SAIC· Ali cooperated again. Will Zhiji car repeat the mistakes of zebras?

Since the beginning of this year, the national teams of independent brands have taken the high-end route. Following Guangzhou Automobile Aian, Beiqi ARCFOX and Dongfeng Lan Tu, Changan, Huawei and Contemporary Ampere Technology also announced the creation of brand-new high-end smart car brands. A few days later, SAIC also officially announced this matter.

On the top floor of the Shanghai Central Sightseeing Hall, which is known as the tallest building in China, SAIC, Pudong New Area and Alibaba announced the establishment of Zhiji Automobile, a high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand, with an investment as high as10 billion. Among them, SAIC contributed 5.4 billion, Pudong Zhangjiang contributed 1800 million, Ali and others contributed 2.8 billion, SAIC and Pudong New Area held 72%, Alibaba held 18%, and the remaining 10% was held by employees and users.

Compared with other newly-built cars, Smart Car is a proper rich second generation, and its parents have a strong background. It seems difficult to succeed if you want money, land, technology and experience.

However, at this time, I have to say a disappointing thing, but the matter of building smart electric cars is really not that the bigger the ostentation, the stronger it is. Especially the combination of SAIC and Ali, there have been lessons before.

It is understandable that the "national team" plays high-end.

Why all of a sudden, several major state-owned automobile groups are scrambling to hit the high end? In fact, it is not difficult to understand.

Look at the market value list of global listed car companies a few days ago. Tesla topped the list with overwhelming advantage, Weilai and both surpassed, and other independent car companies were also left behind by Li.

The sales data of passenger cars are more telling. Both Weilai ES6 and Li can squeeze into the team. An autonomous car can sell for 300,000 to 400,000, and thousands of cars can be sold every month. This is the wish of many teenagers in several major automobile groups. They didn't get so much money, but several new cars that once didn't enter their eyes were built.

Whether the market conditions were not mature enough in previous years or the domestic users didn't understand the goods before, the "national team" failed in its own brand's impact on high-end undertakings and was robbed by new cars. Now they must make up for it quickly by light.

Although SAIC passenger car just announced the independence of R brand, which takes the high-end route, at Guangzhou Auto Show, and tied with Roewe and MG as the three major brands of SAIC passenger car, this did not prevent SAIC from launching Zhiji brand with higher positioning from the whole group level.

This project has been secretly planned for 19 months. The first batch of models have been polished, and the winter test will begin at the end of the year. Next year, 65438+ 10 will be released globally, and it feels close to mass production delivery.

Therefore, SAIC must have come prepared this time, not on a whim, and the two partners it found are also well-founded. Zhangjiang in Pudong has the ecological and technical resources of world-class high-tech industrial clusters such as AI and chips, while Alibaba has the technology of Dharma Institute and Alibaba Cloud.

Such a perfect combination, why add a "but"?

The pit where the zebra walked.

As far as vision is concerned, SAIC is undoubtedly the best and most forward-looking automobile company. As early as 20 14, Renren Car was the first to put forward the concept of new four modernizations, and soon began to lay out in the fields of automobile aftermarket, intelligent network connection, * * travel enjoyment, e-commerce, etc., and successively established car enjoyment, zebra network, EVCARD, travel enjoyment and other business sectors.

It's only been a few years, and the stall has been paved very much, and the actual effect can only be described as unsatisfactory. As mentioned above, confidant car is the second cooperation between SAIC and Alibaba. The first cooperation was the launch of zebra network on 20 14.

The establishment of zebra six years ago can be said to have led the upsurge of intelligent networking in the entire automobile industry. 2065438+In July 2006, the zebra intelligent driving link scheme was launched. At the same time, the Roewe RX5, the first product jointly developed by SAIC and Ali, went on the market, with sales exceeding 20,000 vehicles in the first month. The name of Roewe Intelligent Networked SUV became an instant hit.

However, behind the hot sale of Roewe RX5, the differences between SAIC and Ali in the development direction of zebra began to appear, and the dispute over the right to speak between the two sides escalated. The internal integration of the two teams was not effective, and the final result was that the zebra team reshuffled. Former CEO Shi, CTO Huang, CFO, Vice President, Xie Pingsheng, Chief Product Officer Pan Jiahua and Director Gu left their posts one after another.

Therefore, in the past two years when intelligent networking technology has flourished, zebra's R&D and innovation ability have not been greatly improved, and the expansion of cooperative brands has not made much progress, all of which are internal friction.

In the summer of 20 19, the game finally came to fruition. Alibaba and announced the reorganization of Zebra Network, and Ali became a major shareholder, occupying absolute control. The overall intellectual property and business of OS are injected into Zebra Network. In May this year, Zebra officially completed its strategic reorganization with AliOS.

Now zebra can finally start again under the compromise of SAIC, but it also missed the most golden period of development.

In a third-party organization IHS? Markit's "China Intelligent Networking Market Development Trend Report" shows that in the new car sales market share from/kloc-0 to July this year, Baidu Internet of Vehicles actually carried new cars accounted for 49%, Tencent accounted for 35%, and Ali accounted for 1 6%, ranking last.

This is not the first time SAIC has launched a smart high-end electric vehicle. As early as 20 17, SAIC Roewe announced that it would launch an intelligent electric vehicle that could compete with Tesla, 20 18 Marvel Comics? X is listed, and the price directly enters the range of 200,000-300,000. The car is amazing, but the terminal performance is bleak.

Since its listing, Roewe Marvel Comics? The cumulative sales volume of X is only over 5,000 units, and it was not found on the sales list at the end of last year. Marvel Comics? Why X can't be sold is still a mystery. As a self-owned brand, the same endurance is not as good as Tesla, and some people are willing to pay for Weilai ES8, which is more expensive than Tesla.

There are many pits on the road of SAIC's new four modernizations.

In addition to the first cooperation with Ali, it experienced many ups and downs and the failure of its own brand in the first battle of high-end. So did SAIC's own attempts to enjoy travel in the automotive aftermarket OTO and * * * in recent years.

The original equipment manufacturer is the aftermarket of OTO, and SAIC is also an early adopter. Car enjoyment was founded on 20 14 and started on 20 15. It should start from maintenance and extend to insurance, new cars, used cars and other businesses, and lay out a big ecology.

In just two years, Chexiang's direct stores have exceeded 65,438+0,000, becoming the first in the industry. However, since 20 18, the expansion speed of Chexiangjia has slowed down. At present, there is no data about the profit and loss of car owners in SAIC's financial report, and no relevant information is disclosed in public news interviews.

In June this year, the number of factory stores in 5438+ 10 has exceeded 2000, and it is said that the profitability of a single store is good, and the monthly gross profit income of factory stores is above 6.5438+0.5 million.

* * * SAIC is also the earliest among automobile manufacturers in enjoying travel. In May of 20 16, SAIC launched the time-sharing business of EVCARD new energy vehicles, launched the brand of "Enjoy Road Travel" in 20 18, and launched "Enjoy Road Rental" in 20 19, covering the time-sharing business, online car rental business and car rental business completely, creating a "new travel complex".

However, the industry has been unable to understand the profit model of * * *. Uber in foreign countries and Didi Chuxing in China are both big names in the field of travel, but so far they have not achieved full-line business profitability. Burning money and relying on group blood transfusion have always been the status quo that domestic tourism platforms cannot get rid of.

It is also difficult to see the public data on the profit and loss of these tourism businesses under SAIC. In the Group's 20 19 financial report, there is a description: "Enjoy Road Travel has been opened in Shanghai, Zhengzhou, Suzhou, Kunshan, Hangzhou and Ningbo. By the end of 20 19, the number of registered users had exceeded 7 million, the average daily order was stable above100000, and the user satisfaction was as high as 98%. In 20 19, Xiangdao Travel also released the "Xiangdao Car Rental" brand for enterprise-level car rental service, which has successfully turned losses into profits. "

There is no public data on the profit and loss of time-sharing leasing business EVCARD. In a previous report in the National Business Daily, an unconfirmed person in the automobile industry revealed that "EVCARD has a very large loss, and the specific figure will not be less than 4 billion yuan."

* * * It is not easy to enjoy tourism. Of course, this is not a problem encountered by SAIC, but SAIC has a particularly large stall in this regard. For the automobile factory, when can * * * enjoy traveling and make money? I don't know, the biggest contribution at present may be to help the group digest many new cars, especially new energy vehicles.

Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, said that since they first put forward the concept of "new four modernizations" in the world in 20 14, they have made a lot of in-depth layout in terms of technology, business form and foreign cooperation, and formed pearls, but they have not yet been strung into pearl necklaces. Now the L project (that is, Zhiji Automobile) is the rope for stringing necklaces.

This idea is really beautiful, but you can't just find the rope to string these pearls together. I hope SAIC can take fewer detours after stepping on so many pits this time.

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