Why does the current unicorn king of the new energy car market, CATL, look at Bayteng?

On June 12th, the emerging car building company Bayteng held a press conference in Shanghai and disclosed two major developments. One of them was that the B-round financing had been successfully completed, totaling 500 million U.S. dollars. FAW and CATL (Ningde era) participated in the investment; The second is the official debut of the second concept car ByTONK-ByteConcept.

After the conference, Bifukang, chief executive officer and co-founder of Betten, was interviewed by media such as Electric Car Observer. In response to why CATL invested in Batten, Bifukang said that CATL's investment is not a financial investment or selling batteries. Instead, it hopes to find a car company partner to develop future batteries and models.

CATL bet

At the Beijing Motor Show two months ago, "Electric Car Observer" participated in the Bayteng conference and noticed that Zengyuqun, founder and chairman of CATL, made a rare appearance as its platform. At the time, because CATL is a Bayteng supplier, I only thought that CATL was optimistic about Bayteng.

At that time, Bayteng also announced that it was close to completing the B-round financing, and FAA Group participated in it, but did not expect that CATL would also participate in the investment in Bayteng.

The total amount of financing for the Bayteng B round of financing reached US$ 500 million, and the First Automobile Group led the investment with an amount of US$ 260 million. It inspired Holdings, CATL, China Merchants Capital, Jiangsu Belt and Road Investment Fund, and coastal capital. The amount of CATL's investment is not yet clear.

CATL is a scarce supplier of high-quality power batteries in China. Many Chinese auto companies have invested in CATL either actively or passively. CATL just landed on the GEM on June 11.

However, CATL, which has invested a lot in the new energy car industry chain, basically does not invest in vehicle companies. Parts and components companies will be lined up by other vehicle companies. In February 2017, CATL invested 30 million euros to participate in the Finnish car manufacturer Valmet, becoming the third largest shareholder. However, Valmet is a proxy industry and commerce. It used to work for Fisk, not a large customer.

This investment in Betten, which is known to the outside world, CATL invested in the first Chinese car company. Because Betten is a new car company, CATL's big customers, Beiqi New Energy, Geely, and SAIC, may not have much objection.

Born in BMW, classmates intelligent

Why does the current unicorn king of the new energy car market, CATL, look at Betten?

Bifukang said that CATL's investment is not a financial investment that does not focus on returns, and "not because we buy their batteries, but because they find a car company partner to develop future models, interconnected and smart models. "

Bifukang said that just minutes before the interview, he was still talking with the vice chairman of CATL. CATL recognizes the company and recognizes "our technology, our team, and believes that the model will succeed. "

The CATL investment in Betten is probably to explore how car power should respond to the transformation of cars into smart terminals.

From the perspective of success, CATL is a very good company. The industry is familiar with BMW's story on how to teach CATL how to make car-grade batteries.

CATL is indeed the most R&D focused company. Its prospectus disclosed that the number of CATL R&D personnel reached 3,628, while the listed company Guoxuan Gaoke was 1,114, and other second-line battery companies were between 600-700. The R&D cost invested in the Ningde era exceeded 10 in the first half of 2017.

At present, CATL has become a world-class power battery supplier, and its understanding of electric vehicles is also extremely deep. But for smart cars, the industry is exploring. And Betten is one of the leading explorers in this regard. They directly define the product as an intelligent terminal. The first car is designed directly according to the L3 automatic driving. It also plans to achieve the L4 automatic driving business by 2020.

Would smart cars be different from electric cars in terms of energy storage systems? The simple deduction is that when the function of travel is weakened, the energy consumption of self-driving induction, calculation, and execution, and the energy consumption of passengers 'entertainment, communications, and leisure will increase, and even exceed the energy consumption required for travel. This energy consumption has traditionally been provided by small batteries. Does this mean a much larger battery? Or do power cells charge batteries more frequently?

CATL is a BMW, the boss of the team, Bi Fukang, and the chief designer Ye Haohuan are also from BMW. The two "classmates" are now intelligent, and it is logical.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.