Huang Zhen: Traditional car companies are no longer the darlings of this era. They need to fight young competitors with a larger volume.Who is the most powerful car manufacturer?Is Mercedes-Benz from Stuttgart?Or BMW from Munich?
This problem has not been solved for a long time, and it becomes more confusing in 2019.According to the 2018 sales data released by the two companies in January 2019, BMW (including BMW, MINI, and Rolls Royce) defeated Mercedes -Benz (including Mercedes -Benz and Smart) from the total sales volume of the group, but from the total brand totalFrom the perspective of sales, Mercedes -Benz won the 2.13 million battle of BMW with 2.31 million.In addition to sales, the two old opponents have also been in the product design, research and development, marketing, and the market in various key regional markets in the world for a long time.
However, in just 6 days from February 22 to 28, 2019, the old opponents who had killed a century suddenly announced their cooperation twice, and cooperated in an important area for the future.First, in Berlin on February 22, the head of the two giants: Chairman of Daimler Co., Ltd., Chairman of Dieders, Global President of Mercedes-Benz Auto Group Dieter Zetsche and BMW Group Chairman HaraldKruuml; GER) rarely shook hands in the same frame, and announced in one breath that the two parties will jointly invest 1 billion euros to set up five new joint ventures, including: online car rental, time -sharing leasing, charging services, parking services, cars, carsLeasing, logistics freight and other future travel services.The waves of unproof waves started again. On February 28, the two parties jointly issued a press release to announce that cooperation will be launched in the field of driverless driving. Mercedes -Benz and BMW will communicate with information and technology through information and technology.Level L4 -level autonomous driving technology cooperates.
Old opponents who have killed a century in the luxury car field, suddenly chose to carry out comprehensive cooperation in the future -oriented field in the beginning of 2019, which is confusing: what causes this pair of heavyweight opponents to suddenly show the suspicion to the union and union to the United October.IntersectionWhich external factors make the two giants warm?
The three major subversion of cornerstone assumptions
Looking back at the century -old history of cars, as the greatest achievement of the industrial revolution, cars have always been an important choice for people's travel.For a long time, people have drove fuel cars to achieve the displacement of point A to B. This seems to be the cornerstone theorem of the automotive industry. Police who go forward to successor are studying: how to achieve faster movement, how to enhance the efficiency of fuel, how to improve how to improveHow to pass all of this to consumers.
However, after the time when it came to 2010, the new entryrs no longer competed with the reign of the throne, but the cornerstone of the 0-1 cornerstone was directly challenged.First of all, why must it be fuel cars?Secondly, why do I have to drive the car by myself?Finally, why must humans drive a car by themselves?Regarding the three challenges of cornerstone assumptions, the formation of three new industries has been achieved, and the rise of three batches of challengers.
First of all, the challenges of fuel vehicles directly led to the development of electric vehicles, and new forces of car manufacturing launched in questioning; second, the challenges of the use of cars have contributed to the birth and development of the travel industry.Finally, the challenges of driving sovereignty have spawned people's pursuit of autonomous driving.The entire automotive industry is facing the risk of being re -deconstructed. The copper wall and iron wall built by traditional car enterprise technology and mechanical devices in the past 100 years seems to have been smashed in three gaps in a short period of time, and they are fatal.
Faced with the great changes in the automotive industry for a century, the two giants also felt the smoke of the battlefield. The new challengers are no longer familiar faces. They are young and vibrant, and they hold different weapons.Break the old order and build a completely strange new structure.The two giants of Mercedes -Benz and BMW took the glory of the past to lead other traditional car companies to fight with new challengers at the same time on the three major fronts.
But the status quo is not optimistic.
The impact of electric vehicles
Tesla -based electric vehicle manufacturers have launched a violent attack on the inherent territory of Mercedes -Benz and BMW.In 2018, the highest -selling luxury brand models in North America belonged to the Model 3 of Tesla.This model sold 138,000 units, crushing BMW's 3 Series, 4 Series, and Mercedes -Benz GLC.And on the sales list of luxury car brands in the United States, Tesla has also risen to fifth, and the gap with Mercedes -Benz and BMW is also narrowing.In the face of Tesla's impact, Mercedes -Benz BMW will also launch electric vehicles to compete: Mercedes -Benz will launch the first electric vehicle EQC in 2019 this year, and the price is set in the interval of Model 3, which will directly deal withIx3 was mass -produced in the next year.Tesla is not idle. The construction and new Model Y of the Shanghai plant are still pressing in traditional car manufacturers.In China, the largest single market in the car, many new forces of car building are also launching new models after another to enter the market of traditional car companies with electric vehicles.
However, Tesla and the new forces of car building may be simple to make this competition.Due to the different power system and energy input, this competition is not a simple fuel and electric vehicle competition, but a system confrontation between fuel vehicles+gas stations and electric vehicles+charging stations.If the charging station cannot form a certain network scale, the electric vehicle can only be a very niche or even regional product.However, the expansion of the charging station is far from the tasks that a car -building company can take. Moreover, the decades of siege of the oil company have laid out the gas station network that has been laid out of the world.From quantity to quality, the gas station network is better than the charging station network.In such a competitive pattern, the two branches of fuel vehicles+gas stations have formed an advantage in electric vehicle+charging network network.If it is not the guidance of the policy and the encouragement of government subsidies, this war may have ended.But in a long time, when the system cannot compete with each other, the race's balance may have been tilted from the beginning.
The power system of fuel vehicles and electric vehicles is indeed different, but the differences in it are not as large as traditional car companies cannot quickly catch up.When the mainstream traditional car companies have joined the research of electric vehicle platforms, they have launched electric vehicles to enter the market. The competition for electric vehicles and fuel vehicles seems to have entered a very familiar field of traditional car companies, and even they are crushing.Fields: leading manufacturing experience and processes, global sales networks, and millions of existing customers
Therefore, electric vehicle VS fuel vehicles seem to be filled with smoke, but it is more local war.Perhaps there are many regional or focusing on car manufacturers who focus on a segment, which will be weakened by the strong attack of new challengers to weaken the market position, and even slowly leave the market.But for mainstream traditional car companies, the impact of electric vehicles may be more scared.
From product to service?
In March 2009, the birth of Uber, the birth of the car in San Francisco, has slowly changed the functional attributes of the car in the following 10 years.From being owned by travel products, to use as travel services, the transformation of products to services is gradually increasing, and the emergence of these changes is also a response to the trend of population statistics and consumer behavior.According to McKinsey's statistics, in the past 8 years, the proportion of Americans holding a driver's license in each age has declined, of which 16 to 19 years have decreased by 12%and 20 to 24 years old.Millennium and generations have maintained a more open attitude towards the use of automobiles and ownership.
In this context, the emergence of travel services meets the needs of consumers, and also meets their new attitude towards vehicles.Traveling services have been in the past 10 years, from the United States to Europe, from China to Southeast Asia, from a small market to a huge market.According to Strategy's research, the scale of China's travel market in 2017 has reached 560 billion yuan.Moreover, the development of the travel market has not stopped.According to Roland Berg, it is estimated that by 2020, vehicles used for new travel services will account for 13%of the new vehicle sales, and will rise to 20%by 2025.Boston Consulting believes that by 2035, shared car services will account for 18%of all car passengers mileage.Essezhe's research on the German market shows that by 2027, 20%of all car travel will be through the form of travel services.
For car manufacturers, travel services are realIt is a barbarian outside the door, but their development has affected the main business of traditional car companies mdash; MDASH; new car sales.According to statistics, in addition to consumers over the age of 70, consumers in each United States are declining.With the weak sales growth of new cars, gross profit is gradually being eroded.According to the forecast of Boston Consulting, by 2035, the profit created by new travel technologies such as autonomous driving, travel services, and electric vehicles will account for 40%of the total industry profits.That means that if traditional car companies do not deploy the travel service market in advance, they have gradually diluted their thin profits and may be reduced to hardware suppliers for travel companies.
In this context, traditional car companies have actually actively deployed the travel service market.Taking Mercedes -Benz as an example, CAR2GO was launched in Germany in 2008, and in 2016, it launched a CroOVE car sharing service in Munich.Taking BMW as an example, in 2011, BMW cooperated with the taxi company SIXT to launch time -sharing leasing services DriveNow in Munich. In 2017, the number of users of DriveNow reached 600,000.In China, Shouqi Group launched a Shouqi car in 2015. In the same year, Geely Group launched Cao Cao special car.SAIC Group not only launched EVCARD for time -sharing rental business, but also launched the online car rental business to enjoy.However, the travel service market is still controlled by technology companies. Their main business data is almost a magnitude of the advantages of traditional car companies in travel services.For example, Uber operates in about 800 cities worldwide, and the number of users exceeds 100 million; Didi, the number of users exceeds 400 million, the daily order volume is about 30 million single hellip; hellip;
But every family has a difficult scripture.The star companies in these public horizons and the future stars in the eyes of capital have always faced profitable problems.Uber loses $ 1.8 billion in 2018 and has a drop loss of more than 10 billion yuan. Lyft, Grab, etc. are basically in a state of losing money, and the overall gross profit margin of the industry corresponds to GMV is very low.The test of traditional car companies is not optimistic. At present, no car company has announced that their travel service business has been or is about to make a profit.Traditional car companies enter the travel service market. They are intended to seize the commanding heights of future business, but the reality is that these tests and attempts are constantly consuming existing profits and resources.In addition, the operation of the travel business and the management of data are not the advantages of traditional car companies. There are many fields that are still their blank and blind spots, and teams need to be established from scratch.Again, the travel business will have a clear business prospect in which segmentation in the end. It still needs to be tested by the market. The loss of the travel company's year -on -year losses have also made capital gradually pay attention to other fields in recent years.It is also actively deploying charging pile business.
Therefore, the exploration of traditional car companies in the field of travel is becoming a panic in a dilemma.Continue to attack will inevitably face the uncertainty of the business model and the trouble of profit models, but the second to retreat will also worry about whether it will fade or leave in the future travel territory.
What is the driverless front road?
This is the arms race raised by Waymo alone.Before 2016, unmanned driving seemed to be just a topic in scientific researchers and geeks.The U.S. Defense Senior Research Program (DARPA) will not continue after three unmanned vehicle competitions from 2004 to 2007, and the process of the competition is also similar to the carnival party of talented students such as Stanford and CMU.I even think that in 2009, Larry Page asked Stanford's Sebastian Bull; Sebastian Thrun to manufacture and develop unmanned cars.And try.For a long time, this project of Google is also very niche, and there are very few people.But the time came to 2016, and AlphaGo, who also from Google, defeated Li Shishi, caused the world's discussion of AI. Many critics were worried that machines would replace humans in many fields.At this moment, in Austin, Texas, Google's driverless vehicles are driving slowly on the road. This has completely touched the nerves of traditional car companies and even the entire transportation industry.
Later stories are a bit legendary: there is no formal announcement, but many analysis reports predict that Waymo will launch autonomous vehicles in 2020.Then Waymo purchased 100 PACIFICA from FCA in 2016, and reached an agreement with Jaguar Land Rover in early 2018 to sign a 20,000 Jaguar I-PACE pure electric SUV procurement agreement.The number of times is even more amazing: 62,000 Pacifica.
After that, automobile companies and technology companies bet on the track of autonomous driving, and put the steady stream of funds into the field of autonomous driving: 2016 General Motors acquired CRUISE for $ 1 billion, and in 2017, Ford 1 billion US dollars acquired Argonai, 2018 Softbank Softbank in 2018The $ 2.25 billion of CRUISE's shares were invested.In 2018, Toyota announced that it would invest more than $ 2 billion for the research and development of unmanned technology research and development Hellip; Hellip; during this period, a bunch of startups focusing on the research and development of unmanned technology developed in the United States and China.Start cooperation with automobile production companies.From 2017 to 2018, it seems that it has not been discussed through technical demonstration and business model. Traditional car companies have shouted to launch autonomous vehicles in 2020 (conservative shouting 2020-2025).A series of: Audi, BMW, Mercedes, GM, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, of course, there are a bunch of Chinese auto companies or new forces.
But in 2019, the field of driverless driving is becoming more and more confused and hovering.Wall Street analysts have a serious differentiation of self -driving judgments. Some analysts have reduced Cruise's valuation from $ 11.5 billion to $ 9 billion, but some analysts marked Waymo's valuation to $ 175 billion.The report released by McKinsey in 2019 shows that although the development is facing a bottleneck, from 2025-2027, it will be an inflection point for autonomous driving. The total cost per kilometer of autonomous driving will be flat at the cost of driving traditional cars. After that, the market's demand for autonomous driving willIt will rise steadily.But at the same time, Waymo's head John KRAFCIK said that unmanned driving (L5) is limited, and it is admitted that for a long time in the future, autonomous cars will need the assistance of the driver.Subsequently, in the 2018 Autonomous Driving Leaving Report in California Vehicle Administration (DMV), Waymo ranked first with an indisputable advantage.Behind the results is the absolute advantage of Waymo in data accumulation and road testing. According to the information announced by John Krafcik last July last year, the public road test of Waymo in the field of autonomous driving has exceeded 8 million miles.Miles, more than 5 billion miles were driving through the simulation system, and the test mileage was still showing index levels.
At the same time, it seems that some progress has been made in the process of driverless commercialization. Unmanned taxis services in the limited area may become a breakthrough in commercialization.Waymo has launched a paid service Waymo One in the United States and built a new car renovation factory in Michigan.Cruise also announced that it will launch a autonomous driving online car rental service project in San Francisco. The drone taxi business cooperated with APTIV has also quietly tested in Las Vegas.In addition, Baidu will also test the driverless taxi in Changsha, and the L4 -level driverless car cooperated with Hongqi will also be launched this year and will be delivered next year.At the same time, SoftBank had invested in Didi, Ola, Grab and Uber before investing in Cruise in 2018. It has almost covered the world's most potential travel companies.Essence
Technology companies touched the sensitive nerves in the field of autonomous driving again and again. At this time, traditional car companies were struggling and seemed a little embarrassed.As mentioned above, in the report of DMV's 2018 autonomous driving departure report, the achievements of traditional car companies can be completely used.The general Cruise ranked second, BMW has ranked 20, Toyota ranked 22, Honda 24, and Mercedes -Benz had only 25.Behind the grade is because the development of autonomous driving has far surpassed the car companyScope of ability.The R & D of autonomous driving requires very strong software engineering and AI knowledge system, so as to support the development of key capabilities for perception and decision -making. Talent in this regard is not within the original core talent sequence of traditional car companies.In recent years, although they have enrolled related engineers on a large scale, they have drove away from many leading companies in terms of quantity.Taken together, at least 1,000 companies such as Waymo, Cruise, Uber, BAIDU and other companies have at least 1,000 people in the reserves of autonomous driving talents, and the top talents of many software and AI are more willing to go to these first -line teams. This makes traditional car companies and these first -tier companies.The ability gap has been formed, and it will be wider.
Therefore, in the unmanned competition, automobile companies have actually fell off.Once claimed to be in the hands of your own, the strong words seemed to have slammed his face, and the gap between the index level has appeared with the leaders.This is a completely unfamiliar competition in automobile companies. It seems that every step is in the unknown dark forest, and the opponent is stronger and faster, and there are more cash flow on their hands.
In the face of triple challenges, how can automobile companies break the game?
The cooperation between Mercedes -Benz and BMW will not be the last. In the future, we will be more and more to see the heating of traditional car companies and build an alliance.
The growth of the global market has gradually slowed down, and the negative growth of the Chinese automobile market in 2018 is even worse.Traditional car companies have clearly felt that the profit margin of the core business is declining. Mercedes -Benz's profit in the third quarter of 2018 fell by 30%, and the gross profit margin of GM and Ford has fallen nearly 10%.According to the BCG report, by 2030, the share of traditional automobile companies will be reduced to 15%in the value of each vehicle component, compared with 27%in 2015, which will be almost half.At the same time, changes in the car market pattern caused by electric vehicles, travel markets, and autonomous driving have enabled auto companies to invest in these future -oriented areas.
In this context, traditional automobile companies will have to rely on cooperation and alliances to save expenses. At the same time, they will be prepared to warm up in the new field.In addition to the cooperation between BMW and Mercedes -Benz, Volkswagen and Ford have recently announced the establishment of an alliance. The two sides have clearly stated that cooperation will reduce the cost of R & D and manufacturing and enhance competitiveness.In addition to these overall cooperation, the alliances of automobile companies in certain projects have actually begun: In August 2016, BMW Unite Mobileye, Delphia and other companies formed the autonomous driving research and development alliance.Nae has successively joined the alliance. From 2017 to 2018, Toyota led several times to unite Japanese companies, materials and component companies, as well as college scientific research institutes to jointly develop the infrastructure, power assembly system and solid -state battery of electric vehicles.
However, these alliances often do not rain, and the actual results are actually lacking.The positioning of the positioning, the enthusiasm of communication, and the effectiveness, the technical patent involved in the communication between different companies have become the reasons for the loose league. Perhaps the co -connection is just a good wish of the parties.Integration may be an option in the future.Moreover, these mergers and acquisitions will not only appear between auto companies, but even across the industry. Finally, the power of capital will be used to complete the transformation and upgrade.According to the report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the mergers and acquisitions of the automotive industry in 2019 will be very active, and the private equity investment in the automotive industry in 2018 shows that the value of the industry in the next few years will have the opportunity to further increase.We once witnessed the merger acquisition between automobile companies (Renault acquired 36.8%of Nissan's equity, Geely Holdings acquired Volvo Motors), and also saw many cross -industry cooperation in recent years (Didi and Volkswagen have set up joint ventures, BaiduThese are not over, these are not end, these are the beginning.
Based on ancient times, it can be known for Xing.In the 1970s and 1980s, energy companies faced the unfavorable situation of oil prices and rising exploration support. Through the mergers and acquisitions, they achieved one after another.Obtain excess profits with monopoly resources.Faced with the challenges from electric vehicles, travel services, and unmanned driving, traditional car companies are obviously unable to fight alone. They need to focus more on R & D power, improve competitiveness, and support the huge pressure of a frontier or even third -line operations.This may make many traditional car companies unacceptable, but the market has passed a clear signal: Tesla's market value once surpassed BMW and approached Daimler; Uber's estimated listing price will exceed the sum of general, Ford and Fiat Chrysler.Traditional car companies are no longer the darlings of this era. They need to fight young competitors with a larger volume, and they are not all alliances and handshakes in the laughter, but a solid volume and synergy.In continuous evolution, many small workshops generally keep the rules that only pay attention to existing products to leave the market first, and many companies that have insufficient investment in R & D and self -proclaimed will be slowly eliminated.In the end, several super -car companies staying will become extremely powerful and even become super empires. They will lead the entire automotive industry to fight and cooperate with travel service companies and Internet giants to build new industrial order together.
2019 may be the best year in the next ten years, maybe not a joke.The war in the automotive industry may slowly become fierce. On the eve of the great change, the traditional industrial system that has stabilized for decades will definitely be restructured. Some people will leave, some people will be strong.People will move towards the abyss of failure because of solid steps.Participating in it is inevitable, this is the only way for traditional car companies to transform from manufacturing companies to future transformation.
(This article only represents the author's own point of view, responsible editor: Yan Man [email protected])
