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On June 1, at the media communication meeting held by Baidu and Geely Joint Venture Intelligent Automobile Company, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu Automobile, said: Jidu Automobile will debut a concept production car at Beijing Auto Show in 2022. At present, the appearance and interior design of the vehicle have been basically determined, and it is preliminarily expected that it can accept reservation next year. Due to the high cost of intelligent part, the price of new car will not be less than 200,000 yuan.

It is understood that the new car will be equipped with Baidu Apollo autonomous driving technology and Geely SEA vast intelligent architecture. At the same time, the first car of Jidu will be developed and produced with the help of Geely. Jidu Automobile will carry out product positioning. In terms of channel, Jidu Automobile will adopt the mode of self-built channel.

As for whether there is competition for new cars, Xia Yiping said that there is no competition for the first car of the collection degree. Although there are many companies making electric vehicles, the collection degree is mainly differentiated. At present, in terms of L2 and L2+ automatic driving, each car company is still relatively similar. However, there may be more differences in higher-level autonomous driving, which will be the core competitiveness of the future of concentrated vehicles.

From the formal establishment of Jidu Automobile Joint Venture Company to enter the automobile industry as a vehicle manufacturer, Baidu's road to build cars lasted three months. On January 11 this year, Baidu officially announced that it would enter the automotive industry as a vehicle manufacturer. On March 2, Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd.(hereinafter referred to as Jidu Automobile), a joint venture company established by Baidu and Geely, was established with Xia Yiping as its legal representative.

The registered capital of Jidu Automobile is RMB 2 billion Yuan, and its business scope includes: technical service, technology development, technical consultation, technology exchange, technology transfer and technology promotion of new energy vehicles and related parts; manufacturing of automobile parts and accessories; sales of new energy vehicles; wholesale of automobile spare parts, etc. The company is jointly controlled by Baidu's Dazi County Bairuixiang Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd. and Geely Holding Company Shanghai Huapu Automobile Co., Ltd. The shareholders are Darzi County Bairuixiang Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd.(55% shareholding ratio) and Shanghai Huapu Automobile Co., Ltd.(45% shareholding ratio). The former is 100% owned by Baidu, while the latter is an affiliated subsidiary of Geely Holdings.

Although Baidu is an Internet company, it started research and development in the field of autonomous driving as early as 2013, established Apollo, an autonomous driving business, in 2017, and cooperated with many domestic automobile enterprises to promote the testing of autonomous driving. According to Baidu's latest earnings report, Baidu's core non-marketing revenue last year was 12.4 billion yuan, up 28% year-on-year; non-advertising revenue in the fourth quarter reached 4.2 billion yuan, up 52% year-on-year, and intelligent driving-related business may have become one of Baidu's biggest sources of benefit.

It is worth noting that car-building is an industry that needs to continue to "burn money", and capital is an important part of supporting the operation of a car-building enterprise. According to Xia Yiping, Jidu Automobile will soon carry out a new round of financing, and will launch an external financing in the third quarter or fourth quarter of this year. Baidu cross-border car-building may inject new development possibilities into the automobile industry, but it still faces great challenges to really establish itself in the field of car-building.

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