news

"in the next 10 years, there will be only 7 mainstream chinese auto brands left."

in late august, at the launch conference of xiaopeng mona m03, he xiaopeng, who has gradually mastered the essence of "lei studies", talked about his many opinions and predictions. when the opening sentence of the article appeared on the big screen behind him, it instantly sparked heated discussions.

"only 7 left? why 7? which 7 are they? will xiaopeng be among them?"

soon, questions came one after another. the tricky thing was that no one could give an immediate answer, not even he xiaopeng. all everyone could do seemed to be to give feedback in silence.

of course, another layer of meaning that can be extracted from this sentence points directly to what has been mentioned many times before: "compared to the past era of traditional fuel vehicles, which allowed small and beautiful brands to exist to a certain extent, the era of smart electric vehicles has arrived, and it will be more of a ruthless winner-takes-all. next, as the entire market continues to reshape, shuffle and eliminate, the ones left at the table will eventually be giants with huge size and terrifying strength."

so, what is the absolute bargaining chip that can keep the game going?

perhaps, some people think it is the cumulative sales volume that is improving; perhaps, some people think it is the effective product launch; perhaps, some people think it is the dazzling corporate halo...

yes, they are all right, and the above dimensions are indeed very important. but in my opinion, there is another key indicator that cannot be ignored - r&d investment.

after all, it’s still the same truth: when trying to stand out in the increasingly inward-looking era of smart electric vehicles, technology will always be the most effective moat, and r&d investment is the "energy" that provides support behind it.

it is precisely against this background that the list of china's top 500 enterprises in 2024 was officially released recently. what is particularly worth sharing is that the total r&d investment of all participants reached 1.81 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.89%, and the r&d intensity reached a historical high of 1.90%.

taking advantage of the situation, we further focus our attention on the top ten list. without too many surprises, huawei, which is currently focusing a large part of its energy on the smart electric vehicle track, firmly ranks first with an r&d investment of 164.7 billion yuan, and has achieved a terrifying gap-like lead. the gap between it and alibaba, which ranks second, is more than 100 billion yuan.

such a strong output is really shocking.

"other competitors are still catching up with huawei ads 2.0, but now hongmeng intelligent driving has upgraded to huawei ads 3.0, once again achieving a huge lead."

also this week, at huawei's extraordinary brand ceremony and hongmeng intelligent driving new product launch, its executive director, chairman of the terminal bg, and chairman of the intelligent automotive solutions burichard yudirectly released this paragraph.

although it was full of provocation, not much rebuttal was heard.

it must be admitted that huawei is not one of the first entrants in the high-end intelligent driving sector, but it has truly achieved the goal of being a latecomer. as for the fundamental reason, it is undoubtedly due to its terrifying r&d capabilities and efficiency, and the heavy investment of 164.7 billion yuan is the confidence behind it.

and next, huawei will certainly continue to demonstrate its dominance in various technological dimensions.

coincidentally, in the top ten list, it can be found that byd has climbed directly to the fourth place with an r&d investment of 39.575 billion yuan. it is also the only "car company" in the top ten.

in fact, as byd's annual new car sales officially exceeded 3 million last year, it has shown that it is unstoppable. and rationally and objectively speaking, the reason why this player, who has long regarded himself as the "global leader in new energy vehicles", has achieved such a good result is mainly due to its bottomless "technology pool", which provides the most suitable products for end consumers with different needs.

in other words, the investment of 40 billion yuan in real money had an immediate effect.

whether it is in the plug-in hybrid sector or the pure electric sector, including the intelligent sector that was previously criticized, byd has quickly demonstrated strong competitiveness.

at the same time, it is worth sharing that nearly 5,000 a-share listed companies have released their interim reports this year, and the r&d investment of each company has attracted much attention. in terms of absolute amount, there are four companies with more than 10 billion yuan, and byd still ranks first, reaching 20.177 billion yuan, a significant increase of 41.64% year-on-year, once again setting a new historical high.

what is the concept of 20.1 billion?

this is more than 6 billion higher than its net profit in the first half of the year. in addition, in a horizontal comparison, it is far higher than tesla's 16.1 billion yuan in the same period.

andwang chuanfuhe has repeatedly stressed that “byd’s characteristics are that technology is king, innovation is the foundation, r&d is the foundation of the enterprise, and r&d personnel are the core of the enterprise.”

in addition, it was also clearly stated that "the first half of new energy vehicles is electrification, and the second half is intelligence. intelligence is not just about smart cockpits and smart driving. the intelligence of the whole vehicle that integrates intelligence and electricity is the correct direction for the development of new energy vehicles."

from these two straightforward statements, one can clearly feel byd’s determination to “exchange real money for the future”.

according to rough statistics, its cumulative r&d investment has reached nearly 150 billion yuan so far. among them, the point that cannot be ignored is that in the 14 years from 2011 to now, byd's r&d investment has exceeded the net profit of the same year in 13 years, and sometimes even several times the net profit of the same period.

at this point, there is a high probability that some readers will think, "isn't the main theme of the article just to praise huawei and byd?"

as a rebuttal, "if you insist on thinking that, there is nothing i can do about it, but the deeper point i want to make is that in the future of the chinese auto market, it will be difficult to get on the table without money to invest in research and development."

smart electric vehicles are the new trend, and the situation is so cruel. as he xiaopeng predicted at the beginning, "in the next 10 years, there will be only 7 mainstream chinese auto brands left."

everyone knows which two they will be...