[RahulNagaraj]

Chinese smartphone company, Oppo could soon be venturing into the global automotive sector. According to media reports, the tech giant is planning to enter the EV segment, by building its own electric cars.



Oppo will become the latest smartphone manufacturer after Xiaomi, Huawei and Apple to enter the growing global EV market. Reports suggest that Oppo has already begun hiring personnel for its new business venture, while also conducting investigations and discussions in car manufacturing.

Tony Chan, CEO, Oppo has reportedly met certain Tesla suppliers and battery manufacturers. Recently, the company was also invited to attend a SAIC Developers Conference, which focussed on the development of software services for smart electric vehicles.

Oppo is a subsidiary of BBK, the world's largest smartphone manufacturer, which also owns other brands such as OnePlus, Vivo and Realme.

Source: CarNewsChina

Link to Team-BHP news

[frewper]

When asked about the numerous EV startups coming up, Elon Musk in an interview had said he wouldn't be surprised if his mother starts an EV company tomorrow.

Guess with EVs, with the internal combustion engine gone, the technology to build a car is democratized, anyone with enough money can start to make their own car.

Just like in the UK, in the 50s when everyone wanted to make an ICE car, but today there are more than 500 defunct car companies that have failed.

Guess everyone from phone manufactures to what not wants to make a car now. Guess it will be great to see some unexpected players to succeed.

[deep4u]

When more and more tech companies are venturing into automotive sector like Google, Apple, LG etc, no wonder Oppo is also doing the same. We shouldn't be surprised if couple of decades later, majority of cars on the road are produced by these companies.

But let us not forget the fate of similar Chinese company, LeEco, who also ventured in the electric car sector. Future Faraday, the electric car division of LeEco was meant to be a direct competitor to Tesla and even poached some of the key human resource of Tesla. But even with high investment and with large workforce, it was unable to start commercially producing cars even after 3 years and ultimately led to bankruptcy of LeEco.

[man_and_machine]

Everybody who can connect a battery to a bulb wants to make a car. The more people read that today's cars are more software than hardware, the more they think they can make a car. Every company with a DAU/MAU number on their monitor thinks they need to make a car. Everyone who can assemble a motherboard and fuse a custom ARM OS into it thinks they have also own the "transportation" experience of their customers.

Nothing against these thoughts at all.

It's multiple things. (1) Get plugged into the deluge of the battery supply chain that is going to take over the world in the next couple of years. (2) Start with a concept, take in some money, pivot to being an OEM for a small part of a the car for one of the big players. (3) The largest movement of mindshare in recent history was from fixed location computing to mobile computing. The next is mobility. Every one will end up replacing (at different points in time, based on geography, market maturity and economic ability) ICE to battery powered.

Connected experience, with mass 5G rollout will shift markets very heavily, quickly is some place, slowly elsewhere. It's not a piece of machine any more. More will announce self ambitions or "strategic" partnerships with different players.

Its such a good time for engineers !

[Dhillon]

What is surprising is the fact that a lot of companies from China are trying to enter EV race. While they failed to capture the global ICE market, the government focused on EVs and started giving subsidies to manufacture and sell EVs way back in 2008.
I may be wrong in my assumption but the companies might also benefit from huge lithium ion reserve that China has giving them a cost advantage.

[Venkatesh]

Elon Musk reply to smartphone makers trying to make Electric Vehicles



Link

[Aditya]

With most markets looking to shift to EVs in the near future, just about everyone is looking to cash in. All these smartphone companies see an opportunity, which is good from the consumers' point of view.

There is no dearth of talent in the world and I am sure these companies will recruit some of the best engineers around. However, I am sure they will go for volumes in whatever market they enter (just like smartphones). How they manage quality control remains to be seen.

[HammerHead]

Originally Posted by man_and_machine

Everybody who can connect a battery to a bulb wants to make a car. The more people read that today's cars are more software than hardware, the more they think they can make a car. Every company with a DAU/MAU number on their monitor thinks they need to make a car. Everyone who can assemble a motherboard and fuse a custom ARM OS into it thinks they have also own the "transportation" experience of their customers.

Back in the day, construction companies, loom works companies, automatic looms machine manufacturer's, shipping companies etc. all got into automobile business. They successfully built cars for years and are still in the business then what's wrong in 'mobile phone' manufacturers of the day jumping in EV manufacturing?

[SenPai_GTi]

I am only afraid of the fact that in case mobile companies start to make cars, the talk around the town would go something like this:

• What android/iOS system do you have in your car ?
• How many cameras does your car have ?
• What capacity battery do you have ?
• How many inches of display does your dashboard have ?
• And the technical details like the wifi hardware spec, processor spec, etc.

I have seen people discuss Tesla autonomous system specs/ battery spec more than the mechanical aspects. Hopeful that we as a community get to see mechanical DIY/mods on electric vehicles in the near future.

[aashishnb]

I just hope these guys don't implement their normal business model to the cars:

1. Forced obsolescence. You have to change your cars every 2/3/5 years as the old one will be very slow. So if you have a newer model, your car will start in say 1 second and if you have the older version, it will take 5 seconds. Even the doors, windows, ORVMs, sunroof will be programmed to open/close slower. :-)
2. They will sell you the car very cheap and then sell your data. When you are going on the highway, the navigation will only show you the restaurants/dhabas/petrol pumps that have chosen to advertise with them!!!

Jokes aside, one thing that I dread the most is this - with the current vehicles, you can take it to an FNG if you do not like the ASS. With the EVs, given the sophistication (and therefore potential remote access/control the manufacturers will have on the vehicle), if you go to an FNG/'software tinkerer', they will void your warranty but also 'brick' (to use a jargon from the mobile world) your car, unless you jailbreak/root your car and block them from accessing it first.

[sid_deb]

Another interesting article. The ongoing hypothesis is that manufacturing a car is a pre-requisite to get into the smart car technology. However all these smart-phone players are far from converting this into a reality.

They need a partnership with existing manufacturers and not compete with them.

https://www.huaweicentral.com/making...g-huaweis-way/

[man_and_machine]

There are very few companies that have been able to make successful pivots into completely unrelated businesses. Nokia from rubber to phone was 20 years ago. Even building a related successful product line in an aligned business (remember windows phone) for a large company is difficult. But, then nothing stops anyone from making the effort if they can convince their shareholders (public or private alike).
While scaling tech companies is easier, if you go on a beaten path, EVs have 3 primary challenges. (1) The battery tech, completely IP protected (2) The software that makes the car. Not the traditional bluetooth connection or ambient lights, things like connected car, Lidar, AI on predictive information display etc. (3)The fuel supply, or charging station grid.

Let's look at each,
1. China, Tesla (directly and indirectly) ,VW group and the new GM group control more than 90% of this tech, the supply chain, manufacturing and will eventually distribution. Even Toyota, Honda and behind here. They will need to tech lease to build their own. For others its a clear OEM model. So there is no differentiator, hence no cost, design, flagship advantage. In a phone this is not so profound, in a car it will be. a 30 minute battery like difference using a off the shelf battery as an OEM is very different from a 50 kms per charge range issue. So, there will be those who own the tech and differentiate based on it, and those who will all use off the self and try to differentiate somewhere else. Maybe design, software, financial hacking etc.

2. The software. The car software is largely different from building on OEM OS. Hundreds of mobile companies have sprung up because google has built it from them. They have the playstore and eveyone else can create a differentiator else where. Other (and big ones) have tried. There was symbian, windows, Tizen etc, they don't scale for many reasons. While most people think software is not as difficult a problem to solve since there is not manufacturing and supply chain, unless they have built anything worth while that scales they have no idea. Car tech is very different. You can't run generic software, unless there is a generic car hardware platform manufacturer. So, you can't take an intel chip, a mother board a fan and make it happen. There is no generic EV car platform. No yet. Even though that might the holy grain for someone to get into. So, you will need build and integrate everything together.

Now tough can this be, mobile manufacturers do that today too. The difference is, in what happens if it does not work, and if it fails. If your phone screen just goes blank and stops responding because you did not integrate well, what max will happen to a user? That might stop, that call might be dropped, that netflix might get stuck, worst case that UPI transaction might be hanging somewhere. What happens if the regenerative braking from the brakes from manufacturer A and the battery pack from B did not integrate well, at a certain speed and your car doesn't stop? Suddenly the value of software, the efficiency of integration and the amount of time and money spent to test it out for each model shoots up to the sky. But, they there is always outsourcing! Remember what happened to an airplane manufacturer when they outsourced software integration and testing.

Another angle to software is that EVs turn the car into a piece electronics that is also mobile. Assume it to be a mobile phone that is so huge that it has a seat and can carry you along with it (maybe this is the thought that is driving all these companies). Your differentiator is the software, this so bespoke and custom that you need to own it to differentiate. It will take a lot of time, until all the three, the tech, the market and the scale make sense for a generic platform to evolve. Or, some one does a google making android to just build a cheaper alternative. Its too expensive to do that, and or there is no guarantee this will last. The churn rate, the per unit sticker price also makes it very risky for anyone to try. Hence we don't hear anyone doing it (atleast not publicly yet).

What is bells and whistle feature in a today's ICE cars, like auto park, is at the heart of EVs. Imagine you reach your colleague office porch in a tesla, get out, and presses "park in my slot" on the app and you land in your Oppo car (just an example, nothing against anyone..) and you have to drive all the way to the parking lot (behind that Tesla) and park the car, and then walk upto to your office! That is the key. Would you buy that car, if the subscription (remember EVs are not just physical engineering, newer financial and ownership hacking is also evolving) difference between them is say just 25% apart month on month? So, unless you differentiate there, and the flagships are made more affordable, its an uphill for those who are just integrators/re-branders/resellers.

(3) Fuel. This is the largest make or break for anyone who want to put a car out. Today, you don't need to worry on where and how the customers tanks up, all you need to provide a fuel inlet with a cap. This is suddenly different for EVs. Because the tech at the tip on the super chargers is custom. The reason why the Porsche does not sell much is that there aren't many tips charging them. Now, we can make the case for a generic super charger, it might come, but that is very tightly connected with the battery tech itself, so you don't own the battery tech/platform good luck selling cars that can't be charged outside your home. Again no differentiator.

Overall, the idea is not to make the case for just for a top 3 - 5 players. But, how different the car making (EV specifically) is today than say 20-30 years ago, when probably new players came on who still are alive today is worth noting. Commoditisation of EVs building blocks is happening from the bottom. Meaning, look at battery powered boards, scooters, the Bird like PTVs, etc. Scooters and 2 wheelers will follow, in those lesser of everything discussed above is needed, everyone is attempting it.

But, again we want many more companies and individuals to build EVs, and develop a whole new eco system. So, go Oppo go!