2030 joke

Foxconn has taken a radical step to make a comeback in the automotive field.

5438+1On the Enterprise Science and Technology Day in mid-October, Foxconn announced a number of ambitious electric vehicle plans in one breath, and put forward the specific goals of the five-year development plan. If the establishment of a joint venture with Fiat Chrysler (hereinafter referred to as FCA) at the beginning of the year is just a "small fight" in the wait-and-see stage, then Foxconn has gone through the preparation stage, and every piece that is about to fall in the chess game has a clearer idea.

"Promote the electric vehicle industry in Taiwan Province Province to the world."

This seemingly bloody slogan is the banner set by Liu Yangwei, chairman of Hon Hai Group, Foxconn's parent company, at the press conference. In 20 19, after he took over as the top leader, he initiated internal reforms and upgraded Foxconn to a "3+3" strategy, that is, actively cut into three emerging industries, namely electric vehicles, health care and robotics, and rushed to the beach for three emerging technologies, namely artificial intelligence, 5G and semiconductors. The electric vehicle vision released this time is in line with the latest layout.

According to Liu Yangwei, Foxconn will not produce complete vehicles or build its own brand of electric vehicles in the future, but between 2025 and 2027, they will provide parts or services for 65,438+00% of the world's electric vehicles.

This move is very firm and ambitious. It is reported that Foxconn has negotiated cooperation with a number of automobile manufacturers around the production chain in the field of electric vehicles. According to Liu Yangwei's own estimation, the global electric vehicle market is expected to reach 30 million in 2027, which means that at least 3 million new cars will be deeply branded by Foxconn every year.

"Dream of Building a Car", from Guo Taiming to Liu Yangwei

Foxconn is the world's largest assembler of consumer electronics products and the main assembler of Apple products. Most people's memory of the company may still be in the sweatshop mired in the whirlpool of public opinion, and the image of the head is still in the stage of founder Guo Taiming, but in fact, Foxconn has been taken over by Liu Yangwei and is trying to build a more diversified identity than the "Apple Assembly Plant".

In recent years, the company has frequently tested the field of water vehicles, trying to occupy a core position in the fast-growing electric vehicle market. Limited to pen and ink, we don't mention Foxconn's early marriage to BAIC to explore car rental and acquisition of Antai Electric in an attempt to nibble at the automotive electronics market. Many "rumors" that Foxconn frequently contacts Geely, Yulong and other automobile manufacturers to discuss the possibility of building cars together have been denied many times, and are omitted here.

It was first traced back to the infancy of the new car-making forces.

In 20 15, Foxconn joined hands with Tencent and Harmony Automobile to create a "harmonious and prosperous" and jointly invested 10 billion yuan at a ratio of 3: 3: 4. According to the strategic cooperation agreement signed at that time, Foxconn was responsible for the design and manufacture of electric vehicles, Harmony Automobile was responsible for the marketing and service network construction of automobile projects, and Tencent was responsible for the vehicle networking system and technology platform suppliers. As all three parties are leaders in their respective fields, news has become the focus of attention in the industry for a while.

At the stage when the new force of car-making is still incubating, Harmony Futeng attracted Dai Lei, former general manager of finidi, former CEO of Volvo China Sales Company, and Bi Fukang, the group vice president who led the BMW i8 project. Subsequently, Harmony Futeng Investment hatched two major automobile projects, namely FMC, which focuses on high-end electric vehicles. (full name future? Mobility? Corporation) and cars focusing on economical electric vehicles (Zhejiang Aiche Internet Smart Electric Vehicle Company).

However, halfway through, Foxconn repented.

Time returned to 20 16, and Fuqiang Aichi Yiwei was quietly established. The capital relationship between Aichi Yiwei and the car has not been thoroughly sorted out in the industry. The company's new energy vehicle project was officially signed in Shangrao. Although the investors behind the project are harmonious and prosperous, there is no representative of Foxconn at the signing ceremony. It is reported that Foxconn has made concessions and decided to part ways with the car-making project and no longer participate in the follow-up investment of car and FMC.

The following story must be known to many people. Some people say that Foxconn pulled back from the brink and smelled the risk of building a car in advance, so it is wise to return to the old OEM business; However, some people have criticized that this practice is tantamount to killing donkeys, leaving a mess, and letting the harmonious and prosperous houses caught in the debt crisis leak rain overnight. Recalling the rhetoric of the "iron triangle" in those days, it is inevitable to sigh.

Despite this, Foxconn does not give up on the huge cake of electric cars. In 20 18, when Harmony Futeng had almost disappeared, Hon Hai Precision, a subsidiary of Foxconn, injected 300 million yuan into the series B financing of Xpeng Motors. Only one year later, after the overseas restructuring of Spang Automobile, it was decided that the related party IDG would take over the equity of Foxconn to cooperate with the restructuring of Tucki. According to the official statement, Foxconn withdrew its stake in Tucki to avoid affecting the timetable and certainty of the latter's restructuring.

Returning to the public eye again is 2020.

On June 5438+ 10 this year, Japanese media broke the news for the first time that FCA plans to set up a joint venture with Foxconn, and the two sides will jointly develop and produce pure electric vehicles in China, and the possibility of export will not be ruled out in the future. Subsequently, the official WeChat platform of FCA China also confirmed the authenticity of the relevant information, and said that the joint venture company would develop and manufacture a new generation of pure electric vehicles in China and set foot in the car networking business.

Although the specific investment amount of this cooperation has not yet been determined, Foxconn will hold 50% of the shares of the joint venture company, while FCA will hold the remaining shares. At that time, Liu Yangwei revealed to foreign media such as Bloomberg that the company would assume the role of design, parts and supply chain management in the new joint venture company. According to his personal prediction, in the long run, the automobile business will account for 65,438+00% of the group's total sales.

One month after officially announcing the "marriage" with FCA, Foxconn said it would set up a joint venture with Taiwan Province Yulong Automobile and cooperate with another subsidiary of Yulong to develop electric vehicles. Foxconn may provide parts assembly services for this joint venture.

Be the "Android of Electric Vehicle Industry"

Pull the camera back to the present, how does Foxconn plan to play?

On the recent "Hon Hai Technology Day", Foxconn officially released the pure electric chassis platform MIH. As a planned open platform, MIH outlined the general outline of Foxconn's future electric chassis and automobile software and hardware forms. According to the information revealed by Foxconn, they must establish an open platform as soon as possible to produce key electric vehicle parts for automobile manufacturers, including batteries and car Internet services.

In a word, it has become Android in the electrified era.

Wei Lian, the current technical director of Foxconn, has developed a variety of core software for Apple. When introducing the new platform of MIH on Science and Technology Day, he said that the new project has three characteristics: "software definition", "soft and hard stratification" and "open ecology", which can help solve the short-term development pain points in the stage electrification era. In the future, the car will be continuously updated and upgraded through "software definition". Under the framework of "soft and hard stratification", the development cycle will be shortened, the efficiency will be improved, the entry threshold will be lowered through an open platform, and more partners will join in the development and innovation exploration of the electric vehicle industry.

According to the public information of PPT and foreign media, the new chassis platform can span B-class cars to E-class cars, supporting front-drive, rear-drive and four-wheel drive models. The battery capacity is temporarily divided into three grades: 93kWh, 100kWh and 1 16kWh. The front drive motor and the rear drive motor can also provide different power outputs through flexible collocation.

However, this does not seem to satisfy Foxconn's ambition.

They focused their attention on the panel. Liu Yangwei introduced that Foxconn also plans to launch commercial solid-state batteries by 2024, which may replace lithium-ion batteries commonly used in the field of electric vehicles.

From the development path of lithium battery technology, the energy density that lithium batteries can achieve is approaching the limit, while solid-state batteries can achieve faster charging speed, and can break through the current weight and cost bottlenecks of lithium batteries, better solve the security risks, and hopefully bring the development of lithium batteries into a new era.

Japan started early in the research and development of solid-state batteries. Toyota, the first company to enter the company, cooperated with Ilica in 2008, and in 20 19, it announced that it would cooperate with Panasonic to develop sulfide solid-state batteries. Although the prototype of solid-state battery has been launched, it is expected that the real commercial application for the market will be around 2025. In addition to the imperfect technical dimension, the high cost of solid-state batteries is also a big problem.

According to the data given by Toyota, the prototype of solid-state battery has obvious advantages over the existing lithium battery in charging speed, and it only takes 100 minutes for the power to reach 0 to 100%. In terms of battery life, Toyota plans to keep the performance of its solid-state batteries above 90% after 30 years of use.

Liu Yangwei said earlier this year that Foxconn is working hard to establish supply chains in China and the United States to diversify global investment.

Just last month, the company and Guo Ju Group (Yageo? Group) formally formed a "strategic alliance". Guo Ju will share its accumulated experience in electric vehicle parts for many years and its advantages in 5G technology and semiconductor packaging to help Foxconn's fledgling electric vehicle business.

Transformation is stressful, and swearing is easy to change?

Man Zhan always shouted the most dazzling malicious words at the door before entering the automobile industry. From LeTV to build a unified ecology, to real estate developers such as Baoneng to "build tens of billions of cars and create trillions of output values", major new forces have built tens of millions of electric vehicle production capacity. However, the loudest joke is that the malicious words don't fall to the ground.

Since Foxconn invested in Harmony Futeng and withdrew its equity in Tucki, it has been a deep participant in the last round of jokes. Obviously, it still refuses to give up this opportunity to throw malicious words.

Essentially, Hon Hai/Foxconn's difficulty in manufacturing automobiles, on the other hand, is the root of its ambition to get their hands on the automobile industry. It turns out that the motivation to release malicious words and the inducement to become jokes are actually two sides of the same coin-when the pressure of transformation comes, Foxconn cannot hold its original position and must expand into the automobile industry; The existing ills and the lack of automobile manufacturing foundation increase the risk of failure.

Up to now, about half of Hon Hai's sales come from Apple, but the profit margin of its smartphone manufacturing department has been shrinking in recent years. It is worth mentioning that although Foxconn relied on Apple's processing business, its sales once surpassed Huawei's, but its profit performance was generally low.

Especially after 20 16, due to the increasingly fierce competition of smart phones, the price war between brands has also intensified, and the profit contribution has continued to go against the wind. In 20 18, the company's consolidated net profit for the whole year was NT 129 billion yuan, down 7% year-on-year, and the transformation of growth mode and profitable business is imminent. In fiscal year 20 19, Foxconn's net profit fell by 1 1% to 165438+.

By 20 19, Hon Hai founder Guo Taiming resigned as chairman and Liu Yangwei took up his new post. After taking office, he put forward some suggestions at the group summary meeting in June of the same year, such as "reducing the business with sales gross profit margin below 10%", bluntly trying to reduce the dependence on OEM, indicating that the top management of the company has changed from heavy scale in the Guo Taiming era to heavy profit in the future.

In fact, Innolux, a panel subsidiary of Hon Hai in Taiwan Province Province, has taken the lead in shifting its business to the automotive field when the TV market is shrinking. Foxconn has tried many times to reform the electric vehicle business before, but these attempts were unsuccessful. It is reported that the company will take the severe epidemic in 2020 and COVID-19 as an opportunity to start more group-level resources in the electric vehicle business sector.

In 20 19, Hon Hai's sales in the field of auto parts were close to NT$ 9.5 billion. The company hopes that by 2025, automobile and other new businesses will help to increase the gross profit margin to 10%, and set the goal of reaching 1 trillion Taiwan dollars within five years.

Taiwan Province Polaris Institute (Polaris? Research? Liang, director of the institute, said that Foxconn's smartphone business has a low profit margin, so it has always wanted to enter a field with higher added value. Electric vehicle is a reasonable choice.

However, the important thing is to say it three times: How easy is the 10% electric vehicle market? Easy talk? Easy talk?

To be the Google Android in the car, there are actually many such enterprises, and most of them are extremely powerful, and they are all leaders and giants in their respective fields.

At the system supplier level, there are not only established automobile system suppliers such as Baidu, Google, Apple, but also the most popular Huawei HarmonyOS system, which is dying out with the advantage of 5G. In terms of power generation, the battery strength of Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. /LG is far superior to Foxconn's lithium battery technology (Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. holds 65,438+0% equity, and Foxconn is not allowed to control the competitive situation). As for IGBT, Infineon and Bosch overseas, CRRC and Starr at home have all set up technical barriers. UMC is in the leading position in the field of electronic control. Not to mention BYD, an all-round player who has both electric vehicle business and the most complete supply chain from battery motor electronic control to IGBT.

Second, the dispute between China and the United States affects Apple and Apple affects Foxconn. The U.S. government tried to suppress Huawei. On the one hand, the demand for interests made this hegemonic country try to block China's technology upgrading strategy in 2025. On the other hand, it also showed that American companies headed by Apple were weak in innovation and were afraid of losing to the rising stars in China. Then, China's countermeasures against the United States and its long-term catch-up in science and technology will inevitably have an impact on Apple's medium and long-term performance. So, what lofty ideals will Foxconn, which relies heavily on Apple, talk about?

Finally, neither the market of 10% nor the sales of 300,000 vehicles is an easy goal to achieve. In 20 19, the global total sales volume of electric vehicles was 2.3 million, and the brand with sales volume exceeding 300,000 and share of 10% was only Tesla, with 367,800 vehicles leading all car companies. BYD, the runner-up, has 229,500 vehicles, slightly lower than the share of 10%, while BAIC SAIC, which ranks third and fourth, has160,000 vehicles and137,700 vehicles respectively.

As electric vehicles move from the policy market to the normal market, the previous skyrocketing speed is no longer, and the global sales in 2030 may be lower than the high figure given at the beginning. If Foxconn wants to achieve this goal, it must monopolize Tesla-level technology supply, or at least win BAIC plus SAIC. However, nowadays, new energy suppliers, like automakers, are constantly emerging more powerful people, making Foxconn's ambitions more and more illusory.

Looking back at the past, Foxconn's "warlord scuffle" in the automobile field either ended in failure, or there was no substantive breakthrough in muddy water, or the road to "Lian Heng" integration was full of thunder and little rain.

The more vicious the words are, the funnier the joke is. Of course, Foxconn's lofty goal does not need the ridicule of fundamentalists, but most of the barbarians at the door have been attacked by industry rules. So what measures can Foxconn take now to avoid turning malicious words into jokes?

Text/North Shore

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This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.