Speaking of Foxconn , everyone must be familiar with it. As the leader of domestic OEM factories, it not only has a strong tone, but also has strong capabilities. By making a lot of money by doing OEM for , Apple , it can be called the "king" of OEM. However, in recent years, with the decrease in electronic product sales and the impact of labor costs and the epidemic, Foxconn's past brilliant record has also begun to decline.
At its most glorious moment, Foxconn once threatened that "the mainland cannot live without Foxconn, it is him who gives Chinese food to the Chinese" and looked down on the domestic market at all. At that time, Foxconn's revenue was 2.5 times that of Huawei , and was definitely one of the most profitable companies in China at that time. Founder Termine Gou also jointly laid the foundation for the foundry project in the United States with former US President Trump .
If you eat too much sweetness, you should suffer. Today's Foxconn has taken all the bonus of the times. Simple manufacturing and processing are completely unable to adapt to the development of the current society. The increase in manufacturing costs and automated production technology are all suppressing Foxconn.
So, Foxconn began to look for an opportunity to turn things around, and this opportunity was to build a car.
1. Foxconn really built the car
Recently, the chairman of Foxconn, 72-year-old Terry Gou, who has not appeared for a long time, personally drove a red Model B on the group's Hon Hai Sun on his birthday.
This Model B is not the first car built by Foxconn. Last year, Foxconn released two different models, Model C and Model V. In terms of name, these cars seem to be suspected of being a Tesla , Tesla , but these cars are indeed produced by Foxconn.
In fact, Foxconn's idea of building cars was not proposed recently. Many years ago, Foxconn founder and former chairman Terry Gou said at an internal meeting: " Apple car is just four-wheeled iPhone . Since we can build iPhone, why can't we build electric cars?"
so, in recent years, Foxconn really built the car.
The Model B, which was just unveiled this year, gave the best response to the market. From this model, Foxconn's car manufacturing level has also been demonstrated. The front face of
Model B adopts the popular through-type light strip design, and the middle position is occupied by a lit brand logo. At the same time, the new car adopts split headlights, and the internal shape of the light group is the same as the lower grille style, both of which are gradient dot matrix styles. Netizens' comments on this design style are mixed.
From the side, the overall design of the new car is easily reminiscent of Volkswagen's ID.3, , especially the dot matrix design behind the C-pillar, and the taste of reference is very obvious. However, what is eye-catching is that the new car also uses a camera exterior rearview mirror, but due to current regulations, this design should not be the final mass-produced version. At the same time, the new car also uses low-resistance rims and vents are also installed on the fenders to create a good sporty atmosphere.
The three previously released models, Model C, Model E and electric bus Model T, are also controversial because of their similarity to Tesla.
The first of the four models launched by Foxconn is the Model B, which was just released this year. Perhaps this is also a decision made due to the current market environment and its own R&D and manufacturing capabilities. After all, the main sales models of many new car-making forces are still low-end transportation vehicles, and hatchback cars are relatively difficult in the research and development and manufacturing process, and are faster to be introduced to the market. In addition, the advantages of relatively larger-sized models in terms of price are more obvious.
2. Why does Foxconn build cars?
First of all, we need to know that Foxconn is also a company, and the ultimate goal of a company is to make profits. Foxconn simply wants to make profits because he wants to make more money, so he chose to build a car.
There are so many industries that can make profits, why did Foxconn choose to build cars? The chairman of Foxconn said this: "Apple cars are just four-wheeled iPhones. Since we can build iPhones, why can't we build electric cars?" The
sentence is essentially not separated from Foxconn's main business. Foxconn used to do OEM for Apple mobile phones. If , Apple does not ask us to make mobile phones in the future, then we can also process cars for Apple. Therefore, Foxconn wants to build a real car to show its strength and explain to major brands: I, Foxconn, can build cars, and you can do it for us if you have orders in the future.
Of course, this is just a joke explanation. Foxconn chose to build cars because car manufacturing is a new business opportunity and will have great development in the future. This can be proved from the actions of these Internet manufacturers: Baidu , Xiaomi , Alibaba , and Huawei are all making cars, even DJI is going to build cars, and Apple has been researching its own new energy vehicle .
is then policy support. New energy is a major strategy for my country to overtake on the curve, and future development will inevitably be full support.
Of course, the main reason why Foxconn chose to build cars is its limited development.
In recent years, Foxconn's relationship with Apple has been much worse than before. In order to suppress Foxconn, Apple began to distribute orders to several other major OEM manufacturers such as Heshuo, Luxshare Precision , Wistron , etc., and continuously supports other OEM manufacturers to grow.
On the other hand, smartphone sales fell, Apple could not sell itself, and Foxconn made less and less money. Although Foxconn delivered a report card with an increase of 8% in revenue and net profit in the first half of this year, its performance growth mainly comes from cloud network products and computer terminal products.
So Foxconn had to find new profit points to balance revenue and expenditure.
3. Car manufacturing also requires "hardness by itself"
Foxconn has not received any large orders since the announcement of car manufacturing, and it has nothing to do with its iron partners. This can't help but arouse everyone's doubts, why Foxconn also has funds, manpower, and factories, but it still has not developed into its previous glorious status.
The reason is actually that Foxconn still does not have core technology. Foxconn’s so-called accumulation in the automotive industry is just manufacturing, investment and acquisition, and has no contact with the technical level of car manufacturing at all.
Foxconn also made central control touch screens and connectors for Tesla, and made BMW , and also entertainment and electronic devices in the car. To put it bluntly, this is still the old business I did before - assembling digital products, but the scene has changed from a mobile phone to a car.
Even when my new car was released, the technology was used hastily and without any detailed description. The appearance of its newly released Model B is too similar to that of Volkswagen , and its performances such as acceleration from 100 kilometers and pure electric range are not highlighted in its peers.
Even the name is imitated by Tesla. Liu Yangwei even said bluntly: "Foxconn and Tesla are not competitors. I hope they can help Tesla build cars one day." But Tesla has its own car manufacturing factory, so it will still not be able to use Foxconn for a while.
. When Apple Auto was looking for partners, it did not choose Foxconn as its old friend, but instead turned its attention to vehicle manufacturers such as Hyundai and Toyota . Moreover, the domestic NIO car manufacturing is also a traditional car company like JAC , and did not choose Foxconn.
In terms of car manufacturing technology, Foxconn seems to be not that concerned. After Foxconn announced its car manufacturing, it did not invest much in the car manufacturing field. Some people roughly calculated that Foxconn has spent more than 5 billion yuan on car manufacturing, but has spent 47.6 billion yuan on wealth management products. With a car manufacturing attitude like
, it is natural that it cannot get an order.
Conclusion
Although the car was built, Foxconn still has a long way to go.A blacksmith must be strong by itself. If Foxconn cannot break through the technical barriers, then its road to building cars will be full of thorns.
