Auto & Transportation

A few days ago, the industry media Auto Heart reported that the first Tucson auto-driving car project is about to start Turing Smart Card, led by Chen Mo, the chairman and former CEO of Tucson Future. Although Tucson has not commented on this for the time being, in this era of "all people build cars", the industry is not surprised even if Tucson officially announces to build cars in the future.

What's more, there is a precedent in the industry for autonomous driving companies to build cars. Since its inception, Zoox has called out to redesign unmanned vehicles from the ground up, instead of mounting various sensors on the existing car body.

In terms of the actual situation, entering the game to build a car may be a way out for autonomous driving companies, but it is not easy to go out of their own way and achieve a breakthrough.

Urgent need to find a breakthrough

About 5-6 years ago, most self-driving companies were shouting that a certain level of self-driving vehicles would land around 2020. It's just that before the time has come, almost all companies that have uttered rhetoric began to "recognize counsel". At the end of 2018, Waymo's former CEO John Krafcik admitted at the WSJ D.Live technology conference that although autonomous vehicles have appeared in reality, they are far from popular. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak subsequently made a similar point: autonomous vehicles cannot be realized in the near future.

Bain Consulting predicted in 2018 that autonomous vehicles will account for 30% of the market by 2030. Now, the company has adjusted this figure back to 4%-9%.

It is true that whether it is Robotaxi, autonomous driving in specific scenarios, or even more difficult mass-produced autonomous driving, mass production and commercial realization are all facing challenges. For example, the auto industry and self-driving players compete for dominance, making the road to cooperation full of hardships and uncertainties.

Some time ago, at the SAIC Group shareholders meeting, investors asked whether SAIC would consider cooperating with Huawei's third-party companies in autonomous driving. Chen Hong replied that it is unacceptable for SAIC to cooperate with a third-party company such as Huawei for autonomous driving. In this way, it becomes the soul, and SAIC becomes the body. SAIC wants to take the soul in its own hands. Regardless of whether Chen Hong’s "soul theory" is valid or not, it is clear that automakers have understood that autonomous driving technology is important, and more importantly, they must have the dominant power, otherwise they may be eliminated downstream of the industrial chain in the future. .

On the one hand, both traditional car companies and new car manufacturers have realized that they must attach importance to full-stack self-research. This means that the "involution" of the autonomous driving track is intensified. An Conghui, CEO of JiKr Intelligent Technology, once stated that JiKr will increase R&D investment and organizational construction in the new four modernization fields, and build intelligent software and hardware full-stack self-research capabilities. In addition to Geely, Great Wall Motors announced that it will develop a full stack of self-developed software from the bottom BSP to the upper application layer. It plans to build a unified and standardized software platform based on SOA in the next three years.

He Xiaopeng, who has always insisted on full-stack self-research, once shared his thoughts, that is, in the era of software-defined cars, automakers will become their own smart first-tier suppliers, and the original smart first-tier suppliers will degenerate into second-tier suppliers. Tier supplier.

On the other hand, there are not a few IT giants who want to "grab both sides" of autonomous driving and car building, which further aggravates the pressure on autonomous driving companies. At the beginning of the new year, Baidu announced the formal establishment of a smart car company to enter the automotive industry as a vehicle manufacturer. Geely Holding Group will become a strategic partner of the new company.

In fact, Baidu is one of the earliest domestic technology companies involved in autonomous driving and automotive technology intelligence. As early as 2017, Baidu released the Apollo autonomous driving plan, aiming to provide an open, complete and safe software platform to partners in the automotive industry and autonomous driving. In June, Baidu just launched a new generation of mass-produced shared unmanned car Apollo Moon, with the goal of making travel cheaper than current online car-hailing.

Based on the status quo, autonomous driving companies have to think about how they will take the road in the future. The very real problem is that if it is only a supplier of technical solutions, then autonomous driving companies will face a bottleneck in the landing and commercialization of pre-installed mass-produced passenger cars. At the moment, although players have already landed in L4, they are mainly used in limited scenes and on a small scale. As far as the pre-installed mass-produced passenger car market is concerned, the existing L4 is not just in demand, and the price/performance ratio is low. Therefore, both consumers and OEMs are more willing to let the bullet fly for a while. Coupled with regulatory and technical safety issues, this path is basically blocked.

If you choose to become a line operator, then the autonomous driving company needs to run-in with the OEM on the issue of vehicle procurement to provide users with long-term service and quality assurance. This mode of operation sounds closer to the business model, but it still has to face problems such as high initial investment costs and long later realization periods. Here is a typical example: Uber sold its autonomous driving subsidiary ATG to the start-up Aurora during the epidemic last year.

At that time, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview that this transaction will accelerate the company's pace of achieving profitability by the end of 2021. The implication: the autonomous driving business is a "stumbling block" on the road to commercialization. In fact, before that, Uber had also sought various options for its autonomous driving business, including more external investments.

In summary, for many self-driving players, building a car is not only a last resort, but also a fate.

Building a car is never easy

At the moment, most autonomous driving companies have realized that transformation can continue to tell stories, and AutoX is one of them. In April, the self-driving company announced its investment in the smart travel brand Ikonic to lead and promote the production of L4 level driverless mass-produced models.

Although self-driving companies can build cars to keep the story going, it is not easy to get a satisfactory ending. In 2007, Jobs quoted the famous quote of the winner of the picture at the first-generation Apple conference, People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware. As of 2021, Alan Kay's words are still not outdated. However, compared with the production of mobile phones, the barriers to entry into the automotive market are much higher.

First of all, this is a very real problem. Without sufficient funds, it is impossible to support dreams. An important reason for Zoox's "selling" Amazon was "lack of money". Even in February 2018, it set a record for a single round of financing for an autonomous driving company at that time.

As an asset-heavy business, there is no doubt that building a car is a huge pit of money. After Xiaopeng Motors completed the A+ round of financing, He Xiaopeng sighed: I used to think that 10 billion was too exaggerated to see others build cars, but now I feel that 20 billion is not enough. What's the difference between making a car and burning money with autopilot? The difference is that the former can continue to tell the story.

Secondly, building a car is not only about the speed of "burning money". As far as autonomous driving companies are concerned, they are better at software and algorithm-related; as far as "car building" is concerned, the essence will not change-integrating countless parts, gathering the most cutting-edge technologies from various industries, and constantly experimenting and matching And adjustment, which means that new entrants need to be lonely and resilient. In other words, the tests faced by these two paths are completely different when it comes to autonomous driving and car building.

Because the road of building a car is not easy, so in the process of transformation, some players have begun to explore diversified development paths. For example, autonomous driving companies that previously focused on Robotaxi have also begun to enter the field of unmanned trucks. In March of this year, Xiaoma Zhixing announced for the first time the brand name of its truck business-"Xiaoma Zhika". This indicates that Xiaoma Zhixing has formally formed a two-wheel drive business layout of "autonomous driving passenger cars + autonomous driving commercial vehicles" in the field of autonomous driving.

In short, whether it is inevitable or helpless, car building may become an important breakthrough for autonomous driving companies. Capital has poured into the field of automobile manufacturing, and the future is full of uncertainties. It is not ruled out that one, two, or two or three will emerge suddenly, and the winner will have a reason to win. Autonomous driving companies can only explore the way to break the situation if they use their own advantages and remain in awe.