GoOut100, a media platform under Out100, focuses on the evolution of the automotive travel industry.
Author: Zheng Wen and Zhou Changxian
In 2012, WeChat became popular. At the time, Xie Pingsheng was still working at BYD. One night, he suddenly thought that WeChat was a tool that goes deep into every user, so why can’t it be connected with cars? The next day, he and his colleagues went to Guangzhou to meet with WeChat founder Zhang Xiaolong, and proposed the idea of trying to digitize the car key and integrate it into the WeChat module, so as to solve the embarrassment of “finding car keys” every day for users. After hearing Xie Pingsheng’s ideas, Zhang Xiaolong only took about 5 seconds before saying, “You haven’t thought it through, go back.”
Looking back, it is not so much that Xie Pingsheng and his colleagues did not think it through, but rather that the era was not ready for the digital transformation of cars. Only time can ripen the fruits of industrial change. In the following years, internet companies, IT companies, and new forces in car-making successively emerged, and the intelligent cockpit of the car underwent earth-shaking changes. Fate is so inexplicable. In 2019, Xie Pingsheng joined Xendood Intelligent and finally joined forces with WeChat to witness the first official landing of Tencent WeChat in a car.
At this time, it is not just the shallow digitization of keys anymore. Car owners can not only use WeChat through voice interaction in the car, but also use multi-dimensional capabilities such as navigation and entertainment through WeChat entrance, and can also realize many controls of the vehicle on the mobile phone, such as locking the car, turning on/off the air conditioner, and opening/closing the sunroof.
An idea from 2012, under the push of the trend of the times, has been more perfectly promoted after seven years. It clearly tells us that the era of intelligent cockpit has really come.
Big fish in big water
“Five years ago, we had to spend a long time explaining what an intelligent cockpit was every time we went to a host factory. Now, this concept is well known and has become a selling point for many new cars.” Hong Yiyun, product manager of the cockpit domain controller at Visteon, spoke emotionally about the development of his business.
In the 1960s to 1990s, the concept of the car cockpit was still relatively vague. It mainly consisted of mechanical instrument panels and simple audio-visual entertainment equipment, with physical buttons occupying most of the central control area.
After 2000, the central control LCD screen began to appear, with screen sizes ranging from 6 inches to 8 inches and larger. In 2009, OnStar entered China, and the concept of the connected car industry officially emerged, pushing the first integration of cars and technology.
It was not the “players” in the automotive industry who first smelled the money brought by new trends, but Shenzhen Huaqiangbei.
At one time, various in-car navigation systems emerged rapidly in the aftermarket. A back-up car machine with only simple functions like navigation and music, equipped with a WinCE or Linux system, could sell for 2000 to 3000 yuan or even higher, making it even more profitable than making counterfeit mobile phones.
However, the business of “distributed discrete control” is destined not to go far, and the businessmen in Huaqiangbei obviously do not have the ability to change the overall underlying logic of the cockpit. But their outcome has “heated up” the whole market.
The big wind of software-defined cars has blown up. The key links to achieve intelligent cars under the trend are gradually becoming clear: chip+operating system+middleware+application algorithm software+data. Whoever can grasp one of the links in the core technology cycle they build can gain a foothold in the new car manufacturing industry chain.
Some competitors have chosen the “operating system” track, especially the application layer at the top level of the intelligent cockpit software. It faces users directly, affects the intuitive experience, and includes map navigation, voice assistants, car communication modules, car application store apps, etc. Therefore, it has also become one of the directions that develop rapidly under the trend of car intelligence.
How important is the car operating system? Just like Windows to the PC, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android to smartphones. Undoubtedly, the operating system is the control core of the intelligent cockpit, and it plays a key role in managing and controlling the hardware and software resources of the intelligent cockpit.
It can be said that the operating system gives hardware “vitality”.
Internet companies smelled the meat and came. In 2014, Apple launched the Carplay projection mode, and Google launched the Android Auto projection mode in June of the same year. In 2015, Baidu released CarLife, and Tencent launched MyCar. In 2016, Google launched the Android Auto embedded operating system again…
In addition to Internet companies, car companies are also actively deploying outside the system to avoid shackles and run fast.
On July 6, 2016, in Hangzhou Yunqi Town, an SUV named “Roewe RX5” welcomed the most expensive spokesperson combination. Jack Ma and Chen Hong sat in the back row of this SUV, Wang Jian sat in the co-pilot position, and the driver was Alibaba Group CEO Zhang Yong.As the first car jointly created by Alibaba and SAIC, the Roewe RX5 has been hailed as the “world’s first Internet car”. Alibaba and SAIC internally define this “battle” as the “Normandy landing” of the century-old transformation and upgrade of the automotive industry.
Shortly after its launch, the Roewe RX5 became a “web celebrity”. Orders exceeded 25,000 vehicles in the first month, and sales exceeded 20,000 vehicles for several consecutive months, of which more than 70% were Internet version models.
This explosion of popularity brought the car system to the public eye in an unprecedented way. As a joint venture between Alibaba and SAIC, Banma Networks, the company that developed the system, rose to fame.
At the same time, the concept of “new four modernizations”-“electrification, interconnectivity, intelligence, and sharing”-began to become increasingly popular, and more and more traditional automakers took action, fearing that they would not change fast enough and become the “Nokia” of the automotive industry under the “Tesla effect”.
Since then, independently developed operating systems for cars have emerged one after another in the market. In addition to Google’s Android Automotive for Cars, there are Tesla Version, Volkswagen VW.OS, Huawei HarmonyOS, AliOS, and others.
By contrast, the operating systems of domestic host manufacturers such as BYD D-Link, Geely GKUI, NIO OS, and XPeng Xmart OS are based on the customization of basic operating systems such as Linux or Android (commonly used in China), which is the choice of most host manufacturers.
McKinsey predicts that by 2030, the global market for intelligent automotive software and electronic and electrical products will reach 469 billion U.S. dollars, nearly twice the amount in 2020. The global number of connected vehicles has been increasing by more than 40% per year since 2018, with sales expected to exceed 70 million vehicles in 2022.
Opportunity favors those who are prepared. In terms of timing, Xend AI, which arrived in March 2019, was not early.
At this time, the new car-making forces such as NIO and XPeng have been developing their own full-stack intelligentization road. Ecarx, a company invested by Geely, has been operating for more than two years. As early as 2018, it released its first intelligent network system GKUI, which has been applied to all Geely vehicle models. Mobility Asia under Volkswagen and Wutong Car Union invested by Chang’an have also launched their own car networking solutions based on Android.When car companies are making efforts in the field of smart connected vehicles, Zeasn, which has been established for four years and developed the first generation of Internet car Roewe RX5, has encountered growing pains. Due to the premature pursuit of independence, many executives who fought hard have left during the “de-SAQI” process.
Different from others who ran towards BAT and other big companies, Xie Pingsheng chose the track of intelligentization of automobiles again, but one that is more integrated and in-depth.
The relative advantage of Xend Intelligent is speed. Since its inception, Xend Intelligent has been tasked with helping Great Wall Motors achieve rapid catching up, surpassing and leading. The founding team had to adopt a “build aircraft while flying” strategy.
Thanks to the resources and talent advantages of the headquarters in Shanghai, Xend Intelligent only spent five and a half months to deliver the first version of the Fun-Life smart connected system at the end of December 2019; the team building has also begun to take shape.
On April 20, 2020, the 2020 Haval F5 with Fun-Life smart connected system was officially launched.
Haval F5 is an entry-level compact SUV launched by Great Wall Motors in September 2018, designed for young consumers. Therefore, this model pays great attention to the performance of technology and intelligentization. It can be seen that Great Wall highly valued Fun-Life smart connected system by equipping it on the 2020 Haval F5.
Just a few months later, Xend Intelligent had two more products installed on the new Great Wall Haval F5 and F7, respectively, initially creating a multi-terminal integrated travel ecology.
On the second product of Xend Smart, based on a new understanding of the needs of the digital generation for travel, around the two major user needs of “world synchronization” and “entertainment priority”, it meets the new standards for young people to buy cars. In addition, Xend Intelligent also helped Great Wall Motor to create the first group-level business platform in the automobile industry.
Currently, Xend Intelligent’s products have been installed on multiple models of Great Wall Motors. In 2020, the number of vehicles connected to the Xend intelligent platform exceeded 1 million, and it is estimated that by the end of 2021, this number will exceed 2.5 million. In addition to the smart cockpit, the several APPs tailored by Xend Intelligent for the car manufacturer have also achieved millions of users, and it is expected that by 2025, the number of these users will exceed tens of millions.The Xiandou Intelligence, as a follower, has obviously learned from the predecessors’ experience and avoided some pitfalls they encountered.
Different from the Zebra Zhixing system of SAIC and the GKUI system of Geely at that time, the Fun-Life Intelligent Network System tailored by Xiandou Intelligence for Great Wall Motors is developed based on the concept of “service as desktop”. Through WeChat in-car edition, scene-based intelligent voice interaction and other products, it solves users’ anxieties in five aspects of communication, interaction, navigation, voice and entertainment during travel. It provides card-style design quick dropdown menu, flat menu hierarchy, and custom buttons for directional control, making it easy for users to achieve blind operation and reduce their learning and interaction costs.
It is worth mentioning that in this project, Xiandou Intelligence has deep cooperation with Tencent car network’s TAI 2.0 system, especially the connection of WeChat nine-square entrance, which has functions of WeChat message voice broadcast, WeChat voice real-time call, location sharing, and rapid assembly.
On October 21, at the relocation ceremony of Xiandou Intelligence Southwest R&D Center, CEO Xie Pingsheng believes that Xiandou Intelligence is currently in the first stage of enterprise development, and the primary task is to ensure the success of the angel customer, Great Wall Motors.
“We won’t easily enter the industry unless we prove ourselves on this battlefield,” Xie Pingsheng said firmly. “We won’t step into those pitfalls anymore.”
In fact, Xiandou Intelligence also achieved it. Compared with competitors on the track, its business system is more extensive. It can provide Great Wall Motors with four major business systems, including entire vehicle intelligentialization products, intelligent marketing multi-end integrated products, intelligent service series products, and data intelligentialization closed-loop platform.
The next step is to build an ecosystem while developing intelligent vehicles at the same time. As the smart car OS develops rapidly, the winner-takes-all situation will come within a short two years according to Mr. Xiao Feng, the chief architect of Zebra Zhixing. Players on the racetrack are also running crazily with their advantages. From the perspective of organizational form, Internet technology giants such as Google, Huawei, and Tencent are continuously infiltrating mobile operating systems into intelligent cabins. Due to their own perfect ecosystem, from product design, industrial manufacturing, digital marketing, to user services, they can make up for many shortcomings of host plants and obviously have great appeal. On the other hand, the advantage of companies backed by auto manufacturers such as Xiandou Intelligence and Yikatong is that they can continuously accumulate intelligence and AI capabilities based on business, scene, and data. This part of the capability is very difficult for both traditional Tier 1 and Internet technology giants to obtain.
“Our business is still growing,” said Xie Pingsheng with a contented worry. He then added, “What are the benefits of scale advantages? It means that there are more and more users, more and more data, and faster iteration brought by quick feedback loop than others.”
Of course, even tech subsidiaries born from automakers have different organizational forms. For example, Yi Ka Tong, established earlier, has participation from Geely executives in decision-making and management, and has stronger governance and wider business layout, even extending its tentacles to the fields of on-board chips and intelligent driving.
With the rapid popularization of intelligent automobiles, consumers have put forward higher demands in both product forms and user experiences, which requires all participants to engage in more forward-looking thinking and layout.
In this competition, Xian Dou Intelligence obviously has a more far-sighted vision.
“We have been working hard to create more value for users in their travel process, take the intelligent cabin as the entry point, and build a data center by constructing business platforms and data capabilities,” Xie Pingsheng believes that a true intelligent cabin is not created by a pile of functions, the core is the digital engine.
In his explanation, the product forms delivered by Xian Dou Intelligence are merely touchpoints for the interaction system with vehicle owners, and the underlying operating logic is based on the concept of “engine” for ecosystem of the Internet of Things, vehicle-road coordination, and everything interconnected. It is not an intuitive vertical structure from the host factory to Xian Dou Intelligence and then to consumers, but a topological network ecosystem.
From the perspective of the law of historical development, Xie Pingsheng’s judgment is correct: the future competition of intelligent networked automobile operating systems will definitely be waged at the level of the ecosystem.
Based on the operating system, a grand ecosystem can be constructed, and the success of the operating system depends on whether the supporting ecosystem is accepted by the commercial market. Therefore, in future competitions, it is better to say that users choose the ecosystem behind the operating system than the operating system itself.
At the same time, the business functions of on-board operating systems will become more abundant, and their software structure will become more complex. In order to adapt to different application functions, the software structure of on-board operating systems will move towards hierarchical, modular and platform directions in the future. From the top-level design, it will aim at cloud platforms that develop data derived from vehicle conditions, environmental perception inside and outside the vehicle, and integrate with human-computer interaction technologies such as touch, gesture, voice, and vision to innovate service experience.It can be foreseen that in the near future, higher requirements will be put forward for the in-vehicle operating system, such as the need to simultaneously support multiple chipsets, multiple vehicle models and multiple sensors in the background of vehicle-road collaboration. For car companies, the in-vehicle OS not only needs to strengthen its integration with the vehicle, but also needs to enhance its integration with the road, which will become a new challenge and form a competitive barrier.
In a word, the “topology ecological construction” is the key to the future competitiveness of in-vehicle system companies. Whether they are new or old Tier 1, or Tier 0.5 companies such as Xendrive Intelligence, they need to lay out quickly to win in the new era.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.