360 Cooperates With Nezha To Build Cars For The People

On the afternoon of May 11, Zhou Hongyi, the founder and chairman of 360 group, dressed in his trademark red coat, chatted in the report hall of 360 building for more than two hours. Different from the topic of "safety" that he always talked about in the past, Zhou Hongyi changed his theme this time - making cars.

Since this year, Baidu, Xiaomi, Dajiang, oppo and other technology companies have entered the bureau one after another, promoting a "car making fever" sweeping the Internet industry. At this time, 360 also chose to join. But different from Baidu and Xiaomi, 360 has taken a shortcut. It will jointly build cars with auto companies through investment.

According to Zhou Hongyi's announcement, 360 has confirmed the d-round financing of Nezha automobile and will become the second largest shareholder of Nezha automobile. Next, 360 will also be deeply involved in Nezha's car making process.

For any Internet company, "car building" is a huge step forward. Why did 360 make this choice? Why did you choose Nezha? Zhou Hongyi has answered these questions one by one.

Internet car making is not only the main theme of the second half of the Internet industry, but also the inevitable mode and direction of future intelligent cars. IC photo

Domestic cars change lanes to overtake

In the past few years, news about car building has been around, and some former executives of 360 have left to build cars, but Zhou Hongyi has been indifferent to this. It was only after a recent study that he discovered that car building was indeed an opportunity for great world change.

Like Lei Jun, Zhou Hongyi first mentioned musk when he was talking about car making. However, the inspiration they got from musk was different. Zhou Hongyi said, "musk is a special communicator. When Tesla was at its lowest point, he told a story about how advanced the automatic chemical plant he built was that he had to sleep in the factory every day."

Listening to musk say these contents, Zhou Hongyi was also full of reverence for him at that time. However, when Zhou Hongyi began to pay attention to the automobile industry, especially after visiting more than a dozen automobile enterprises, he made new discoveries.

Zhou Hongyi said that at present, the use rate of robots in workshops of many new forces of car making in China has exceeded 80% or even 90%, and many of them have reached more than 95% of automation. Moreover, in the process of communication, people who make cars think that factory automation should be taken for granted, and there is nothing to say.

Zhou Hongyi was deeply touched by this. He realized that after decades of accumulation and learning, the manufacturing level of China's automobile industry has been very advanced. However, in terms of expression, the big men of domestic cars are not as good as musk can say.

In the middle of April, Zhou Hongyi strengthened his view after completing his first visit to the auto show. Zhou Hongyi's car is a Mercedes Benz Maybach, but he usually does not drive much, more as a passenger. After experiencing a lot of cars at the Shanghai auto show, he felt that in the past he always talked about how excellent the imported cars were, but now the manufacturing level of domestic cars can not be underestimated.

This shows that, from the perspective of industrial level, China's automobile manufacturing capacity is no longer backward, even in the international leading level. On this basis, Zhou Hongyi saw two great opportunities for the future of the automobile industry.

The first is the opportunity for new energy vehicles. In the era of fuel vehicles, there is a big gap between domestic cars and German, European, Japanese, Korean and American cars in terms of engine, gearbox and other core components. However, in the era of new energy vehicles, electric motors have replaced engines, which has eliminated the original gap and made it possible for China's automobile industry to change lanes and overtake.

Another opportunity is that the final direction of new energy vehicles must be software defined vehicles. This means that whether a car can do well in the future depends not only on the technology of the car itself, but also on the Internet technologies such as cloud computing, Internet of things, 5g, big data, etc. in this regard, China's Internet practice is far ahead of that of European and American countries.

Therefore, Zhou Hongyi believes that domestic smart cars not only have a huge development space in China, but also in the international market. Like today's mobile phone industry, Chinese enterprises will become subverters of the global automobile industry.

Why do technology enterprises rush in

For the automobile industry with huge market opportunities, Zhou Hongyi thinks that this is also an area that can not be missed in the second half of the Internet.

Why do you say that? He believes that China is facing the opportunity of the fourth industrial revolution, and the core of the fourth industrial revolution is digitization. The industrial Internet that every major enterprise is doing now is actually the digital transformation of the industry. In the field of industrial Internet, car making is the crown jewel of the manufacturing industry, and it will also become the pioneer of industrial digitalization.

As Internet companies born in the digital world, they have the most profound understanding of digitalization. For example, Weilai, ideality and Xiaopeng, the three new forces of car making, share a common feature: their founders were Internet entrepreneurs and Internet product managers.

In Zhou Hongyi's opinion, the reason why the three new forces of car making can develop so fast is that they are all Internet car makers. Therefore, "Internet car building is not only the main theme of the second half of the Internet industry, but also the inevitable mode and direction of future intelligent vehicles".

However, for the Internet companies are always flocking to a certain field, compared with the previous short video, live broadcast, and now the car, the outside world also has a lot of questioning voice.

In this regard, Zhou Hongyi put forward a more bold statement: "I think today's Internet car companies are not too many, but too few." He believes that if without the help of the Internet, the car manufacturing industry still follows the traditional idea of making cars, and only changes the engine into an electric motor and the fuel tank into a battery, then this can only be said to be an improvement rather than a subversive innovation.

In its view, at this time, Internet companies need to take out the products, technologies and user operation methods accumulated in the past to deeply integrate with the automobile industry. Moreover, if more Internet companies participate in car building, it will be a good thing for the development of China's automobile industry and the development of China's advanced manufacturing industry.

But will bubbles form in this process? Zhou Hongyi said, "we should believe in the power of the market. It doesn't matter if we rush in. In the end, the market will decide the winner. People who like to drink beer know that beer is full of foam, but beer without foam is not very good

"With the bubble, there will be huge market demand and impulse, and more companies, talents and funds will pour in, which will promote the rapid development of the industry. Just like if there was no original Internet bubble, there might not have been the rapid development of China's Internet in these two decades. " Zhou Hongyi further said.

Zhou Hongyi's "impulse"

Some time ago, Zhou Hongyi went to Changsha to visit Liang Wengen of Sany Heavy Industry. At that time, Liang Wengen told him that he had planned to retire, but later he did not plan to retire and decided to work for another 10 years. The reason why Liang Wengen, 65, decided not to retire is that he saw the development of big data, cloud computing and other technologies, which gave him a brand-new side to his lifelong heavy machinery.

Liang Wengen's attitude greatly touched Zhou Hongyi, 50. He said that he was one year younger than Lei Jun, and he should learn from them. As long as people are alive, they will keep tossing and turning. Therefore, Zhou Hongyi is not willing to stand idly by in the face of the huge opportunity of car building. In addition, from a personal point of view, Zhou Hongyi also thinks that making cars is a huge temptation for him. For a long time, Zhou Hongyi has two roles: one is software engineer, the other is product manager.

Zhou Hongyi said that from the age of 18 to 48, in his value evaluation system, he always thought that the best person was to be able to make new products for many people to use, and then influence people's life and work style through products, and then influence the world.

This idea has never changed in Zhou Hongyi's mind, so even after he realized the freedom of wealth, he still continued to make products. Now, facing the opportunity of digital transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, Zhou Hongyi also wants to become a product manager of smart cars, and integrate his years of accumulated experience with the car, and then see if everyone is willing to buy it.

In fact, in the process of Zhou Hongyi's thinking about making cars, Lei Jun also gave him great encouragement. One day, he chatted with Lei Jun, and Lei Jun also thought he was a product manager. He told Zhou Hongyi that car making is complex and complicated, involving many components, a long supply chain, and a very different manufacturing industry. However, it is also very simple to say that it is a product, which can be used as an Internet product, It is to see if it can be made into the best product at a certain price.

Lei Jun's words let Zhou Hongyi suddenly realize that "there are simple and complex products, but the concept is actually the same." However, after deciding to build a car, Zhou Hongyi did not choose to build his own car like Lei Jun, but chose to invest.

Zhou Hongyi said that after experiencing the failure of the mobile phone business, 360 has deeply realized that there are many professional foundations for hardware, and only with a good hardware foundation can the Internet technology play a role. Therefore, hardware is the body, software is the soul, the body without soul is a walking corpse, and without a good body, the soul alone can not move.

Zhou Hongyi also said frankly that 360 can't build a car by itself, so he chose to cooperate with the traditional automobile enterprise team, through gene recombination of both sides, to jointly build cars.

Join hands with Nezha

As for why he finally chose Nezha, Zhou Hongyi actually went through a series of screening. He said that there are more than 300 new car companies. Here, 360 first looks for start-up companies, because entrepreneurs have no way back, they are more subversive. The second is the sales volume. If the annual sales volume exceeds 10000 units, there are only 6 auto companies left.

Among them, Weilai, ideality and Xiaopeng have all been listed, and their understanding of the Internet is no worse than 360. Among the remaining options, Nezha car has become the most suitable target for 360.

Data show that Nezha automobile is a brand of Zhejiang Hezhong New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., which was established in October 2014 with a registered capital of 626 million yuan. In November 2018, Nezha's first model was launched on the market. So far, Nezha has launched three mass production models.

Qixinbao information shows that Nezha automobile has completed three rounds of financing before the formal investment of 360. The latest financing is in December 2020, Nezha automobile obtained the 2 billion yuan round C financing led by Huading capital.

Zhou Hongyi said that the two founders of Nezha automobile, one from BAIC and the other from Chery, have fully participated in the layout of large automobile enterprises in the field of new energy vehicles and have rich experience in car manufacturing. What's more, Nezha automobile has completed the initial user accumulation, and has produced more than 40000 vehicles.

Although Zhou Hongyi didn't disclose how much money he would invest this time, he said that money is needed to build cars. Therefore, 360 will not only help Nezha lead the round of financing in capital, but also help Nezha to connect with the capital market in the future, so as to alleviate Nezha's weak financing ability.

Besides money, 360 will also invest people, technology, products and user resources for Nezha. Zhou Hongyi told 21tech that in terms of product strategy, it will pay more attention to the positioning and even pricing of Nezha, and guide Nezha to build products with internet thinking.

In addition, in addition to investing in its own team, 360 will continue to invest and acquire teams in some industries that do autopilot and intelligent cockpit to integrate with Nezha team.

As a matter of fact, investment in Nezha automobile can also supplement the security business of 360 Internet of vehicles. Zhou Hongyi said that 360 will take Nezha as a sample to help it establish a safety system. After the safety system is established and verified, it will also be provided to other car companies.

Zhou Hongyi also stressed that the purpose of cooperation between 360 and automobile enterprises is to "help without adding chaos". After all, 360's old business is to do safety. Next, it will not use 360 brand to build cars, let alone use the main force to build cars. Therefore, in terms of the equity of Nezha automobile, 360 will maintain its status as a second shareholder and will not go further. If the major shareholder intends to withdraw in the future, 360 will also support the founding team to increase its holdings and become a major shareholder.

Although Zhou Hongyi is still a rookie in car building, some of the views he shares have shown the characteristics of Internet people. The concept of "equal rights in science and technology" he mentioned is actually to see the development of new energy vehicles from the perspective of consumers.

For example, in terms of driving performance, through motor and battery technology, the acceleration performance of new energy vehicles with a cost of 100000 yuan is no less than that of several hundred thousand luxury cars. Similarly, in terms of intelligent cockpit, a car with a price of 100000 yuan can also have the same screen as a car with a million yuan, and there is no gap in the contents.

Zhou Hongyi said that in the past 360 tools were used to "serve the people", but now it is to "build cars for the people". In the future, Nezha automobile will be positioned as a smart car with around 100000 yuan, so that users can afford it. At the same time, Nezha automobile will bring users the experience of the past hundreds of thousands of yuan of cars.

The curtain of Internet car building has been opened, and how far 360 can go still needs to be tested by the market. As Zhou Hongyi said, the companies that rush in now may not be able to make the last laugh, but as long as you put your accumulated technology and talents on the Internet into this industry, even if it is not successful, it will also contribute to the development of China's intelligent automobile industry.