As technology giants have entered the new battlefield of smart cars, a new round of "smart car wars" has begun. At a time when the industry is hotly discussing whether the "Nokia moment" of the automotive industry has arrived, smartphone manufacturers are entering this track one after another.
Looking back on the development process of the past few decades, from 10 manufacturing of the pure car era to 20 of mass production, and then to the current 3 driven by big data and the Internet of ThingsIn the 0 era, with the cross-border between car companies and mobile phone manufacturers, automobiles also have a new definition, new technologies, new formats, new models and new development methods.
Especially since the beginning of this year, Huawei's smart car expansion, Xiaomi's release of surging OS, Meizu's launch of the DreamCar co-creation plan, "Hua Xiaomei" and other mobile phone manufacturers have actively entered the automotive industry, and Weilai, Geely and other automobile manufacturers have also explored the mobile phone market.
From the perspective of enterprise development, in addition to working "smart driving" and "smart seats", car companies making mobile phones is a kind of rainy day. A number of car companies have successively announced their involvement in the mobile phone business, exploring diversified business models to seamlessly connect mobile phones with cars and improve user experience. At the same time, these also bring mobile phone manufacturers a "ticket" to compete for a new track.
And what cannot be ignored is that in terms of hard power, mobile phone manufacturers have also done a remarkable job in making cars. As far as pure electric vehicles are concerned, intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit are undoubtedly two product points that cannot be ignored. In the layout of these two parts of product strength, mobile phone manufacturers have made great efforts.
It is no exaggeration to say that Huawei's Hongmeng cockpit, Meizu's Flyme Auto, and Xiaomi's surging OS can basically be identified as the top three car machine systems in the car rim. Although Xiaomi cars have not yet been sold, there seems to be some kind of "dimensionality reduction attack" when the mobile phone factory makes car machines.
The deep integration of vehicle-machine interconnection and mobile Internet has laid an ecological environment for technological innovation in the next era of mobile InternetAdmission to the 0 era.
From the point of view of the way of cutting into the track, the three mobile phone manufacturers of "Hua Xiaomei" are just divided into three: Meizu integrates into the Geely automobile system, Huawei relies on intelligent capabilities to become a new type of automobile manufacturer, and Xiaomi directly enters the integration of the first chain of cars as a mobile phone manufacturer.
On December 25, Lei Jun, founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, posted on his personal social account: Xiaomi's automotive technology conference will be held on December 28, and said that this time only technology will be released, not products. At the same time, it is accompanied by a teaser picture with the car chassis as the background, and the theme of the teaser is "Leapfrogging".
Lei Jun said that since the announcement of the end of the car, Xiaomi Auto has started from the underlying core technology, adhered to positive research and development, and used "ten times the investment to build a good car seriously". It is understood that Xiaomi not only developed its full-stack self-developed autonomous driving algorithm, but also took the lead in investing 3.3 billion yuan in R&D investment, and at the same time, multiple departments such as the artificial intelligence laboratory, Xiaoai team, and mobile phone camera department collaborated. The number of dedicated autonomous driving teams exceeded 500, but in fact, the resources invested were much more than 500 people.
Completely different from Xiaomi's asset-heavy car manufacturing model, Huawei does not build cars in person, but cooperates with car companies to build cars through different business models, and deeply participates in the entire industry chain of R&D, design, production, and sales of cooperative car companies under the HarmonyOS Zhixing (formerly "Smart Car Model") model, leading the product and corporate positioning of related models. The most talked-about smart car model has been infinitely close to car manufacturing, and existing brands include Wenjie in cooperation with Celis, Zhijie in cooperation with Chery, and follow-up smart car partners also include JAC and BAIC.
Similar to Huawei's model, in order to seize the ticket to the era of smart cars, in March this year, Meizu Group was officially established, and at the 2023 Meizu Autumn Unbounded Ecosystem Conference, it released a number of products such as FlymeOS, a new "handcar integration" solution, and announced the launch of the DreamCar co-creation program.
More importantly, unlike Xiaomi and Huawei, Meizu is mainly dependent on Geely to build cars, and the risk is relatively small. According to the latest announced plan, in 2024, Meizu will launch a Meizu customized car, equipped with Meizu's Flyme Auto in-vehicle system and integrating Meizu's past resources in software, design, and interior.
On the track of new energy vehicles, after "Wei Xiaoli", there is a new combination, "Hua Xiaomei". As mentioned above, the current new energy vehicles have the attributes of consumer electronics, when the hardware tends to be similar, software is the focus of future competition, and this is the field that mobile phone manufacturers are good at.
New energy vehicles are about to usher in an inflection pointWhether it is Huawei, which does not build vehicles, or Xiaomi, which is ready to fly, or Meizu with Geely support, their arrival has made the old players of new energy vehicles feel threatened.
The market performance of the question is telling. Wang Xing, the founder of Meituan, once said, "Tesla has finally encountered an opponent with equal technical capabilities and flickering capabilities." Not only that, when Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei, CEO of Device BG, and chairman of Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, and He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, tore each other apart because of AEB, Li wanted to reply to He Xiaopeng, "If you don't quarrel with Huawei, you can't quarrel." ”
In Shen Ziyu's view, Huawei is far ahead in terms of intelligence and software capabilities. But Meizu also has its own advantages, and is very confident in terms of user experience and interaction, and software performance. On the last day of November, when Shen Ziyu borrowed Steve Jobs' famous phrase "One More Thing" to announce the creation of an exclusive DreamCar MX for Meizu friends, the slogan was: "Meizu will not lose to Huawei." ”
Also determined to build a car is Lei Jun. In fact, "Xiaomi mode", "brand and user" and "fully intelligent ecology" are also the main advantages of Xiaomi's car manufacturing, and the constantly evolving ecology is also Xiaomi's advantage.
The core of the intelligence of new energy vehicles is still the system, algorithms, chips and human-vehicle interaction, when more and more players pour in, some people will reach the peak, of course, some people will leave the scene. In fact, it doesn't matter how mobile phone manufacturers rush to build cars, when the "decisive battle" comes, it is clear which players are stronger and which is weak.