If building a car is a huge project, then electric motorcycles and electric bicycles may be a good entry choice. After all, Honda and Geely used to come all the way from this starting point. Last month, the balance car giant Segway-Ninebot held a press conference in Beijing, releasing two production cars, No.9 electric C and No.9 electric E, and self-balancing No.9 electric T and Segway that can walk independently. Apex super electric motorcycle two concept cars.
No.9 electric e series products
The appearance of four cars connected together is spectacular, but if you think Segway-Ninebot is an electric bicycle manufacturer, it is all wet. Who's Segway-Ninebot? Its two founders have been exploring in the field of robotics for many years and won the first place in the robot World Cup three times. Later, when I found an opportunity in the balance car market, I devoted myself to the development and manufacture of balance cars. If you are a rice noodle (millet fan), I believe you should be familiar with this enterprise. The balance cars that are often seen in Xiaomi stores are all from Segway-Ninebot, and the previously launched kart version of the balance car kit has once become a hot topic of public opinion.
But Segway-Ninebot's business goes far beyond this, and robots have always been its initial heart. Segway-Ninebot developed an automatic parking assistant robot for BMW by using its own robot platform. In addition, the company also invested nearly 1 100 million yuan in AI research and development, including but not limited to visual navigation technology, and jointly developed autonomous driving and artificial intelligence in short-distance transportation and long-distance transportation with internationally renowned institutions such as BMW in Germany and Intel in the United States. The balance car is its "cash cow" for the C-end, and the robot is its core business.
"subtext" behind the first four cars
Balance cars may have a high usage rate in western markets, but for China, the audience area is small and the profit rate is much worse than overseas. Therefore, Robot 9 needs new business to meet its future development in China market.
No.9 electric c series
To be an intelligent robot, the algorithm is most needed, and the optimization of the algorithm cannot be separated from the correction of big data; At the same time, on the map of smart transportation in China, a lot of data can be generated, and it is not the balance car that can be connected with vehicles to solve the last mile traffic, but the bicycle. At the same time, electric motorcycles have a high share in China's urban and rural areas, and can even replace cars as the most frequently used means of transportation, which is undoubtedly a treasure of big data. So the logic of entering the field of electric bicycles and motorcycles makes sense.
Figure: No.9 electric T self-balancing exploration version
However, the author believes that Segway-Ninebot's biggest "color head" in the field of electric vehicles is not its high-profile comparison with Mavericks Electric, nor is it its "noisy" afterwards. It is the four products announced at the press conference.
Segway? Apex super electric motorcycle
No.9 C electric vehicle meets the requirements of the new national standard, with high value and low price, and bears the demand of limited motorcycle city running. The No.9 E electric vehicle designed according to motorcycle specifications, as the early flagship of No.9 robot entering the market, paves the way for performance and shoulders the heavy responsibility of brand pioneer. The high-profile contrast with the friend "Mavericks" also earned enough attention.
But what is really worth pondering is the two concept cars announced at the same time. Self-balancing No.9 electric T and Segway? Apex Super Electric Motorcycle Baoche Studio believes that the former is the work that can truly implement the brand concept of "true intelligence" in the future. Automatically balance the car body without walking or reversing. As well as the automatic parking and automatic searching functions to be equipped, it combines the research and development achievements of the automatic parking robot that it cooperated with BMW before, and puts AVP(automated? A footman? Parking automatic parking service technology) was copied to the two-wheeled world. Compared with the huge volume of cars, two-wheeled electric motorcycles have more advantages in the number of sensors and cost control. In addition, the technology is a low-speed simplified version of the fully automatic driving scene, and the maturity of this technology will also lay the foundation for the future fully automatic driving, so Baoche Studio concluded that two-wheel automatic driving is the real goal of Segway-Ninebot.
And Segway? Apex's announcement is even more exciting. Segway was originally the largest balance car company in the world, and was later acquired by Ninebot. This time it was named Segway alone, which means Segway will be responsible for the high-end market of electric motorcycles. The No.9 tram E launched this time will only exist as a mid-range running volume in the future. Segway has a high market share in North America and Europe. Segway-Ninebot's ambition is to cover the whole world from high-end to mid-end and then to low-end.
Behind Segway-Ninebot is Xiaomi's ambition in the field of intelligent transportation.
As mentioned above, most of the balance car products of Xiaomi Experience Store are manufactured and provided by Segway-Ninebot. The reason is that Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital invested in Segway-Ninebot on 20 14. According to Gao Lufeng, founder of Segway-Ninebot, "In the process of enterprise development, Xiaomi has given the most important support and help in supply chain, channel and market, and Xiaomi is Segway-Ninebot's closest strategic partner in short communication and robot business." The listing of the No.9 tram is another chess piece that Xiaomi has dropped in the smart transportation layout.
In 20 13, Xiaomi eco-chain plan was formally born, and it is planned to invest in 100 eco-chain enterprises within five years. These eco-chain enterprises include intelligent in-vehicle product research and development companies, such as Fanmi Technology, 70 Mai, Segway-Ninebot and so on.
20 14 Xiaomi denied entering the car-making industry but applied for 9 automobile-related patents. With the help of intelligent voice assistant, Xiaomi has opened the key door of the automobile market: Weimar and Mercedes-Benz have successively reached cooperation with Xiaomi to launch the smart home control function of Weimar EX5 and Mercedes-Benz's new MBUX intelligent human-computer interaction system respectively.
According to statistics, as of 2065438+May 2008, more than 20 automobile industries have invested in the name of Lei Jun, Xiaomi Technology and Shunwei Capital. For example, Huami Technology and Xpeng cars, 70 Mai and Weimar cars. Xiaomi itself is also constantly participating in cooperation with traditional car companies. 20 18 1 1 month, according to official news, Xiaomi Group and FAW Car Co., Ltd. signed a strategic agreement, and Xiaomi and Pentium will empower smart cars through Xiao Ai.
In addition, there are rumors that Xiaomi has reached a cooperation intention with Changan Mazda. However, judging from the cooperation reached so far, Xiaomi's exploration in the automotive field is still at a shallow level, and the deeper in-vehicle system and autonomous driving technology Xiaomi has not yet explored.
But Segway-Ninebot is a good method and way. The intelligence of two-wheeled short-distance traffic can form a high-low cooperation with four-wheeled vehicles, reduce the entry threshold of intelligent traffic, and realize small steps and quick running. The future traffic intelligence will be the intelligence of the whole ecology, and mobile phones will be used as IOT (Internet of Things? Internet? Yes? The core of things (IOT for short) is an indisputable fact.
20 19, 1 June, Redmi Jun announced the official launch of the dual-engine strategy of "mobile phone +AIoT (artificial intelligence Internet of Things =AI artificial intelligence +IoT Internet of Things)", and said that "this is the core strategy of Xiaomi in the next five years". Under the guidance of the dual-engine strategy of "mobile phone +AIoT", Lei Jun said that in 2020, Xiaomi will continue to promote the "5G+AIoT" next-generation super internet to become a part of public life.
In the third quarter of last year, Xiaomi's "mobile phone +AIoT" dual-engine strategy continued to achieve results. As of September 30th, 20 19, the number of IOT devices connected to the IOT platform reached 210 million, up 62.0% year-on-year. The number of users with five or more devices connected to Xiaomi Internet of Things platform (excluding smartphones and laptops) increased to 3.5 million, up 78.7% year-on-year. At the same time, Xiaomi AI business continues to empower mobile phones and IoT. From 2065438 to September 2009, the monthly active users of Xiao Ai students reached 57.9 million, a year-on-year increase of 68.6%.
With the entry of Segway-Ninebot electric vehicle series, Xiaomi's IOT equipment in the transportation field will also increase greatly. By then, Xiaomi's layout in the field of Internet of Things will soon be completed, and the cross-dimensional attack on the future transportation field will also begin.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.