On October 18, at Hon Hai Technology Day, Foxconn's pure electric vehicle brand Foxtron and three pure electric models officially debuted. All three new cars are prototypes, namely the pure electric SUV Model C, the pure electric sedan Model E and the electric bus Model T.

OEM giant Foxconn (Foxconn) released a pure electric vehicle brand, and specially selected the group founder Guo Taiming html's 271st birthday.

On October 18, Foxconn's pure electric vehicle brand Foxtron and three pure electric models officially debuted. All three new cars are prototypes, namely pure electric SUV Model C, pure electric sedan Model E and electric bus Model T.

According to the official introduction, the three models will be created by the joint venture "FOXTRON" established by Foxconn's parent company Hon Hai Group and Nazhijie's parent company Yulong Automobile . It can be said that it was independently designed and produced by Foxconn.

Foxconn’s goal is obvious, to become a major player in the global electric vehicle market. But the purpose of making cars may not be to join the competitive camp of the electric vehicle market, but to have other purposes, such as making four-wheeled iPhone .

"stunning" car manufacturing in silence

The current boom of new energy vehicles is very similar to the popularity of the smartphone market ten years ago. Although Foxconn is already at the forefront of consumer electronics OEM, it has obviously already smelled the business opportunities of electric vehicle OEM, and its ambitions are obvious.

Previously, Hon Hai has tried several times to enter the electric vehicle field. In 2015, Foxconn joined hands with Tencent and Harmony Auto to form the new car manufacturing company Byton and Aiways predecessor - Harmony Futeng; in 2018, Foxconn participated in the B round of financing of Xiaopeng Motors . But there was no result in both vehicle manufacturing and investment - Foxconn withdrew from Harmony Futeng a year later, and also transferred equity to Xiaopeng Motors' investment. After

, Foxconn decided to enter the automotive industry as a third-party platform. From a point of time, Foxconn made a wide-spread layout in many aspects in January 2021 alone.

On January 4 this year, Foxconn Technology Group , Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone and Byton Automobile signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. This move was once considered Byton's greatest hope for "resurrecting the dead".

Byton's car manufacturing business was close to shutdown in 2020, and the reason why Foxconn is willing to lend a helping hand at this time is unanimously believed that Byton's existing car manufacturing resources, including projected models, ready-made factories, and important production qualifications, are all valued by Foxconn, which is eager to enter the circle.

htmlOn November 13, Foxconn and Geely Holdings signed a cooperation agreement and established a joint venture to provide OEM production and customized consulting services for global automobile and travel companies, including but not limited to automobile complete vehicles, parts, intelligent control systems, automobile ecosystem and electric vehicle full industrial chain and full process.

At the same time, we also did not forget to introduce talents. On January 15, according to media reports, NIO co-founder and executive vice president Zheng Xiancong will join Foxconn’s parent company Hon Hai Group and serve as the company’s electric vehicle platform CEO. After taking office, Zheng Xiancong will be responsible for the planning of the MIH Alliance (electrical and automotive software and hardware development platform) and in charge of the hardware department and platform specification definition, while Wei Guozhang, the technical director of Hon Hai Technology Group, will be responsible for the operation of the MIH software platform.

"Since we can build iPhones, why can't we build electric cars? It's just a four-wheeled iPhone." Judging from the "car-making theory" widely circulated in the industry by Foxconn founder and former chairman Terry Gou, Foxconn's confidence in car manufacturing comes from past experience in consumer electronics OEM.

officially announced the construction of a car, and the intention of the drunkard is not to drink

At the press conference of Hon Hai Technology Day, Terry Gou said that electric vehicles are a global trend and are also the largest, most expensive smart electronic products in the world with four wheels. Hon Hai Foxconn can play a key role in electric vehicles.

Judging from several car manufacturing cooperation and press conferences, the "head" Gou, who has not appeared for a long time, has appeared at the launch site. At this brand press conference, Gou even drove the new car Model E directly into the venue. It can be seen how important car manufacturing is to Foxconn.

However, before launching the electric vehicle brand, the industry believed that Foxconn's goal was to be the leader in OEM in the new energy vehicle field, roughly the same as achieving OEM in the consumer electronics field. It seems otherwise now.

In October 2020, Hon Hai Chairman Liu Yangwei introduced in detail the idea of ​​Foxconn entering the car manufacturing industry. "Foxconn will not build its own electric vehicle brand. It hopes to become Android in the electric vehicle industry, open source and open."

Although the release of three prototype cars is easily considered a signal that Foxconn wants to build a complete vehicle, from the perspective of Foxconn's publicity, Foxconn's main purpose is to launch the electric vehicle platform MIH jointly released by Foxconn and Yulon.

At the press conference, Yulong Group CEO Yan Chen Lilian emphasized that Yulong Group's Luxgen and CMC independent brands will be the first customers of Honghua's advanced product platform. Model C Speaker Wang Liwei said, "The three models currently unveiled are reference prototypes, which are reference versions for customers when planning their own products. They can be modified according to customer needs in the future."

According to the official introduction, the software and hardware of the MIH electric vehicle platform will be open to other automobile companies in the future. Based on this platform, the OEM can choose chassis designs such as SUVs and sedans, and choose customized solutions such as wheel distance and battery size according to their own wishes. Some of the components can be OTA in the future.

Foun Hai’s goal is to provide complete solutions including spare parts, design, manufacturing, etc. For Foxconn, if you want to make "Android for electric vehicles", the MIH open platform is the biggest bargaining chip.

, everything is to get rid of Apple dependence?

Compared with the electronic OEM model, Foxconn's automobile OEM model is seeking upgrades and innovations, not just replications.

On the one hand, it is related to Hon Hai's pursuit of upgrading and transformation. In recent years, Terry Gou has been constantly trying to transform. The main direction of transformation is to shift from traditional OEM manufacturing companies for more than 30 years to industrial Internet, big data and artificial intelligence ization. Previously, Foxconn's transformation positioning was not clear. Now it seems that automobile OEM has been placed on one of the key points of transformation.

On the other hand, giving up the original comfort zone is also related to the OEM status of Foxconn in the past two years.

As the world's largest OEM manufacturer, Foxconn's largest customer is Apple , and the orders of Apple also have a great impact on Foxconn. Judging from the financial report released by Hon Hai in May last year, due to the interruption of production in the epidemic and the restriction of global smartphone demand, Foxconn's parent company, Hon Hai Precision, plummeted 90% in the first quarter of this year, the largest drop in history. The latest data shows that in the first half of this year, Foxconn's consolidated gross profit margin was 5.91%, while its largest customer, Apple, remained around 40% year-on-year.

is subject to Apple's orders, and the dilemma on the other hand lies in the rapid rise of its competitors, which has squeezed Foxconn's OEM share. For example, the rapidly growing agency Luxshare Precision has won orders for products such as iPad, MacBook, AppleWacth; BYD has undertaken OEM orders from a number of mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei , Xiaomi , and there are reports that BYD is also one of the OEM manufacturers of Apple-related products.

Although many OEM manufacturers cannot shake Foxconn's status in a short period of time, Foxconn obviously feels the pressure of being weakened.

. The popularity of electric vehicles has obviously brought Foxconn new OEM inspiration . release electric car brands and models directly demonstrate the ability to manufacture electric car , which can increase the bargaining chips for orders to win Apple car .On the other hand, the MIH EV platform is open to the public and technology upgrades. If you get more orders, you can get rid of Apple's dependence while getting rid of the mechanized "OEM" label.