Is the era of singles in auto companies ending?

Multinational car companies are actively laying out, car companies and car companies decided to in-depth cooperation in the development of new technologies in order to catch up with other competitors.

Since June, several consecutive days, the cooperation between various car companies has been frequent.

On June 20, Volkswagen Group and Ford Motor Co. announced that they have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore a strategic alliance to further enhance the competitiveness of both companies and better serve global consumers.

The two companies are exploring possible cooperation projects in various fields, including the joint development of a series of commercial vehicle products to better meet changing consumer demand. Future strategic cooperation alliances will not involve changes in shareholding structure including cross-shareholdings.

Jim Forley, president of Ford Motor Company’s global market, said: “Ford is committed to operating a business more healthily by leveraging a variety of suitable business models, including working with partners to improve the operational efficiency of the business. The potential cooperation with Volkswagen Group's strategic alliance will effectively prove how we can expand our business capabilities by building a series of successful global products to achieve a more healthy business operation. We look forward to the future for a period of time with the public. The automotive team will work together to discuss how the two parties will work together to better meet the needs of changing commercial vehicle users and more potential cooperation projects."

Thomas Sedran, head of strategy at Volkswagen Group, said, “The global market and consumer demand are rapidly changing. Both companies have strong and complementary advantages in multiple segments of the commercial vehicle market. In order to better adapt to changing In a challenging market environment, it is extremely important to increase business agility through strategic alliances, which is also a core component of the Volkswagen Group's strategy for 2025. The potential cooperation with Ford Motor will be global for both companies. Enhancing competitiveness brings important opportunities."

It is reported that the two companies will follow the progress of the consultation and publish the details of the strategic alliance in due course.

After Volkswagen announced the joint Ford Motor Vehicles, today (June 21st), it was reported that GM and several companies signed the "Transportation Electrification Agreement" in the United States, including Honda, Siemens and other companies, BYD. The agreement aims to call on relevant industries, including car companies, to work together towards the goal of transforming the electrification of automobiles and transportation.

It is worth mentioning that BYD is the only Chinese company that signed the agreement.

This document, known as the "Transportation Electrification Agreement," aims to call for all relevant industries to work together to achieve the goal of electrification of automobiles and transportation.

In addition to GM, Honda, BYD, Proterra, and other companies, Siemens, PG&E, Commonwealth Edison, and National Grid have also promoted grid expansion and charging infrastructure construction. In addition, some public welfare organizations in the United States also signed the agreement.

It is understood that the agreement also invites other organizations or companies to join in. The project also includes the construction of charging infrastructure, the development of intelligent service systems, and encourages the use of open standard development models to accelerate the promotion and application of the system.

In GM's view, with the advancing of the automotive electrification process, each car company has released a new energy strategy, but it is impossible to fully realize the electrification of automobiles by relying on the individual car companies alone.

Just a week ago, General Motors announced that it had established a new partnership with Honda. The two companies plan to work together to develop a new generation of electric vehicle power batteries with lower development cost and better performance.

The new generation of battery modules, including batteries and modules, will be developed in tandem with GM's technology center in Warren, Michigan, USA, and Honda's R&D center in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

In a joint statement, the two companies stated that they "plan to develop "new advanced chemical battery components, including batteries and modules, to accelerate the deployment of both parties in the field of electric vehicles."

General Motors and Honda said in a joint statement, "As part of the partnership, Honda will purchase a battery module based on General Motors' next-generation car battery system. This is the second time that GM has established a hydrogen fuel cell joint venture with Honda. We hope to reduce battery costs and accelerate the promotion of electric vehicles."

According to the statement, "The new generation of batteries will have higher energy density, smaller package size, and faster charging capability."

The new generation of batteries will be part of the new electric vehicle architecture that GM will launch in 2021 and will be launched on the market.

General Motors CEO Mary Bola emphasized that "electric vehicles based on this new architecture will be profitable by then."

Mark Roize, executive vice president of global product development, procurement and supply chain at General Motors, said: "This new agreement with Honda further proves that GM has the ability to build profitable power battery products. GM has for decades Electrification experience, strategic investments in the electric vehicle sector and the commitment of our partner Honda to improve product performance will bring better electric vehicle solutions to customers and further advance the realization of a zero-emissions vision.”

In early June, foreign media reported that Toyota Motor Corporation, the world’s second-largest automaker, and Suzuki Motor Corporation, Japan’s fourth-largest automaker, have agreed on a new cooperation project in the Indian market concerning technology research and development, vehicle production, and market expansion. open discussion.

The two parties agreed to share the infrastructure in the Indian market to enhance the synergies in the development process. According to the new cooperation agreement signed, the two companies will jointly confirm the cooperation details in the future, including: a set of compact and ultra high for Suzuki's R&D. The efficiency power system, Japan Denso and Toyota will provide technical support to the former.

Suzuki Suzuki, Chairman of Suzuki, stated that "To promote the cooperation and negotiation between the two sides, Toyota has arranged a series of intensive and meaningful discussions. In the future, Suzuki will develop a compact, ultra-efficient powertrain that will receive Toyota's support. It is crucial for Suzuki. We will also focus our attention on this work. I hope the new cooperation project between Toyota and Suzuki will create benefits for the two companies. The benefits are not limited to India, but should be It is a broader global market."

Within a few days, frequent cooperation between car companies and car companies has been frequent, and it is very rare in past history.

If we look at the overall picture, the cooperation between Volkswagen and Ford, the cooperation between GM and Honda, and BYD, and the cooperation between Toyota and Suzuki will all become core parts of its strategy for the future.

In September 2017, Mary Barra preached a blueprint for GM’s future personal travel in Shanghai. By 2025, all models in China will be electrified.

Mary Bola pointed out that in the global strategy of GM, electrification is in an important position. By 2025, all models of the Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac brands will adopt different degrees of electrification technology, bringing lighter to pure electric power to the market. Complete solution.

In November 2017, BYD Executive Board Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu announced BYD’s future development goals and reform ideas at the BYD executive meeting. In the future, BYD will develop into a hundred-year-old shop. Around 2025, it will have to achieve an overall scale of RMB 1 trillion in revenue. In addition to carrying out a large-scale internal organizational reform, BYD will continue to implement the “7+4” market-wide strategy for new energy vehicles.

According to Zhao Changjiang, general manager of BYD Auto Sales Co., Ltd., with the launch of Song MAX this year, BYD will usher in the full iteration of the dynasty models in 2018.

In November, Volkswagen Group (China) announced its 2025 electric vehicle strategy during the Guangzhou Auto Show.

This electric vehicle development strategy, Volkswagen plans to provide 1.5 million new energy vehicles to Chinese consumers by 2025. In the next two to three years, Volkswagen will launch about 15 locally produced new energy vehicles.

From 2020 to 2025, Volkswagen Group (China) will produce more than 20 new energy vehicles locally, and in the next 7 to 8 years, it will launch a total of nearly 40 new energy vehicles that are locally produced.

At the same time, in order to meet the huge demand for battery capacity, the Volkswagen Group has launched a bidding process to establish a long-term strategic partnership including the Chinese market. By 2025, Volkswagen Group (China) will partner with joint venture partners Direct investment in the field of travel exceeded 10 billion euros.

In a few days (December 5th), Ford released the "China 2025 Plan", demonstrating Ford's determination to further expand the Chinese market.

Ford will introduce over 50 new products by 2025, including 8 new SUV models, at least 15 Ford and Lincoln brand electric models, and plans to start production of five new models in China, including Lincoln, starting in 2019 The brand's luxury SUV.

By the end of 2019, 100% of the Ford and Lincoln models sold in China had achieved 100% smart connectivity, accelerated the development of autonomous driving, and partnered with Baidu Apollo to develop autonomous driving technology to achieve true autopilot. In addition, Ford will invest US$4.5 billion in the development of pure electric vehicles. It is planned that before 2025, every model produced by Changan Ford will provide the corresponding electric models, and the powertrain will be realized by 2020. Local production.

Through this period of rapid growth, Ford hopes to achieve 50% growth in revenue by 2025.

Honda has a late launch in the field of pure electric vehicles. The electric vehicle business unit was established in the second half of 2016. In 2017, Honda established a grand electric vehicle target. By 2030, two-thirds of global sales will come from electrified vehicles, covering oil. Electric hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

After the new energy strategy is released, achieving the strategy will be significantly more important, and cooperation will be the best way.

In China, a number of strong support measures have been introduced for the new energy automotive industry. The development of new energy industry has been on the fast track as consumers continue to purchase new energy vehicles and continue to exempt purchase tax, implement double-point management, car shakes, and new-energy vehicles free parking fees and tolls in some places. .

On the one hand, it is strongly promoted by policies. On the other hand, subsidies are gradually adjusted.

However, after the new subsidy policy for new energy vehicles was formally implemented on June 12, according to plans previously announced by the Ministry of Finance and other four departments, subsidy for 150-300 km models of electric vehicles for pure electric vehicles was reduced by approximately 20%-50%. And so on, models less than 150 kilometers in length will no longer enjoy subsidies.

Some experts said that this also means that a large number of state-funded pure electric vehicle companies will receive a substantial reduction in the amount of state subsidies.

It can be said that the implementation of the New Deal will effectively avoid the blind expansion of the industry's low level, and eventually the new energy auto companies without technical content will be eliminated.

The relevant person in charge of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers once stated that “the new subsidy policy may temporarily affect the sales growth of new energy vehicles, but overall it is conducive to the upgrading of new energy vehicle products and high-end technology, and promote China’s new energy vehicles. The sound development of the industry."

In addition, the view that transportation has changed from reliance on petrochemical fuels to electricity, such as more sustainable use of energy, has been repeatedly questioned.

GM decided to sign agreements with Honda, BYD, and other companies to jointly solve various problems in the electrification of automobiles and transportation.

Some analysts said, "From the current point of view, the prospects of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is not very clear, the market capacity is still very small, in the moment can not compete with pure electric vehicles."

International market analysis agency IHS Markit predicts that the global electric vehicle market will usher in explosive growth in the next 10 years.

By 2030, the annual sales of electric vehicles will reach 8.5 million.

Considering the high selling price of fuel cell vehicles and the scarcity of infrastructure such as hydrogen refueling stations, the global hydrogen fuel cell vehicle market may have just over 100,000 cars in 2030.

At present, all major regions in the world are vigorously promoting the development of pure electric vehicles, and pure electric power is already recognized as the mainstream technology route of the global automotive industry.

At present, multinational car companies are actively laying out, and car companies and car companies have decided to in-depth cooperation in the development of new technologies in order to catch up with other competitors.