Author | Panjiang

Rivian, a US electric vehicle company known as the “Tesla killer,” has been skyrocketing in stock price since its launch in November of last year, with a market value of up to $152 billion at one point, ranking third in the world. Its skateboard chassis is one of its major technological advantages, and has subsequently sparked a trend of skateboard chassis in China.

Today, however, the development of skateboard chassis in China and the United States has taken a strange turn, with completely different phenomenons emerging. Rivian has suffered consecutive defeats, with a market value of less than $30 billion and delivery volume falling short of market expectations, shrinking by 80% from its peak. Canoo burned through $10 billion in five years, with rumors of a broken capital chain and all core executives leaving. Arrival, a British skateboard chassis company, has suffered significant losses and plans to restructure its business, including a 30% reduction in staff.

On the Pacific side of China, however, the heat of skateboard chassis continues to be sustained and shows no signs of diminishing.

On July 16, BAIC Blue Valley announced that it will raise funds of no more than 8 billion yuan through non-public offering of shares for investment in skateboard platforms and other projects. The platform technology will be suitable for the chassis of various models, and will consider overall performance and structure in conjunction with various scene requirements.

PIX Moving, the world’s first automatic driving skateboard chassis company, has received two consecutive rounds of financing in less than six months, with the latest round of investment coming from the Japanese listed company TIS Group. The funds will mainly be used for the mass production of three products: skateboard chassis, Robobus, and cleaning robots.

Similarly, another skateboard chassis company, Yika ZhiChe, has secured two rounds of financing within six months. The new round of investment comes from the New Hope Group, and the two parties will conduct deep cooperation in smart cold chains, property management, and smart agriculture scenarios.

Earlier, Top Industries announced that it plans to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary, Top Skateboard Chassis (Ningbo) Co., Ltd., in the Hangzhou Bay New Area of ​​Ningbo City with a registered capital of RMB 2 billion, focusing on the development of skateboard chassis with production estimated to begin in two years.

In the next few days, Chinese A-share listed company, Altar Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. announced that it plans to invest with the company’s chairman, Xuan Qiwu, Liu Jiangfeng, and Faristar (HK) Investment Holding Limited to establish Shenzhen Bihu Innovative Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Bihu Technology”), focusing on skateboard chassis technology and products, and providing related services for urban logistics, business, home, shared travel and other fields.

Why is the skateboard chassis “cold” in the United States but hot in China?

The reason behind the “cold” and “hot” of Chinese and American capital

Currently, skateboard chassis in the secondary market in the United States is cold, while it is hot in China’s primary market. Retail investors and institutions have different investment preferences. Limited vision and eagerness to exit and realize returns by ordinary investors have caused the secondary market to be cold. However, most mainstream institutions and clients still see the skateboard chassis in a positive light.

For example, Apple is very optimistic about Canoo, and rumors of acquisition have been circulating. Walmart will also purchase 4500 commercial vehicles from Canoo.

In addition, the US Army has recently shown interest in Canoo’s overall product strength and technical scalability and adaptability. Undoubtedly, the US Army will study how to apply it to military operations, troop transportation, and other scenarios. Previously, Canoo’s transportation products created for NASA had already been unveiled.

In China’s primary market, the continuous boom is due to Chinese investment institutions seeing the long-term value and market growth space of skateboard chassis and making early layouts.

There are four skateboard chassis listed companies overseas, while there is no relevant listed company in China yet. Compared with the valuation of existing overseas listed companies and the current valuation of domestic companies, Chinese skateboard chassis companies have dozens or even hundreds of times of growth space, which investment institutions can see, especially since the Chinese market is much larger than overseas markets.

In summary, the value of skateboard chassis is overestimated in the short-term in the capital market, while its long-term value is seriously underestimated, which causes the phenomenon of “inverted” hotness in Chinese and American primary and secondary markets. Institutions and industry insiders see the core value of skateboard chassis very clearly, but retail investors may not have the same level of expertise and patience.

Where is the value and advantage of skateboard chassis?The skateboard chassis can integrate components such as batteries, electric powertrains, suspensions, brakes, and others onto the chassis itself. This realizes the separation of the body and the chassis, design decoupling, and assists car companies to quickly create differentiated models, giving the skateboard chassis an advantage over traditional car manufacturing. Compared with traditional methods, skateboard chassis can reduce threshold and increase efficiency in car production. That is also one of the important reasons why Rivian has been sought after by capital since its launch.

“The skateboard platform is the core of all Rivian’s electric vehicles.” said founder RJ.

At the 2021 Media Communication Meeting of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference held at the end of last year, Ouyang Minggao, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, professor of the School of Vehicles and Mobility at Tsinghua University, and vice chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference, stated that the skateboard chassis is a trend in the development of future new energy technologies. “Based on the skateboard chassis, the development cycle of the vehicle can be very short, with limitless variety and strong individuality, which will bring about a revolution in automobile design and manufacturing.”

Yuchuan, founder and CEO of PIX Moving, also said: “The skateboard chassis is highly favored by new car-making forces because it allows car companies to significantly reduce the upfront development and testing costs, quickly respond to market demands, and achieve mass production of new models, accelerating the realization of a balanced profit and loss.”

Yuchuan went on to give an example: “In the past, if a car model of a car company had to sell 200,000 cars to recover the development cost, based on the skateboard chassis, since multiple models share the same chassis, selling 50,000 cars of a single model can achieve a balance of profit and loss.”

Li Peng, the founder of Up Auto, said that the UP super chassis that Up Auto has created has the ability to integrate traditional body frames while reducing the cost and cycle of car manufacturing, shortening the new car development cycle to within 12 months and lowering the capital threshold to less than 100 million US dollars.

Behind the blazing popularity of the skateboard chassis comes its long-term value. I continue to have faith in the skateboard chassis trend because two major global development trends are becoming increasingly apparent: the exploding growth of individual and personalized demands in the automotive market and the future arrival of the era of autonomous driving, where a vehicle will no longer be just a means of transportation, but a mobile space.The explosive growth of diversified demands

In the 70s and 80s, due to the scarcity of automobile products, car companies did not worry about sales problems. Even defective products could be quickly sold out by consumers. The same situation occurred with household appliances.

Since the 90s, with the increasing number of car brands and the improvement of production capacity, the market has become saturated, and buyers have started to demand higher quality and performance from automobiles.

As the global automobile market shifts from an incremental market to a stock market, traditional automobile enterprises are facing challenges, and consumers’ car purchasing logic has fundamentally changed:

The first stage: solving the problem of presence or absence;

The second stage: determining the quality issue;

The third stage: determining the issue of diversification.

Currently, global users are in the transitional period from the second stage to the third stage. Personal preferences are growing explosively. Essentially, this is in line with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory proposed by American psychologist Maslow, which is also the main reason for the rise of car modification culture.

In response to consumers’ diversified demands, great challenges are brought to the whole vehicle production and manufacturing process, supply chain system, product delivery capability, and cost control capability. Car companies are seeking solutions, while skateboard chassis is the best way to meet personalized vehicle needs.

The era of autonomous driving is inevitable, and skateboard chassis is the foundation

With advances in technology, the era of L4-L5 autonomous driving will come. When consumers no longer need to drive a car, the definition of automobile products will no longer center around driving, but will focus on the spatial attributes of the vehicle. The product positioning of automobiles will no longer be “passenger transportation,” but truly a part of life, a “mobile space.”

The traditional internal combustion engine of fuel-powered cars is large, heavy, and has an irregular shape, whether front-mounted, mid-mounted, or rear-mounted. It greatly affects the internal space of the entire vehicle. In contrast, the skateboard chassis has a flat structure and few design constraints, making it the foundation of the “mobile space” in the era of autonomous driving.

This point can be verified in the product forms of Toyota e-Palette and PIX Moving.

From the Toyota e-Palette Winter Olympics edition coating, it can be seen that each car has a different function, such as being paired with a large screen for advertising, as a food truck, or as a store. The cabin is very flexible and changeable.

And PIX Moving, through automatic separation of the chassis and cabin, can flexibly realize various applications of mobile space, including unmanned mini-buses, vending cars, logistics vehicles, fresh food delivery vehicles, and fitness vehicles.

Therefore, whether it is from the growth of personalized demand or the ultimate trend of the development of autonomous driving technology, a skateboard chassis is the best solution, and thus has long been favored by the capital market.

However, the capital market is short-sighted in pursuit of profit, while enterprise value creation requires adherence to long-termism.

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.