The electric car could become the new smartphone — it’s a bunch of chips wrapped inside a sleek body, just on a much larger scale.
Perhaps that’s Xiaomi’s thinking in announcing today it would put $10bn into building a smart car over the next decade. Or maybe the strategy is on the lines of Xiaomi could become the new Huawei.
The Chinese company overtook its smartphone rival in the fourth quarter of 2020, with sales increasing by a third to 43.4m, making it the Number Three maker globally behind Apple and Samsung, according to Gartner. Huawei, crippled by sanctions that have denied it access to Google services on Android, saw sales fall 41 per cent.
Xiaomi has been hammering home its advantage with a series of phone launches this year, including three new models on Monday and a foldable phone today.
“The avalanche of new products from Xiaomi underlines its global ambitions,” said Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight. “Xiaomi is vying to take over the mantle that Huawei has been forced to relinquish,” said Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile.
The car idea challenges Huawei’s plans for one as well. Phonemaker ZTE and search engine Baidu are also pushing into electric vehicles and autonomous driving. Like Baidu, and supposedly Apple, Xiaomi may partner with a carmaker, with Great Wall Motors being a reported candidate.
So tech companies could become the new car companies, aided by contract manufacturers like Foxconn, best known for assembling the iPhone. Lex says the Taiwanese company already has useful experience in auto electronics and its goal of taking a tenth of the global electric car market as early as 2025 is not far-fetched.
However, like carmakers, it is currently being hit by the global shortage of electronics components. Young Liu, Foxconn chair, told investors on an earnings call on Tuesday that the shortage would persist until 2022.
Japan’s Renesas Electronics, one of the world’s largest makers of chips for the automotive industry, has the added problem of a fire this month at one of its factories that it said would have a massive impact on global chip supplies. Japan’s national champion for semiconductors is one company actually trying to diversify itself away from cars, with deals such as its €4.9bn acquisition of Apple supplier Dialog.
The Internet of (Five) Things
1. Keep on electric truckin’
From cars to trucks, Patrick McGee in San Francisco reports self-driving start-up Aurora has signed a multiyear partnership with Volvo Trucks — as heavy-duty lorries emerge as a main battleground for autonomous technology as the mass rollout of robotaxis falters. Leo Lewis in Tokyo has been looking at Japan’s quest to re-establish its dominance in batteries.
2. Deliveroo sets basement price
Deliveroo has set the final price for its initial public offering at £3.90 a share, the bottom of its initial range and valuing the food delivery company at £1.3bn less than the top end of its original expectations. The final price per share will leave its market capitalisation at £7.6bn when trading begins on Wednesday morning.
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3. Oxford Nanopore picks London for IPO
DNA sequencing technology start-up Oxford Nanopore has chosen to list in the UK for its initial public offering later this year. The Oxford-based company is likely to be one of the largest floats this year in London, with analysts valuing it at £4bn to £7bn.
4. Netflix to clean up its carbon act
Netflix, the maker of the Attenborough climate documentary, plans to banish dirty diesel generators from film sets and use more virtual production techniques, after a review found that more than half of the company’s carbon emissions came from film production rather than from streaming video from data centres.
5. Improbable dreams fade
Nostos is the latest in a string of scrapped games built with Improbable World’s SpatialOS software, raising questions about a technology that won a $500m investment from SoftBank in 2017, then the biggest ever investment in a UK start-up. Kadhim Shubber has been looking at how the company has fallen far short of its lofty ambition to build “something like The Matrix”.
Tech tools — Google’s AI Maps
The search giant announced today it is on track to bring over 100 AI-powered improvements to Google Maps this year. They include helping you find your way better indoors using Live View’s visual aids and new weather and air quality layers so you can quickly see current and forecasted conditions in the area. A new routing model works out lower fuel consumption options, based on factors like road incline and traffic congestion.
There is also a pilot this summer with the US supermarket chain Fred Meyer for kerbside pick-ups — “After you place an order for pick-up on the store’s app, you can add it to Maps. We’ll send you a notification when it’s time to leave, and let you share your arrival time with the store. Your ETA is continuously updated, based on location and traffic. This helps the store prioritise your order so it’s ready as soon as you get there. Check in on the Google Maps app, and they’ll bring your order right out for a seamless, fast, no-contact pick-up.”
Sounds perfect pandemic shopping!
The Link LonkMarch 31, 2021 at 12:48AM
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Xiaomi looks to overtake Huawei - Financial Times
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