faced by both sides. " He further stated: Xiaomi OEM will definitely find a mature and leading platform.

Among the car companies contacted by Xiaomi, BYD appeared first, followed by GAC Ai 'an, SAIC-GM-Wuling, and China FAW visited by Lei Jun in September 1 1. The sales share and brand image of these companies are among the best in China.

But the important thing is, Xiaomi's technology has to land, who can take it?

In terms of sales volume, Hong Guang MINI EV of SAIC-GM-Wuling occupies a dominant position in the low-end electric vehicle market. Guangzhou Automobile Aian recently launched the reform of mixed ownership, increased capital and shares, and introduced strategic investors. China FAW Group has high-end brands such as Hongqi, joint venture FAW-Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen Audi, which have made great achievements in new energy vehicles. BYD recently launched a new generation of pure electric platform-e-platform 3.0, claiming to "provide the next generation of intelligent electric vehicle basic solutions for the industry, and the technology is fully open to the industry".

Speaking of platform enjoyment, this scene seems a bit familiar.

Previously, Geely launched SEA, a huge platform architecture, and then Baidu announced that it would cooperate with Geely to build a car. Baidu also made it clear that Geely's vast SEA architecture will be the basic support for future electric vehicles, and the electric vehicles under this architecture will be equipped with driving assistance, infotainment and map functions developed by Baidu.

In the future, the development of the whole smart car industry will determine the lowest level of intelligent car based on its platform.

Because a platform architecture not only determines the level of vehicle parameters, such as cruising range, 100 km acceleration and so on. It also involves the construction of software systems for car networking and autonomous driving, and then the access to the entire application ecosystem. The industry is called electronic electrification architecture, and Geely Sea and BYD e platform 3.0 are all included.

Compared with simple OEM, car companies are more willing to enjoy their own platforms because they don't want to be foundries.

Second, are car companies afraid of becoming foundries?

The emergence of OEM is essentially due to overcapacity.

According to the previous data of China Automobile Association, the capacity utilization rate of passenger cars in China will drop from 66.55% in 20 17 to 48.45% in 2020, and the capacity vacancy of tail enterprises is very serious. Geely, which cooperates with Baidu, is also facing overcapacity. According to Geely's prospectus, from 20 17 to the first half of 2020, Geely's capacity utilization rate dropped from 84.96% to 45. 18%.

Although the OEM business is not decent, it is much better than others. Take Jianghuai as an example. In the past three years, for every Weilai automobile produced by JAC, the average OEM cost is 6.5438+0.04 million yuan and the loss compensation is about 6,000 yuan. In order to take over the business of OEM Weilai, Jianghuai has invested 2.3 billion yuan to rebuild the factory, which will recover the cost this year.

In fact, unlike the mobile phone industry, the field of automobile OEM will not become a foundry too soon. In the field of mobile phones, manufacturers such as Apple took most of the profits, leaving little profits to foundries such as Foxconn. Under the guidance of the right to speak in the distribution of interests, foundries have gradually become "tool people" of mobile phone manufacturers.

But OEM cars are different. The value-added process of cars is long, and the number of parts involved is far less than that of mobile phones. In the long supply chain, parts suppliers have swallowed up a large part of profits, so it is unrealistic for new players to have a huge say in the supply chain like Apple. Secondly, there are fewer powertrain components of new energy vehicles, and the value-added process of manufacturing is also shortened, which will increase the right to speak of manufacturers seeking OEM.

For car companies, decent cooperation is the primary task.

Therefore, compared with the past, the traditional OEM mode bound by a paper contract has disappeared. Now it is more popular to set up a joint venture company to build cars together. In the cooperation mode of BYD and Didi, Geely and Baidu, the cooperation between the two parties has become a joint venture company with * * * capital contribution, * * * development and operation, and * * * intellectual property rights.

According to public information, Baidu holds 55% and Geely holds 45%. In the cooperation between BYD and Didi, the two parties jointly established Wonderful Travel (Hangzhou) Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., in which BYD holds 65% of the shares and Didi holds 35%.

Even international manufacturers are setting up joint ventures. On May 18, Stellantis, a brand-new group formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobile Company (FCA) and Peugeot Citroen Automobile Company, announced that it had signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Foxconn, a foundry giant, and established a joint venture company, Mobile Drive, with each party having 50:50 voting rights.

Although there are primary and secondary points, both sides have contributed, and it is no longer a buying and selling relationship. If you have money, you can earn it together, and if you have debt, you can pay it back together.

However, this is limited to the current period of time, and both sides have their own small thoughts. When the automobile industry gradually turns to travel service providers, or when the business model of software payment is established, conflicts of interest between the two parties may still occur.

Write it at the end

As one of Xiaomi's strongest rivals in the mobile phone field, Apple is also constantly exploring in the automotive field. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, once said in an interview: "We are focusing on the autonomous driving system. We think this is an important core technology. We think this is the mother of all artificial intelligence technologies and may be one of the most difficult artificial intelligence projects. "

Judging from the information disclosed so far, it seems that Apple, like Xiaomi, is looking for a suitable agent in the automobile industry and is also entering the automobile field with autonomous driving as the entrance. But again, it is easy to build an electric car, but it is difficult to build a smart electric car.

The Xiaomi car is still going on.

This content is the author's independent opinion and does not represent the tiger sniffing position. It may not be reproduced without permission. Please contact hezuo@huxiu.com for authorization.

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