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Text丨 Liu Junhong, editor丨Wang Yisu
Marketing executives from Huawei account for half of the new automotive forces.
On September 16, Yang Xueliang, senior vice president of Geely Holding Group, confirmed on Weibo that Guan Haitao, the former Honor China CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), joined Jikrypton and will still serve as CMO.
In March this year, Leapmotor adjusted its management, and two senior executives from Huawei were re-employed. Xu Jun, former vice president of sales at Huawei, was appointed as senior vice president and chief operating officer of Leapao; Zhang Weili, who was chief marketing officer of Huawei's Greater China region, was appointed senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Leapao.
On the other hand, Li Auto announced on April 17 that Zou Liangjun, former head of the Honor Terminal MKT (Marketing) Department, will serve as Li Auto’s senior vice president of sales and service.
However, the cross-border transfer of talents from the mobile phone industry to automobiles is not limited to the marketing level.
Recently, former IQOO product manager Song Ziwei joined Li Auto. Although her position is not high, her identity as a spokesperson for similar products has attracted some attention. As early as 2022, Zhu Yongsheng, who had participated in the design and development of Ali OS, joined Weilai Automobile and became the senior director of Weilai Cockpit. In December of the same year, Xie Yan, the former chief architect of AliOS and who had participated in Hongmeng OS, joined Ideal as CTO of Ideal Auto, with full responsibility for the system and computing group.
It can be seen that from marketing to products to R&D, talents in the mobile phone industry have been deeply embedded in the core areas of automobile manufacturing.
The cooling of the consumer electronics industry and the rise of smart cars have led to an acceleration of talent crossover in the two industries in the past three years, indicating that the integration of mobile phones and smart cars is entering a new stage.
From mobile phone giants such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and Apple to manufacturing cars, to Nio and Geely manufacturing mobile phones, more and more talents have begun to flow in the two industry circles. Behind this, smart car products are gradually becoming more and more similar to mobile phones.
Zhang Yong, co-founder and CEO of Nezha Automobile, once stated in "New Business Geography of Automobiles" that smart electric vehicles are becoming less and less like traditional industrial products. They are no longer a means of travel from point A to point B. Consumers will increasingly It is regarded as an electronic product and a smart terminal.
Today, automobile intelligence has entered a new stage and has gradually become an important reference indicator for consumer purchases. The impact of mobile phones and artificial intelligence on automobiles will only become more and more important.
From marketing to product to underlying technology. Using human clues and insights into the combination of the automobile and mobile phone industries, smart cars are developing a new definition.
01 Mobile phone talents support the automotive industry
If there is a hot spot in the car circle, the presence of Li Xiang, the founder of Li Auto, must be indispensable.
Just when the automotive industry is buzzing about mobile phone talents, Li Xiang said on Weibo on September 19, “In the Ideal team including R&D, operations, and intelligence, in the past eight years, at least 15% of the talent came from mobile phone brands. %, so it is not a recent addition. The first-class talents in the mobile phone industry are an important support for our capabilities."
First of all, in terms of marketing, the popularity of automobiles among talents in the mobile phone circle is inseparable from the proofing of two big guys, Yu Chengdong and Lei Jun. From "a history of blood and tears in entrepreneurship" to "far ahead", it can be said that following Jobs's routine has almost made Apple almost have no way out. In addition to the competitiveness of its products, its superb brand marketing skills have also boosted sales.
In March 2021, Lei Jun announced that he would build a car and said, "I am willing to stake all my life's reputation to fight for Xiaomi Motors." Just two months later, Yu Chengdong officially took over Huawei Automotive BU as CEO.
The two "big guys" in the mobile phone industry entered the automotive industry almost at the same time, reflecting that automotive marketing in the era of smart cars has said goodbye to the past blindly "high-end" advertising routines.
According to a report from QuestMobile, in 2022, new car-making forces focusing on intelligence will shift to more diverse media platforms with a wider audience in brand marketing. Increase investment in comprehensive information platforms and short video platforms. However, traditional car manufacturers still focus more on placing their information on automotive information platforms with more professional audiences.
New forces embrace new channels and reduce the need for middlemen to make profit margins, which greatly improves marketing efficiency. In this way, the "far ahead" Yu Chengdong and "Are you OK" Lei Jun, who have their own traffic, naturally also have an advantage in marketing communication.
On the other hand, smart car brands are also different from traditional car brands in the display of automotive products. Smart cars are beginning to learn from mobile phone brands and put cars in shopping malls.
What goes with the marketing strategy is naturally product capabilities. Among the smart cockpit products that are most clearly perceived by consumers, the automotive industry is attracting a large number of talents from the mobile phone industry.
In 2021, Xiaomi Motors announced that among the 17 core people in building cars, Yu Kai, an early employee of Xiaomi, was responsible for cockpit preparations for building cars. In addition, Geely has recruited Zhang Yadong, the former vice president of ZTE Mobile, and NIO has recruited Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile, and Yi Wei, the former senior vice president of Meitu Mobile.
Judging from the results, taking Weilai as an example, the addition of talents from the mobile phone industry has allowed Weilai to quickly complement its smart cockpit capabilities. On the NIO Link released by NIO on September 21, NIO realized car-centered smart device interconnection.
The evolution of NIO reflects the introduction of technical talents to improve products.
In 2020, NIO introduced Bai Jian, the former general manager of Xiaomi's chip and forward-looking research department, to be in charge of NIO's intelligent hardware team; in 2022, NIO introduced Zhu Yongsheng, who had participated in the design and development of Ali OS, as senior cockpit director.
Not only NIO, other car companies are also actively introducing technical talents from the mobile phone industry to supplement their own software and hardware capabilities. For example, Ideal will introduce the former chief architect of Ali OS in 2022. Xie Yan, who had participated in the development of Hongmeng OS, served as the ideal CTO and was fully responsible for the system and computing group.
To a certain extent, the success of China's smart cars has largely benefited from the accumulation of talents in smart terminals represented by mobile phones.
Wang Yanmin, President of Huawei Terminal BG Intelligent Car Selection Business Department, once commented on Wenjie Auto: "Every powerful function of Wenjie comes from Huawei's long-term technology accumulation, including semiconductors, materials, processes, OS, AI, cloud, and tool chains. Continuous investment in many areas such as software and software has combined to create a leading advantage."
Today, with the integration of the depth of talent in the mobile phone industry and smart cars. The product form of smart cars is also constantly being reshaped.
02 People who make mobile phones are defining smart cockpits
The smart cockpit is the most intuitive entrance for consumers to experience the level of intelligence in cars.
When Guangcone Intelligence experienced multiple sales points of different smart car brands. We found that when consumers get into the car and ask sales staff to explain it, the introduction of the smart cockpit is always arranged as the "first stop" in the explanation sequence.
Consumers' attention has put "pressure" on car companies. Smart cockpit products must not only be made well, but also be differentiated.
In order to improve the intelligent performance of the car cockpit, it is necessary to find a master of "human-computer interaction" before the car is developed. An all-around “big guy” whose career spans desktop software, mobile applications, and AI technology is the best choice.
So Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, approached Zhuang Li.
Zhuang Li was born in the famous "Tsinghua Computer Class 96", and she and NetEase Youdao CEO Zhou Feng are a well-known "god couple" in the Internet circle. After graduating from Tsinghua University, both Zhuang Li and Zhou Feng went to the University of California, Berkeley, to pursue Ph.D.s in computer science. During their Ph.D. studies, the two were invited back to China by NetEase founder Ding Lei, and then founded NetEase Youdao. After leaving Youdao, Zhuang Li served as senior executives at Microsoft Research, Yahoo Beijing Research Institute, and Cheetah Mobile.
In 2016, Zhuang Li joined NIO and was responsible for software research and development. The early NIO OS and NOMI were produced by her.
Perhaps, Zhuang Li's career path from desktop to Internet and mobile, and finally to automobile, hints at the "outlets" of software research and development in different periods.
The integration of mobile phone (mobile terminal) industry talents and smart car cockpits began at this time.
After Zhuang Li, Weilai has successively introduced many senior technical talents in the mobile phone industry to work on both operating systems and smart hardware to enhance the intelligence of car cockpits.
In 2020, Weilai introduced Bai Jian, the former general manager of Xiaomi's chip and forward-looking research department, to be in charge of the intelligent hardware team; in 2022, it introduced Zhu Yongsheng, who had designed and developed Ali OS, as the chief architect of the digital cockpit. In the same month, it was reported that Yin Shuijun, the former president of Meitu Mobile, joined Weilai to take the lead in the mobile phone business. Later, Li Bin, the founder of NIO, revealed his plan to build a mobile phone. On September 21, 2023, NIO mobile phone was officially unveiled.
Judging from the current degree of involution in the mobile phone industry and the price of NIO mobile phones, perhaps the sales volume of this mobile phone will not be too high. But judging from NIO's logic of integrating "operating system + smart hardware + mobile phone products", it may still be worth it to improve the somatosensory feel of the smart cockpit.
On the other hand, Li Auto is also transforming the underlying software and hardware design and transforming its cockpit capabilities by combining the latest AI technology.
In 2020, Meijia Technology entered the supplier list of Li Auto as a low-level software and hardware design solution provider. Coincidentally, the founder of Meijia Technology is Zhuang Li, whom Weilai was looking for before. In December 2022, Li Auto introduced Xie Yan, who had participated in the development of Hongmeng OS, to be fully responsible for the system and computing group.
However, perhaps the time to introduce key figures is still short. On June 17, 2023, Ideal released Mind GPT, integrating large models into the smart cockpit. Li Auto's smart cockpit capabilities have been slightly improved, and we don't see many changes for the time being.
Directly finding the corresponding talents requires car company decision-makers to have a high degree of understanding of products and technologies. Car companies that are more inclined to coordinate the overall situation will also introduce talents through joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions.
As Geely already has Yikatong to provide intelligent automotive solutions, it is a "big deal" to introduce talents from the mobile phone industry.
In September 2021, Geely established Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., bringing together high-end talents such as former ZTE Mobile Vice President Zhang Yadong and former Xiaomi MIUI chief architect Wang Wenjun to officially announce the manufacture of mobile phones. In addition, according to 36Kr, Geely’s mobile phone project has also contacted talents from Xiaomi Wuhan Company. It was not until July 2022 that Geely officially announced the acquisition of Meizu mobile phones.
From the two combinations of Geely Automobile and the mobile phone industry, Geely's talent introduction strategy has become "large-scale and institutionalized". Geely Automobile has successively recruited the former chief architect of MIUI and Meizu, which is famous in the mobile phone circle for its Flyme system. It can be found that the mobile phone system may be the capability that Geely wants to win most.
As evidence, Shen Ziyu, chairman of Xingji Meizu and Yikatong, once said that having Flyme Auto means having the right to speak and the right to decide on the human-computer interaction experience.
In March 2023, Meizu released the Flyme Auto vehicle software system. Flyme Auto is different from other products that focus more on functions and interactions. The most obvious feature is that the areas involved in the system are more low-level. Flyme Auto's idea is to use mobile phones as the "plug-in brain" of the car cockpit to ultimately achieve interconnection.
The connection of data and the combination of software and hardware to improve computing power are the two most obvious features of Flyme Auto.
Specifically, Flyme Auto breaks through the limitations of the link between the mobile phone and the car, and the car and the mobile APP are connected to each other. In terms of computing power, Flyme Auto has made mobile phone hardware a part of the car by reconstructing the interconnection framework, protocol fusion, heterogeneous networking and other capabilities, realizing the sharing of hardware computing power and feeding back the performance of the car.
In addition to recruiting talents and cooperative mergers and acquisitions, companies in the mobile phone industry with strong technical capabilities will actively enter the automotive industry through the internal flow of talents.
Xiaomi Motors, among the core 17 people who announced the car manufacturing announcement, include Yu Kai, general manager of Internet Department 3, who is responsible for the car cockpit; Ye Hangjun, chairman of the technical committee, is responsible for Xiaomi's autonomous driving.
On Huawei's side, since Huawei's automotive BU was divided into the consumer BG in 2020, middle-level and above-level leaders of Huawei's mobile phone team have been continuously flowing to the automotive department. For example, Bian Honglin, the former president of the Hardware Engineering and Product Development Management Department of Consumer BG and CTO of Consumer BG, took over as the director of the intelligent driving product department; Li Wenguang, the former vice president of the mobile phone product line of Huawei Consumer BG, was appointed deputy director of the intelligent driving product department .
The result of Huawei's internal "transportation" of mobile phone talents to automotive talents is that Huawei's Hongmeng cockpit is more like a mobile phone in terms of operating logic and interconnection.
Referring to the Hongmeng Cockpit 3.0 equipped on the new M7, the user's mobile phone APP content and the car are seamlessly transferred. The Hongmeng car and machine will directly support WeChat, Douyin, Kuaishou, Weibo, Meituan Takeaway and other commonly used APPs in daily life. In this regard, Yu Chengdong also said that the operation of the Hongmeng car is as smooth as the Mate 60 Pro.
We can clearly see that various car manufacturers have introduced talents from the mobile phone industry to deeply transform the design of smart cockpit products in terms of operating systems, interactive logic, interconnection, hardware terminals, etc.
As talents in the mobile phone industry and the automotive industry become more deeply integrated, the product logic of smart cars will also enter a new stage.
03 Cars embrace mobile phones, and supply chains are deeply integrated
The product logic switching of smart cars comes from the transformation of car design architecture.
In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, each function of the car body is composed of mechanical parts + matching chips + specialized software, which is similar to the "1:1:1" model. These independent systems are only responsible for the conduction and local control of the mechanical structure.
But from an overall perspective, the relationship between the performance of automotive products and their components is intricate. For example, improving handling requires the cooperation of a series of components such as chassis, tires, and engines. As a result, the automotive architecture needs to add components such as wiring harnesses, MCUs, and ECUs, which are quite complex to control.
The arrival of Tesla has changed this complex control relationship. Tesla replaced the mechanical structure with an electronic control structure, using high-computing power chips to control multiple functional partitions, thus reducing the number of chips. Rewrite the algorithm that controls related functions through OTA, thereby changing the corresponding functions and allowing the functions to continue iterating.
So far, driven by the upgrade of the two underlying technologies of automobiles - energy and information and communication technology, automobiles have changed from a mechanical product to an electronic product.
This means that cars in the intelligent era, as terminal electronic products like mobile phones, will also face the reshaping of functional machines similar to smart phones.
Reflected in the industrial chain, it is the technology reuse of the two major industrial supply chain manufacturers. As supply chain manufacturers expand, relevant talents are also flowing with it.
Foxconn (Fii) disclosed plans for new energy vehicles in its 2020 financial report. Prepare to apply the materials, tools, equipment technology and unique manufacturing processes and process capabilities accumulated in the electronics industry to new energy electric vehicles. In addition, mobile phone supply chain manufacturers that have entered the automotive industry include Wingtech Technology and Huaqin Technology, which are mobile phone OEMs, and Sunny Optical and OFILM, which are switching from mobile phone cameras to automotive cameras.
Large-scale switching from the supply chain to manufacturing smart cars is being solved efficiently.
To build an electric car, the body and suspension can be provided by the traditional automobile supply chain or the OEM. For example, Ideal + Lifan, NIO + Jianghuai, Huawei + Cyrus, etc. If you need on-vehicle computing power, high-end cars can use the Nvidia + Qualcomm solution (orin+8155). For more ordinary cars, you can choose a large number of domestic players such as Horizon, Huawei, Xinqing, Jiefa, and Xinchi. If a car platform is needed, Huawei and CATL can help design it (Changan CHN platform).
In other words, problems arising from hardware manufacturing are being solved. The rest is at the software level.
At the 2020 Huawei Developer Conference, Wang Chenglu, who once led the development of Hongmeng system, said: "In Huawei's eyes, everything is a mobile phone, and a car is a mobile phone with four wheels."
In an era where the hardware supply chain has matured, software capabilities have become the key to defining cars. Taking only the parts visible to consumers, the underlying logic of products such as smart cockpits, OTA services, and central computing platforms have been studied in the smartphone era.
Actively integrating with mobile phones and embracing intelligence will help car companies better face the next round of competition.
For example, players with poor intelligence levels, such as Thalys, BAIC, Chery, and JAC, have successively joined Huawei Smart Cars. Players that have accumulated experience in intelligence, such as Geely and NIO, are actively integrating with the mobile phone industry.
The wave of intelligence has not only subverted all logic of car manufacturing, but also subverted all logic of car sales and after-sales.
Lu Hongbin, CEO of Emapcom, once said, "In the past, buying a traditional car was the end. But with software-defined cars, selling the car is the beginning of making profits."
OTA upgrades, assisted driving implementation, chip replacement, battery repair...many problems that have never been encountered in the 4S store service model before will become the norm in the era of smart cars. The previous experience in after-sales for smartphones may also bring a lot of experience to after-sales in the era of smart cars.
From consumer electronics to smart cars, the rise of one industry chain will also drive the prosperity of another industry chain, and talent is the most critical soul of it.
If we can build a good car, what else can we not build well?
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