Chapter 1631 [Apple announces withdrawal from car manufacturing project]
Xincheng.
Fang Hong returned to Xincheng at 17:30 in the afternoon after his trip.
He was quite satisfied with the feedback he received from the many projects of the "Lanxing Jiutian" project. He spent so much money and it didn't go to waste. He just had to wait for the news.
If nothing unexpected happens, the Mars exploration mission will achieve a breakthrough this year. If he is lucky, there may be major discoveries.
In particular, if it is confirmed that microorganisms or even fossils of more than 3 billion years old are found on Mars, it will definitely be a major historical discovery, and it will also bring unprecedented shock and impact to the worldview and values of mankind.
Fang Hong just came back from an investigation, and Tian Jiayi brought him some quite unexpected news.
"Just today, Xiaomi announced its car-making plan and officially entered the new energy vehicle market." Tian Jiayi told Fang Hong, and then added: "At the same time, the founder of Xiaomi said on his personal Weibo that this is the last time he will start a business in his life, and he is willing to bet all his remaining money to fight for Xiaomi Auto. The news has also been on the Internet hot search."
Fang Hong was not surprised to hear this news. Lei Jun's joining the ranks of new car-making forces was something he had expected.
Fang Hong was not surprised by the news that Xiaomi was going to build cars, but the second news that Tian Jiayi said next surprised him slightly: "Just as the news of Xiaomi's announcement of building cars came out, the heat was snatched away by a piece of news related to Apple before it lasted for two hours."
Tian Jiayi continued: "According to foreign media reports citing Apple insiders, Apple announced that it would stop the electric car project. The company's chief operating officer and its car project leader told employees that Apple's car project will be gradually ended, and some employees in the team will be transferred to the company's artificial intelligence department. The AI project has become Apple's priority for the next step of development."
Team employees were transferred to the AI department, but layoffs were not ruled out.
Apple's decision surprised and caught the 2,000 employees of the car-making project off guard.
When Apple announced its entry into the car-making field in 2013, it began to develop electric vehicles. Its initial ambition was to build a L5-level fully autonomous luxury car and named it the "Titan Project". It then began to poach people in a high-profile manner, and engineers from power testing and hybrid electric systems from Tesla, Ford and other companies were poached by Apple.
What surprised Fang Hong was that Apple announced this decision three or four years earlier than in his previous life, but it was both unexpected and reasonable.
Fang Hong smiled and said, "Stop losses as soon as possible, and you can be considered self-aware."
Fang Hong estimated that these three factors should be the reason for Apple's decision to give up car manufacturing.
First, over the years, Apple's "Titan" project has been repeatedly frustrated, and the person in charge has changed one after another, and billions of dollars have been invested, but the progress has never been smooth. The management also has huge differences on the goal of autonomous driving. Apple wants to do unmanned driving, but there are huge obstacles in both technology and policy.
Second, Xingyu Technology's huge investment in the field of new energy vehicles really scared Apple, giving the term "bottomless pit" a clear numerical understanding. Xingyu Technology's total investment in this field has exceeded 2 trillion yuan to achieve today's results. 2 trillion yuan is equivalent to 315 billion US dollars at the current exchange rate. The billions of dollars invested by Apple in recent years are just a fraction of it, and are not enough.
Third, Xingyu Technology has been very successful in this field, beating a series of peer competitors without any resistance. Apple can see it and tremble, especially when it thinks of competing directly with Xingyu Technology and sees the figure of 315 billion US dollars invested by Xingyu Technology. In theory, Apple will have to spend so much money to compete with it. Whether in the eyes of Apple executives or shareholders, this number is hairy. If it loses, it will be a 100% loss. What's more, Apple is not like Fang Hong's previous life. Even if Apple is sold, it can't get so much money.
Obviously, Apple has no confidence to compete directly with Xingyu Technology. Based on these three factors, it is concluded that cutting the car-making project is the most ideal decision.
Xingyu Technology's great success and crazy investment scale are due to Fang Hong's huge support and trust behind the scenes, especially the unremitting financial transfusion.
If there is no support from a giant like Fang Hong, Xingyu Technology would have been finished long ago. It would have gone bankrupt before the product came out. There is actually a reference for this, that is, Boss Jia who will return to China next week.
If Xingyu Technology did not have Fang Hong's support and trust, and did not have the parent company Qunxing Group to provide almost "unlimited" financial support, the ending would be almost the same as Boss Jia's current ending.
Apple obviously does not have the support of a giant like Fang Hong, and its core business of smartphones is squeezed by Xingyu Technology. The company's overall strength is much weaker than Fang Hong's Apple in his previous life, so it can only choose to withdraw, because Apple has seen that the end of stubbornness will be miserable.
At this time, Tian Jiayi said: "As soon as the news that Apple announced that it would give up building cars came out, it immediately attracted a lot of attention from big names in the domestic and foreign technology circles. Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted a salute and There are two emoticons of smoking. In addition, domestic Xiaomi CEO, Lili CEO, Xiaopeng Chairman, etc. also expressed their opinions on Weibo.”
Fang Hong smiled calmly: "Haha, there's nothing to say about Apple giving up on building a car. It's expected and reasonable. The only surprise is that this day comes so fast. Xiaomi can build a car, but Apple definitely can't. come out."
As soon as these words came out, Tian Jiayi was slightly surprised and said: "Are you so optimistic about Xiaomi's success in building a car? Is Xiaomi better than Apple?"
Fang Hong said: "Apple is used to being a grandfather in the mobile phone industry. When it comes to the automotive industry, it wants to be a grandfather and let the automotive industry suppliers be its grandsons. But among the companies in the automotive supply chain, which company is not a more awesome grandfather than Apple?" , He still wants to be a grandfather? Who is spoiling him?"
As the most important module of electric vehicles, batteries are currently the three strongest battery companies in the world, all of which are companies from large Eastern countries. They are BYD, ATL Technology and Ningde Times, which was spun off from ATL Technology.
In addition to BYD, two of them are also members of the Galaxy Group.
Back then, Apple approached these three companies for cooperation. The conditions given were to set up a dedicated R\u0026D team for Apple and to go to Beijing Magnesium to set up a battery project specifically for Apple.
The first condition is not bad. After all, the three companies have a large number of people. It is not difficult to recruit a group of people to serve Apple. As long as the money from Apple is in place, this business can still be done.
But the difficulty lies in the second condition. With the current situation of Dongda and Amei, how could the three companies go to Beimei to build factories? Are they crazy?
So they all decisively rejected Apple's request, no matter how much money they gave, they couldn't go. Moreover, for these three companies, your Apple business is not mandatory, and it is impossible to spoil you.
...(End of chapter)
