Writing | Huang Zhi

Editing | Yang Guang

Producing | Automobile Production

Looking at Weilai's rising share price, the heart of Beijing Economic Development Zone may be a little comforted.

After Xiaomi Automobile completed its registered residence in industrial and commercial registration, Yizhuang in early September, on October 27th, Xiaomi signed a Cooperation Agreement with the Management Committee of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, and officially settled in Beijing Economic Development Zone. Xiaomi Automobile headquarters, sales headquarters and R&D headquarters will be built, as well as a complete vehicle factory with an annual output of 311,111 vehicles in two phases, each with a production capacity of 151,111 vehicles. It is expected that the first vehicle will be mass-produced in 2124.

Although Lei Jun may have a deeper feeling for Wu Hanyou in his heart, Yizhuang finally got the last laugh in the battle for Xiaomi after missing Weilai and Polar Star's headquarters in China. After all, after Xiaomi announced the news of building a car, the location of Xiaomi's car has become a cake that many cities compete for.

In fact, it is nothing new for local governments to compete for the automobile industry chain. Even in recent years, some projects have finally fallen behind, but most of the time, the landing of the vehicle base means the introduction of a huge supporting industrial chain, the solution of many employment opportunities and rich tax returns.

Yizhuang certainly understands this truth, not to mention Beijing's goal of building a global intelligent networked automotive technology innovation highland, otherwise it would not have extended an olive branch to Weilai in that year. It's just that at that point in time, perhaps Wei Lai's life was hanging by a thread, so Yizhuang didn't dare to make a final bet.

But two years later, with the market value of Weilai soaring, it was the new track of the whole smart car, and winning Xiaomi became a natural thing.

In fact, for Beijing and Yizhuang, there is still a gap compared with "automobile cities" like Changchun and Shanghai in the traditional era, but with the arrival of intelligent networked cars, the pattern may have new changes.

Xiaomi and Yizhuang's right people at the right time and in the right place, and

Beijing Yizhuang's press release have the following statements:

"The signing of the Cooperation Agreement will further accelerate the development of the new energy intelligent networked automobile industry in the Economic Development Zone and help Beijing build itself into an innovative highland of the world intelligent new energy automobile industry."

"Beijing Economic Development Zone will give full play to the strength of the whole region, and with the active promotion of two-level working classes in urban areas, it will provide a good guarantee service for the Xiaomi automobile project, promote the project to start and put into production as early as possible, build an industrial ecology through collaborative linkage, and actively seize the highland of future automobile industry development."

Yizhuang and Xiaomi have made mutual achievements.

Beijing Economic Development Zone is the highland of high-end manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing in Beijing. High-end automobiles and new energy smart automobile industries are the top four leading industries in the zone. In the first three quarters of this year, the automobile industry in the Economic Development Zone has achieved an output value of 146.6 billion yuan, accounting for 35% of the total industrial output value of the region. Around Beijing Benz and Beiqi New Energy, dozens of supporting enterprises including ZF, Delphi and Hainachuan have been laid out.

Daimler's brand-new China R&D Technology Center was recently opened in Yizhuang.

At the same time, at the beginning of this year, Beijing issued the first batch of industrial policies of Yizhuang Group, a high-end industrial zone in China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone, and the overall implementation plan of Beijing intelligent networked automobile policy pioneer zone, which provided clear support for new energy and high-end automobile industry.

in addition to the automobile industry, the other three leading industries in the Economic Development Zone are information technology, biotechnology and health, robots and intelligent manufacturing, specifically in the fields of communication, display, integrated circuit, equipment manufacturing and information security, which are also closely related to the emerging industries needed for the development of smart cars in the future.

In addition, the Economic Development Zone also has national-level technological innovation centers such as the National New Energy Vehicle Technology Innovation Center and the National Intelligent Networked Vehicle Innovation Center, as well as the Beijing High-level Autopilot Demonstration Zone, which provides environmental support for the development of intelligent networked vehicles from industrial environment to policy support.

Xiaoma Zhixing and Baidu have deployed more than 151 self-driving vehicles in the Economic Development Zone, and have taken the lead in opening the commercial operation pilot of Robotaxi in China.

all these provide a good foundation for Xiaomi automobile from technology research and development to manufacturing. The landing of Xiaomi automobile can also promote the further development of the Economic Development Zone in the fields of chips, computing platforms and control systems.

in order to get Xiaomi automobile, the Economic Development Zone has also given the promise of "the strength of the whole region".

In fact, as early as last year, when Xiaomi Internet Industrial Park was put into production in Yizhuang, the person in charge of the project mentioned: "Thanks to the timely assistance provided by Beijing Economic Development Zone in the whole process of project construction, the industrial park was put into production smoothly."

When introducing the "seven promotion" mechanism of its whole-process service to promote major projects, the Economic Development Zone also said: "When Xiaomi Company intends to invest in the Economic Development Zone, the department in charge of industrial development and operation dispatch in the Economic Development Zone will appoint the backbone as the' project service steward', and understand the needs of enterprises by telephone, WeChat or discussion every week, and coordinate multiple departments to provide corresponding services for enterprises."

there is reason to believe that this kind of service experience will continue in the Xiaomi automobile project.

Opportunities for a new automobile city

Behind all the disturbances surrounding the landing of Xiaomi's car, it seems that Lei Jun has traveled to many car companies and places, but in fact, the most likely options are only Beijing and Wuhan. The former is the city where Xiaomi has been deeply cultivated for many years, while Hubei, where the latter is located, is Lei Jun's hometown.

The two cities also represent a microcosm of emerging power and traditional automobile city, and the advantages of emerging power in this new competition.

when the internet, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence are more and more deeply integrated with automobiles, what the industry frontier needs most may no longer be manufacturing itself, but technological innovation and digital industry. The change of demand also gives the map of the automobile city a chance to change.

Beijing has always been a leading city in domestic Internet and technological innovation.

For example, in terms of technical talent reserve, the government has not given clear statistics, but from the Github website commonly used by programmers, we can find that Beijing is far ahead of other cities in China and has also entered the top three in the world.

The field of autonomous driving is also a microcosm, from the building leader of Xiao Ma Zhixing to Cao Xudong of Momenta, as well as Huang Chang, co-founder of Horizon, and Yan Li, CTO of Wen Yuan Zhixing ... Almost all the head enterprises bear the brand of Tsinghua University alumni.

Perhaps in the past, the vehicle engineering majors of Tsinghua and Beijing Institute of Technology were also top-notch in China, but after all, the core manufacturing base was not in Beijing. When it comes to computer and artificial intelligence, Beijing is probably the place where the "Industry-University-Research" runs through.

Of course, Beijing also has its own reserves in the automotive field. BAIC Group has cultivated for many years and established a complete supporting industrial chain. At the same time, multinational auto companies such as Daimler, BMW and Audi have set up R&D centers in Beijing, which also lays a foundation for Beijing to compete in the field of intelligent networked vehicles.

Another similar city is Hefei.

At the beginning, the investment in Weilai not only gained a generous return on capital, but also established Hefei's position in the field of new energy vehicles. Subsequently, Hefei introduced audi ag to increase its holdings, established Volkswagen Anhui, and established a new energy vehicle R&D and production base.

betting on Weilai has become Anhui's most successful investment in the field of new energy vehicles

For a long time in the past, Anhui's hope of establishing "Daan Automobile" has not been realized, and Anhui has never been the core area of China's automobile industry, but its industrial base and complete automobile industrial chain layout have enabled Hefei to quickly become the focus of new energy vehicles. In 2121, relying on the rapid growth of Weilai, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in Anhui Province have accounted for 7.7% of the country, and the overall automobile production has returned to one million.

In the Action Plan for the Development of New Energy Automobile Industry in Anhui Province (2121-2123) issued by Anhui Province this year, it is mentioned that it is necessary to build three to five influential new energy automobile enterprises and support Hefei to build "China New Energy Automobile Capital".

If it takes some accumulation to become Beijing and Hefei, with the rapid development of emerging fields such as autonomous driving, it also gives more opportunities for "small places" to break the game. For example, Hengyang, Hunan Province, hand in hand with Mushroom Car Federation, is establishing a large-scale self-driving public service team; For example, Wuxi's layout in the V2X field has attracted Audi, Huawei and other enterprises to conduct vehicle-road coordinated autopilot tests here.

written at the end

Xiao Jianxiong, the founder of p>Auto X, once told SAFE in an interview: "We will add 1,111 engineers this year, but talents are hard to find, so our goal is to open the R&D center at his door, and all of them will open R&D centers in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen where talents gather."

this also represents the trend and trend of industrial layout in the era of smart cars.

The reason why the region represented by Yizhuang can retain a "star enterprise" like Xiaomi is that what Xiaomi values is more the layout of new industries than the traditional manufacturing itself. Perhaps, this is also the reason for Lei Jun to give up his feelings for Wuhan and stay in Beijing.

of course, the change of attitude from giving up Wei in those years to keeping Xiaomi now also shows that in less than two years, the speed of change in the automobile industry is much faster than we expected.