Established’Baidu Motors’ through joint venture with Geely Motors Alibaba also entered directly
Chinese and foreign companies in the U.S. Tesla run’spring and fall nation’ over the future market
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(Shanghai = Yonhap News) Correspondent Cha Dae-woon = Baidu, one of China’s large technology companies, has entered the electric vehicle business in earnest.
Baidu made a statement on the 11th and officially declared its entry into the electric vehicle business.
Baidu announced its ambition to become an innovator in the smart car era by using artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous driving technology accumulated by the company, saying that it will establish’Baidu Motors’ in cooperation with Chinese automaker Geely.
However, Baidu did not specifically disclose the proportion of the joint venture’s shares in this statement.
Foreign media such as Reuters recently reported that Baidu will join hands with Geely to enter the electric vehicle business, and said that Baidu will have absolute voting rights as the major shareholder of the new company.
Since 2017, Baidu has been intensively developing autonomous vehicle technology under the name’Apollo’.
In the past, Baidu specialized in developing autonomous driving technology that can be commonly sold to several finished product companies, but this time it changed its strategy to make a car.
Recently, large Chinese technology companies are jumping into the electric vehicle business one after another, which is emerging as a promising industry.
Prior to Baidu, Alibaba established Ziji Motors, a smart electric vehicle manufacturer, together with Shanghai Motor Company and the government of Shanghai’s Pudong New District.
Alibaba has been making financial investments as the second shareholder of Xpeng, one of China’s three electric car startups, but this time it has become a player and jumped into the fierce electric car market.
China’s electric vehicle market, which is the largest in the world, is expected to grow further thanks to the government’s active promotion policy.
The Chinese government announced last month’s’Eco-friendly car industry development plan’, suggesting an aggressive goal of raising the proportion of eco-friendly car sales in the country to 20% in 2025.
There were about 1.2 million eco-friendly vehicles such as electric vehicles (including plug-in hybrid vehicles) sold in China in 2019, but it is estimated that by 2025 it will increase by more than five times to more than 6 million.
However, as the market grows, competition in the Chinese electric vehicle market is increasingly fierce.
While BYD, the No. 1 market capitalist in the Chinese auto industry, has already established itself as a large-scale electric vehicle manufacturer, traditional automobile manufacturers such as Shanghai and Guangzhou are also pouring out electric vehicles with market competitiveness.
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Tesla, an American company, has maintained the dominant number of sales in the electric sedan field with the Model 3 produced in Shanghai starting from 2020. ) They are poised to dominate the market.
In addition, Wei Lai (蔚來·Nio), Xiaofeng, and Li Xiang (理想·Li Auto), the three electric car start-up companies called the’Chinese version of Tesla’, are also aiming to expand their market share by gradually expanding the scale of mass production.
Among these, Weilai, which is considered to be the strongest among the three electric car start-ups in China, released its first sedan, ET7, over the weekend from the existing flagship SUV. Weilai explained that in the case of an extended version model equipped with a 150kWh battery pack, the world’s longest level of 1,000km can be reached with a single charge.
In addition, traditional European luxury cars such as Mercedes and Korean-Japanese car makers such as Hyundai and Toyota are actively putting in their electric car models and are striving to secure a presence in the Chinese electric car market, so the Chinese electric car market does not know who will be the final winner. It is an evaluation that we have reached the Warring States era.
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2021/01/11 15:39 sent