A fierce attack from a traditional car company.

Do you still remember your first time surfing the internet?

You wandered around various BBS, indulged in different Flash games, and opened a software called QQ, where someone asked you, “Are you GG or MM?”

Do you still remember your first experience with 3G on a mobile phone?

That year, you didn’t break up with anyone, but you cancelled the package of 1000 text messages per month by calling 10086.

I can say that if your car is connected to the internet, you will also remember your first experience with connected cars.

V2X, irreversible

My first experience with connected cars was at an emerging Silicon Valley electric car company called Tesla. The best thing it allowed me to do was that my phone could connect to the car in real time, replacing the key, monitoring and controlling the car. The vehicle can be remotely upgraded with new features (OTA), and the map can view real-time traffic conditions and charging stations.

My second experience with a connected car was with SAIC’s collaboration with Alibaba’s Banma Intelligent Traffic System. In addition to Tesla’s aforementioned features, Banma uses Alibaba’s high-quality software such as Autonavi map and Xiami music at the application level. The support of high-quality software made the Banma system a leader in entertainment and convenience.

Well, now let’s talk about my zeroth experience with connected cars. After checking the information carefully, I confirmed that General Motors’ OnStar has been forward-looking for 23 years. The most impressive thing about the localized AnPolestar was its security service. General Motors equipped with AnPolestar will automatically activate its SOS function and the voice inside the car will be connected to the AnPolestar customer service and the car will be GPS located after a car accident or airbag deployment. The situation of people in the car could shift from actively seeking help to passively waiting.

For serious traffic accidents, especially in remote areas, when traveling alone, this point may save lives. Most GM car owners may not have the opportunity to experience that phone call, but those who have experienced it are sincerely grateful.

The reason why it can only be called a zeroth experience with connected cars is that although AnPolestar introduced the concept of V2X in the early days, the “telephone” and “navigation,” the two main features beyond “security,” couldn’t keep up with the development of smartphones. Navigation is far behind mobile phone navigation, and telephone functions have become increasingly secondary in the 4G era.

On August 23, SAIC-GM launched the new generation of AnPolestar function and service.

## A Powerful Attack

Firstly, the new generation of OnStar basically covers all current car networking functions that I mentioned earlier. It allows remote control of vehicles from a mobile phone, over-the-air (OTA) remote upgrades of the car’s infotainment system, and integrates with WeChat, Gaode maps, and NetEase cloud music. Content includes violations, weather, stocks, news, etc. and there is an open software development ecosystem. All of this will be built on top of 24GB of free data usage for users each year.

Regarding the 24GB data usage limit, Shihong Shi, deputy general manager of SAIC-GM, told us:

This was calculated by the vehicle system provided by the applications. If more applications are upgraded in the future, the free data usage limit will accordingly increase. Developing car networking as a business requires short-term profit sacrifices, but it will definitely improve the brand’s influence.

Undoubtedly, in my opinion, the integration of the infotainment system will be another major competition factor, besides traditional components such as the engine, transmission, and suspension system. But in the long run, it should be the completeness of the infotainment ecosystem. Users who are accustomed to Apple phones have strong product stickiness. In the future, users who use a particular type of infotainment system will be the same.

Secondly, SAIC-GM has proposed a “unique content for a thousand people” on the infotainment system, which made me unconsciously think of the Many-Faced God in “Game of Thrones”, sending shivers down my spine. In reality, this content orientation is similar to that of the “headline series”, where users’ usage habits on the infotainment system will be collected on the cloud and the most personalized and accurate information will be pushed to the user. On this point, the dominance of the “headline series” has already taken off on mobile phones. We can imagine that the initiative opening rate of content pages on the infotainment system will be far lower than on mobile phones, so precise pushing will be critical.

For example, push the message of “Tesla privatization” when you get in the car in the morning;

Show the “NBA score” on the homepage when you use the car at noon;

Tell me that “Game of Thrones” is updated tonight when you go home at night;

This is probably the infotainment system I want the most. I’m looking forward to seeing if OnStar can achieve it.

The new generation of OnStar will be directly equipped on the XT4, which will be released next week. The plan is to provide full coverage for all SAIC-GM’s three major brands, Cadillac, Buick, and Chevrolet, and achieve cloud networking for all models under the brand in 2020. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that older SAIC-GM car models can also obtain OnStar’s new features and services, including 24GB of free data usage each year, by paying for an upgrade.The annual sales volume of SAIC-GM reaches millions, and the ownership is tens of millions. From the perspective of the scale ecology, this is a level that new carmakers, including Tesla, cannot achieve in the short term.

Accumulation is the Innovative Approach for the Traditional Car Enterprises

For new car companies, they can promote new technologies without any restraint as long as they can realize them in the cars to be delivered in the future.

However, for traditional car enterprises, especially SAIC-GM, a car enterprise with an annual sales volume of millions, the application of new technologies cannot be announced too early, even if it is a technology to be launched only half a year later. The user’s desire for new technologies will completely affect the sales volume in this half year. Therefore, the minimum requirement for traditional car enterprises to succeed in launching new products is accumulation.

In the new park of Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center, Wang Yongqing, the General Manager of SAIC-GM, said:

In fact, in the process of the four new technologies of automobiles (electrification, networking, sharing, and intelligence), GM and SAIC are actively promoting the development and iterative updating of intelligent connectivity and autonomous driving technology. In terms of interconnection and entertainment, China has done very well, and SAIC-GM understands the needs of Chinese users very well. Therefore, in many future plans for vehicle networking and upgrades of vehicle-machine telematics technology, it even leads General Motors.

Just like the Anijie Xing function this time, a car payment platform has been planned, and the function will be launched in the second half of next year. Quick payment is a highly localized function. In the localization process, Sino-foreign joint venture car companies often receive restrictions on the overall product planning of their headquarters. SAIC-GM takes the lead in the joint venture’s vehicle networking process, and also benefits from the strong independent research and development capability of Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center in China.

For veteran joint venture car companies, the international differentiation of vehicle-machine telematics will be much larger than that of the local work they had done in elongating the body of the car in the past. For the large sales structure, the brand benefit brought by the applicability of vehicle-machine telematics is irreversible. Therefore, in the field of vehicle networking, increasing the software development capability of the local research and development center, accumulating and launching products, will definitely be an innovative approach to break the traditional boundaries for joint venture car companies.

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