Lishi Introduction: Although has already laid out its new energy vehicle business, the core essence of Foxconn's business model is still to provide brand owners with "manufacturing" empowerment.
Li Ping | Wen
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Three cars were sent together, Foxconn really came
Foxconn really made the car!
On October 18, Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai Technology officially released the pure electric vehicle brand Foxtron at the annual Technology Day event, and launched three electric vehicles in one go, are electric bus Model T, electric SUV Model C and business luxury sedan Model E.
According to reports, Model E model is positioned as a mid-to-high-end luxury sedan and is built for business customers; Model C is the first model created by the MIH electric vehicle open platform, aimed at ordinary family users; Model T is an electric bus, which is expected to be put into use locally in 2022.
According to the official statement of Hon Hai Technology, the above three models are all independently developed by Foxconn Technology Group and will be manufactured by Honghua Advanced Company, a joint venture jointly established by Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai Group and Taiwan's local car company Yulon Group.
It is worth mentioning that the day of the event happened to be the birthday of Terry Gou, the founder of Hon Hai Group. He himself drove the Model E in person. "Today, personally, is the best birthday gift I have received since I was 71 years old in my life." Guo Taiming said on the spot that "For Foxconn, this is also the best gift on the road to transformation."
Guo Taiming highly praised Foxconn's progress in car manufacturing: "The new generation of environmentally friendly and energy-saving electric vehicles demonstrates the overall industrial strength. From product conception, appearance design, battery design, to mechanical engineering, three-electric systems, and control interiors, it took only one year to complete it."
Chairman Liu Yangwei, Hon Hai Precision, said that Foxconn can build three electric vehicles within one year, which is no longer "new kids in town" (new kids in town). It is estimated that by 2026, Foxconn's electric vehicle-related business annual revenue will reach NT$1 trillion (approximately US$35.78 billion), and pure electric vehicles account for 5% of its manufacturing revenue. He said: "This is a goal we must achieve."
three electric vehicles are all built on the electric vehicle platform MIH launched by Foxconn in 2020. According to official reports, the Foxconn MIH platform has the advantages of modularity, customization, full-vehicle OTA, etc., supports chassis designs such as SUVs and sedans, and can adapt to B+ to E-class sizes, and has a working range of 300 to 800+ kilometers.
new car brand "FOXTRON" is quite similar to Foxconn's English name "FOXCONN", while the "Model" product series "coincidence" with Tesla's Model series. Some commentators jokingly say that before Foxconn's new car was mass-produced, it already gave Tesla a headache. Because before that, Elon Musk hoped that all the models could be synthesized into a SEXY (sexy), but the Model E has been stolen now.
The speed of Foxconn's car manufacturing is amazing. You should know that if we count from the "Titan Plan" exposed in 2014, Apple has been building cars for 8 years, but no new car has been launched so far. News of Foxconn's car manufacturing began in October 2020, and three models were launched within one year. In addition, the courage to "compete for fame" with Tesla also shows Foxconn's full confidence.
So, where does Foxconn's car manufacturing speed far exceed Apple and its confidence in challenging Trass come from?
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for many years of planning, and the newcomer is a veteran
Confidence comes first from strength. Although Foxconn is a newcomer to cross-border car manufacturing, it has been in the automotive industry for 15 years.
public information shows that as early as 2005, Foxconn bought 100% of the equity of Taiwan's Antai Electric, one of Taiwan's four major automotive wiring harness factories at a high price, and officially involved in the manufacturing of automotive electronic products such as battery lines, audio and video transmission wiring harness, reversing radar and smart devices.
In 2010, Foxconn took over the order for Tesla's supply chain and became the main supplier of central control touch screens, connectors and lithium batteries.
In 2013, Foxconn became a supplier of luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, supplying automotive electronic equipment including in-car entertainment equipment and automotive electric machinery.
After winning the electronic product orders for many luxury cars, Foxconn was not satisfied with the role of spare parts suppliers, but actively planned to make plans in the field of vehicle manufacturing. In 2015, Foxconn joined hands with Harmony Automobile and Tencent to jointly establish a joint venture Harmony Futeng (the predecessor of Byton Automobile), and officially entered the new energy vehicle industry.
In 2016, Foxconn began to pay attention to opportunities in the surrounding areas of new energy vehicles and travel, and invested US$119.9 million in Didi Chuxing. Since then, Foxconn has invested in power battery unicorn CATL and new car-making power Xiaopeng Motors in 2017 and 2018 respectively to further improve its industrial layout.
In January 2020, Foxconn's parent company, Taiwan Hon Hai, announced that it will form a joint venture with Fiat Chrysler (FCA), one of the world's top ten automobile companies, to produce electric vehicles and engage in wireless connected automobile business.
It is worth mentioning that due to disputes between the founders and other issues, Foxconn withdrew its investment from Harmony Futeng in 2016, and Harmony Futeng was subsequently split into two companies, Byton Automobile and Aiways Automobile. Starting from the second half of 2020, Byton Automobile was temporarily suspended due to funding issues. At the critical moment, Foxconn announced that it would inject US$200 million into Byton Auto and provide it with manufacturing process, operation and management experience and industrial chain resources to jointly promote the mass production of Byton Auto's first model M-Byte.
However, there is no clear follow-up progress after the news is announced, whether it is a joint venture with Fiat Chrysler or a second hand with Byton Auto.
But Foxconn's determination to build cars was not shaken. In October 2020, the company officially announced that it would enter the electric vehicle manufacturing field, with the goal of seizing 10% of the electric vehicle market in five years. It took exactly one year to be the launch of three cars at this press conference.
However, although Foxconn has produced three products at once, vehicle manufacturing is not the first choice in its plan. It once stated that it would not build its own electric vehicle brand, and hopes to enter the automotive industry as a third-party platform.
It turns out that Foxconn once had an "Android dream", and making cars is only part of this dream.
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MIH platform, Foxconn's Android Dream
In recent years, with the continuous slowdown in the global consumer electronics growth rate, Foxconn has an urgent desire to transform, and the smart car industry with a capacity of ten trillion is undoubtedly its preferred track for its transformation. In addition, the successive cross-border car manufacturing of Internet companies, technology companies, especially mobile phone manufacturers has exacerbated Foxconn's anxiety. If Apple, Xiaomi and other customers go into operation, Foxconn naturally cannot wait any longer.
In order to copy its past advantages and experience to car manufacturing and avoid competing with old customers, Foxconn originally planned to enter the car manufacturing industry through OEM. In June 2019, Liu Yangwei said: "By 2025, 5% of global electric vehicles will adopt Foxconn's design, components, mechanical parts or software."
In order to achieve this goal, Foxconn first established a joint venture with Taiwan Yulon and officially launched its electric vehicle platform MIH in October 2020. According to the official statement, the MIH platform is mainly designed to target three major problems such as too high development costs, long development period and insufficient resources in the traditional automobile industry, and has the advantages of modularity, customization, and lightweight.
In addition, in order to give full play to the advantages of the MIH platform, Foxconn also drew on the experience of establishing an open mobile phone alliance on Android and established a MIH alliance. It is reported that the MIH Alliance currently has 1,982 members, distributed in 48 countries and regions around the world. Among them, CATL, BYD Electronics and others are all members of MIH.
Obviously, the positioning of the MIH platform is Android in the automotive industry, and Liu Yangwei also clearly stated at the fourth quarter of 2020 investment legal person briefing, "Foxconn will not build its own electric vehicle brand. It hopes to become Android in the electric vehicle industry, open source and open."
In addition, after the OEM development strategy was clarified, Foxconn further strengthened its investment in electric vehicle semiconductors and components, including CMOS image sensors, IGBTs and other fields, in order to further enhance the attractiveness of the platform MIH and enhance the closeness of the MIH alliance.
However, just like Baidu's Apollo, Foxconn's Android industry is also difficult. Few car companies in the market really cooperate with Foxconn in vehicle manufacturing, and even the rumored targets of Apple's car manufacturing are not included in Foxconn. This is not surprising. In fact, there is a huge difference between smartphones and electric vehicles. Whether it is the safety factor, the complexity of manufacturing processes, or the difficulty of supply chain management, both cannot be compared. Just imagine, how can any car company be assured to let a mobile phone OEM company produce cars?
In addition, in terms of the platform, Foxconn is also facing fierce competition from traditional car companies. Up to now, first-tier auto companies such as Volkswagen, Toyota, and BYD have developed their own pure electric platforms, and Geely Auto also plans to expand its OEM business through the SEA Haohanzhi platform. Compared with traditional car companies with rich experience in making cars, it is difficult for Foxconn MIH platform to gain an advantage.
Therefore, the MIH modular production platform, which Foxconn has high expectations, has not achieved the expected results. How to display and promote the MIH platform?
Build your own car is undoubtedly a high-efficiency method.
It is not difficult to see from here that Foxconn launched three cars at the press conference not only to create momentum for the promotion of new cars, but also to showcase its MIH platform's strength. The reason why Model E can complete the "integration project from product conception, appearance design, battery design, mechanism engineering, three-electric system, internal system, and control system" within one year is largely due to the MIH platform.
It is worth noting that the three new cars released by Foxconn are not concept cars, but "reference prototype cars". What is a "reference prototype car"? The official explanation is - "provided to brand customers as a manufacturing reference, and customers can make adjustments according to their own requirements in the future."
As early as at the 2021 China Automobile Chongqing Forum held in June this year, Foxconn MIH CEO Zheng Xiancong once said that the MIH platform can provide customers with three cooperation models: 100%, 80% and 50%. Among them, 100% of the cooperation means Foxconn to produce "official license plate cars"; 80% of the cooperation means Foxconn to provide all hardware (including appearance and chassis), and the software part is completed by partners; 50% of the cooperation means Foxconn can directly sell platform technology to customers.
In other words, Foxconn's three "reference prototype cars" are all reference versions provided by Foxconn to customers as reference versions of products. Customers can make further changes according to their own brand needs and then become mass-produced versions on the market.
Obviously, the "reference prototype car" has a deep meaning. While launching the "Foxtron" brand, Foxconn still does not forget to have a backup plan. What Foxconn shows is not only terminal products, but also semi-finished products that can be reprocessed. As long as there are car companies that need it, they can cooperate and produce their own brand of cars.
must teach people both fish and fish. Although Foxconn makes cars, its fundamental positioning is still the "Foxconn" of OEM.
