AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/26 Report--

On January 26, smart car brand Jidu announced that it had completed nearly $400 million in round A financing, which was jointly increased by Baidu and Geely. After the financing is completed, Jidu will continue to speed up the process of research and development and mass production. the first car robot concept car will be launched at the Beijing Auto Show in April this year, and the mass production model will be launched in 2023.

On January 11, 2021, Baidu and Geely Holdings announced that they would form a smart car company. Baidu said that the newly formed Baidu Automobile Company will target the passenger car market, and Baidu will enter the automobile industry as a vehicle manufacturer, allowing users to buy more advanced smart electric vehicles.

On March 2, 2021, Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd. was officially established with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan. The scope of business includes technical services, technical development, technical consultation, technology exchange, technology transfer, technology promotion, and auto parts and accessories manufacturing of new energy vehicles and related parts. The equity penetration map shows that Jidu Automobile Co., Ltd. is jointly owned by Shanghai Huapu Automobile Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of Geely holding Group) and Dazi County Bairuixiang Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of Baidu Netcom Technology). The former holds 45% of the shares, while the latter holds 55% of the shares.

On June 1, 2021, at a media communication meeting held by Jidu Automobile, a joint venture intelligent car company between Baidu and Geely, Jidu Automobile CEO Xia Yiping said, "Jidu Automobile will unveil a concept production car at the 2022 Beijing Auto Show. The appearance and interior design of the vehicle have been basically determined. It is initially expected that pre-orders will be accepted next year. Due to the high cost of the intelligent part, the price of the new car will be no less than 200000 yuan." It is understood that the new car will be equipped with Baidu Apollo self-driving technology and Geely SEA vast intelligent architecture. At the same time, Jidu's first car will be developed and produced by Geely, Jidu Automobile will carry out product positioning, and Jidu Automobile will adopt the mode of self-built channel.

Although Baidu is an Internet company, it first started research and development in the field of self-driving as early as 2013, set up Apollo Apollo in 2017, and worked with a number of domestic car companies to promote self-driving tests. According to Baidu's third-quarter results, Baidu Group achieved 91.41 billion yuan in operating income and 8.511 billion yuan in net profit in the first three quarters of 2021, while smart driving-related businesses may have become one of Baidu's biggest sources of benefits.

Not long ago, some details of the Jidu car brand LOGO and its first car were exposed. As a car brand dominated by technology companies, Jidu Automobile's brand LOGO is full of futurity, using a combination of the initials "J" similar to pixel style and concentration. In addition, spy photos of the first model have been exposed, with a large, slender body that feels like a cross-border SUV, and a raised roof that is expected to carry lidar. According to previous official news, the first model, which is aimed at young consumers, will sell for more than 200000 and have L4 self-driving capabilities.

Over the past year or so, the rise of the new energy vehicle market and favorable policies have promoted the development of the new energy vehicle market, and the capital market has been heating up to new energy enterprises, including Lailai, Xiaopeng, ideal and other car companies. It is precisely under this kind of tuyere that more and more industry giants begin to enter the automotive industry, except Baidu. It also includes Xiaomi, Foxconn, Alibaba, Huawei, Tour car, Stone Technology and so on.

On March 31, 2021, Xiaomi Group announced that it would build a car with an investment of US $10 billion in the next 10 years and 10 billion yuan in the first phase. The first car will be mass produced in 2024. However, Xiaomi Automobile is a "wholly-owned form", the establishment of a wholly-owned subsidiary of intelligent electric vehicles, which also means that Xiaomi Motor Company belongs to the extremely heavy model, while Jidu Automobile is different. Although Jidu Automobile is currently owned by Baidu and Geely, Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu Automobile, said, "We are not a joint venture company, and then we will raise funds socially." According to Xia Yiping, Jidu Automobile will invest 50 billion yuan ($7.7 billion) in smart cars in the next five years. This amount of money is not a small amount, at least on the same scale as Xiaomi's investment, while social fund-raising means that Jidu Motor will be more free and objective in terms of capital.

However, for car building, money is only the first step. With the changes in the automobile market in the past year, more and more enterprises have planned to build cars. These new cross-border enterprises are as confident as the new power car companies a few years ago, but with the narrowing of the new energy car track, who can gain a foothold under such a tight encirclement?

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