Article by Jiang Xiaohua

On the evening of July 10th, Luo Yonghao released a video in which he commented on the life and death of the automotive industry. In the video, Luo spared no effort to praise Tesla and China’s top three new forces, speaking highly of the future of China’s automotive industry, which he claimed would belong only to the top five companies: Wey, XPeng, Li Auto, Huawei, and Xiaomi. He also made a decisive judgment that traditional car companies would have no chance in the era of intelligent electrification.

This judgment made me believe that Luo Yonghao really has emotions for the mobile phone industry, and I have to admire his dominance over the industry giants who he can defeat just by flicking his fingers, so it’s no wonder that I cannot help but suspect that Luo’s next entrepreneurial field will probably be automobiles. After all, if he doesn’t condemn the vast majority of automobile companies to death, his “stick car” concept will have even less chance.

However, one day later, JiKuaiche CEO An Conghui used a speech entitled “The Evolution of JiKuaiche” to give the brand a reprieve, at least enjoying two days of YYDS (Kudos to JiKuaiche) praise, covering all the voice of Luo’s commentary.

In this product upgrade released after 8 months of delivery, the most explosive point is undoubtedly the free upgrade of the 8155 platform. Previously, the price of the 8155 optional package offered by the Voyah model was 4,999 yuan, while NIO had released an 8155 bundle priced at 10,000 yuan.

With these two references in hand, even the JiKuaiche old car owners who have been making noise for half a year did not expect JiKuaiche to offer them a free upgrade to the 8155 platform. As a result, not only did all new and old customers of 8155 upgrade free of charge, but the expected price for an OTA smart key of about 3,000 yuan was also included as a one more thing.

Users who had scolded JiKuaiche carelessly in its app the day before and even made banners overnight to apologize to JiKuaiche, taking pictures of them and publishing them on all platforms.##

In the worst scenario when Xpeng Motors was criticized, I spoke for them, stating that their issues were not about breaking promises but rather due to overreliance on fans. Due to lack of experience, some fans were hurt by the power of the Xpeng vehicles. However, from a higher level, fans who support Xpeng with pure passion are more sincere than those who support with just power.

Although I’ve been labeled as a Xpeng fanboy for promoting Xpeng in various groups, An Conghui’s statement on the night of July 11th finally cleared my name. Xpeng users, newcomers, and Tesla users probably all understood what I meant by “fan support through power” when I said it.

Just the free upgrades for 8155 users cost Xpeng Motors a net investment of three billion yuan, not counting the appearance fee for the “Smart Key,” who was relegated to a supporting role under the halo of 8155 protagonists. No other car company in the industry has done anything similar, even Wei Xiaoli, known as one of the three stooges, hasn’t made such a bold move. Even in the phone industry that Lei Jun loves so much, only Xiaomi’s CEO has taken such a risk.

However, today’s topic is not the justice of fan support through power, but rather the inevitability of successful transformation from an excellent and mature car company that I saw at Xpeng’s release and that Lei Jun didn’t pay much attention to.

An Conghui’s expression during the launch event can be summarized as two questions from a mature car company’s soul:

First Question: Who says mature companies can’t achieve intelligent innovation?

While Xpeng Motors solved the bottleneck of chip performance, it also completed hundreds of upgrades for intelligent cockpits, covering details such as visual effects, screen manipulation, human machine interaction, and page layout. In half a year, the gap between Xpeng Motors and leading companies in the field of intelligent cockpits was completely eliminated, which has been acknowledged by all automotive critics. This at least proves two things: first, diligent mature car companies like Xpeng can make up the gaps in intelligent experience in a short period of time; second, Xpeng possesses similar work modules and advanced big data processing capabilities and experience as companies that collect, analyze, and apply user data.

Meanwhile, Xpeng Motors also made significant progress in the previously criticized intelligent assisted driving function. The experience has progressed from being unacceptable to generally satisfactory, with some details still needing optimization. The adjustment of these details largely depends on the analysis of accumulated system mileage and user feedback data, which is an endless mode of marginal effect attenuation. Companies that do their job well will not have much difference in this aspect, and early bird companies will not have any barriers to the competition.

In fact, in the field of intelligent automotive, there are countless false propositions that new forces in the industry have put forward. For example, the proposition that fuel vehicles cannot be intelligent is not true. In fact, the intelligent boundary of fuel vehicles is not much lower than that of electric vehicles after reasonable battery capacity is configured.

Under the theme of software-defined cars, the real competition among massive application software is bound to appear only after the popularization and legalization of autonomous driving. Even on that day, hardware will still be the high-weighted part of automotive competition. Various industries that have already been intelligentized, including mobile phones and home appliances, have proven this point.

For the automotive industry, this determines that the competition for automotive intelligence and the comparison of intelligent architectures are still the underlying competition logic. In this regard, the advantage of the world-leading intelligent electrification vast architecture represented by JiKe lies in its flexibility and outstanding ability, which greatly benefits JiKe’s speedy improvement in intelligent cabin and driver assistance over the past six months. When the nine satellites released by Geely for scanning the map of China are completed shortly, the Star Chain service that serves Chinese users will be deployed. The centimeter-level satellite interconnection technology will undoubtedly easily send JiKe to the top of China’s automotive intelligent experience.

As for the slightly mysterious topic of human resource efficiency and technological enterprise genes, intelligent cars will become the high ground where future technology talents and even scientist-level talents gather. I am afraid that even the bigwigs of mobile phones and IT companies today will have no objection to this judgment. The only thing that testifies is the breadth of mind and layout of the leadership of mature automobile companies. Looking at the intelligent development of the home appliance industry that is more close to the logic of the automotive industry, there is no reason to believe that mature companies cannot produce good cadres.

Question 2: Will you really not do those things that users cannot see?

JiKe’s public relations department is fully aware that the free upgrade of 8155 is, of course, the natural explosive point of this release. However, in the order of the release, this explosive point was neither put at the beginning to instantly ignite the atmosphere, nor put at the end to conclude.

An Conghui placed his and JiKe’s favorite content at the beginning of the release and published the heavyweight product of JiKe’s hardware upgrade — Intelligent Drive.

In the era of automotive intelligence, we see some people developing electrical core technology, some people developing intelligent driving assistant technology, some people developing intelligent cabin technology, and some people developing refrigerator, color TV, and possibly innovative seat technology. Anyone can see, understand, accept, or think expensive technology; someone will show it off.However, intelligent driving technology, which is essential for the automotive industry, has not been developed due to its lack of profitability. It is invisible to ordinary users who cannot even provide feedback. If automakers focus on this technology, they would be accused of neglecting user preferences, something that could damage their reputation. Furthermore, developing advanced intelligent driving technology within the framework of electric vehicles requires significant investment and poses enormous technical challenges.

Geely-backed JingKe frequently refers to the so-called system capability of complete vehicle enterprises, which is designed specifically for this purpose. JingKe’s vice president of intelligent automotive technology, Xu Yun, said that the company prefers to work on the invisible technology. This is not to say that they cannot develop visible technology, just that it is not as challenging.

Intelligent driving technology spans the fields of chassis and power, and is the source of control that constitutes the most subtle aspect of automotive technology. Scientific research on intelligence, engineering innovation, and physical fine-tuning are all standard and time-consuming aspects of this area of specialization that consume a lot of money.

JingKe has been working on intelligent driving technology for several years, investing RMB 20 billion specifically in developing a technology that is unique to the intelligent electric vehicle system, a cost that includes the silent support of Geely, and has already gained an impressive reputation.

Among JingKe’s user groups, the “JingKe-style” handling of electric cars has been highly regarded since its launch in October last year, earning the reputation of the ultimate in handling which is even considered godlike. This was a major source of confidence for both customers and the brand before the arrival of 8155 when JingKe was still being criticized by customers while they were still ordering.

To date, Luo Yonghao’s “Three Idiots” in the new energy vehicle market have become the “Three Heroes” phenomenon, and there are still many technically-minded people who question the driving logic of most electric vehicles in China, which is no different from “Old Head Joy”. However, I do not believe that such a core component of automotive hardware will be ignored by users forever. Even in the fully autonomous driving state, intelligent driving’s ability to adapt to road conditions intelligently is crucial for passive safety and improving efficiency.##
For example, the current advanced driving assistance system generally still lacks the ability to handle sharp turns, and most of them will require driver intervention when faced with sharp turns. Even if the car can handle sharp turns autonomously, its body posture, passenger experience, power consumption during turning, and other factors are still closely related to the driving system’s capability; without an innovative driving system specifically designed for intelligent electric vehicles, the only option for advanced driving assistance when dealing with sharp turns is to slow down significantly, pass at a turtle’s pace, and endure energy loss.

Conghui An’s speech was, in fact, questioning many electric car brands about things that users cannot see at the moment. Are you really not going to do anything about it?

Do you just want to tell users that the advantages of electric cars are naturally fast straight-line acceleration, and you can easily adjust the torque to be huge, while the disadvantage is that the vehicle’s weight is too heavy, so the inertia is large, and the handling can only be gentle, and the maximum speed is only 180?

Zhao Yuhui, Vice President of Zeekr Intelligent Technology, said that in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, old industry barriers have been broken, so mature car companies feel the crisis. However, a new industry consensus has not yet formed, and it is currently a season of coexistence and coexistence of flowers and weeds, so everyone feels dizzy. In fact, it is very simple to win in the new era of the automobile industry. Who can continue to grasp the user’s true intelligent travel needs, comprehensively define the intelligence of automobiles from the inside out, and effectively control costs has the potential to ultimately win customers.

Controlling costs, these five words, do they make Jia Yueting feel a bit uncomfortable? Remember it when doing Arrow’s cars.

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.