Unscramble the Ecological Food Chain of the Internet of Vehicles

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the Internet of Vehicles, so I simply talk about it thoroughly. The reason is that the Internet of Vehicles is highly related to automobiles, aftermarket, media, mobile Internet, big data, cloud computing, insurance and even finance, and it is a typical cross-border industry. If you want to make a living in this industry, it is impossible not to see the food chain clearly. I know not many people can see it clearly, so I dare to throw out a version first and see where your career can be in the food chain in the future.

The top layer of any industrial food chain is the government, and the Internet of Vehicles is no exception. No matter how great your business model is, you will eventually have to pay taxes and be supervised by the government.

Because there are regulations and taxes, this means that the Internet of Vehicles has policy risks, and what to do or not to do must be seriously considered. For example, after the Internet and in-vehicle systems are connected, the Internet of Vehicles needs to be connected with the physical traffic environment outside the vehicle, which is M2M (machine-to-machine) networking. This is a typical concept of the Internet of Things. Without the virtual world, most transportation infrastructure is the assets of the government or state-owned enterprises, but without this networking, the value of the Internet of Vehicles will be greatly reduced.

The development of the Internet of Vehicles cannot be separated from the official background. There should be no objection. The leaders recommended Big Data. Obviously, the Internet of Vehicles is the basic data source of big data. Besides public transportation, it can control private traffic data, which is of great help to social security and management. The government should of course support the development of the Internet of Vehicles.

Under the government, there are four camps that covet the Internet of Vehicles. The two giants are OEMs and insurance companies, and the two younger brothers are telecom operators and mobile Internet.

Car companies will play a leading role.

There are many arguments about this. For example, a friend suggested that functional mobile phone manufacturers were replaced by smart phones in those years, but Nokia and Motorola were not the leading players in the field of smart phones. After functional cars are replaced by smart cars, GM, Toyota and Volkswagen will no longer play a leading role.

This analogy is actually a concept of stealing, because the function of mobile phone is communication, and the communication function of the Internet has replaced the traditional mobile phone, so the mobile phone manufacturers who insist on voice communication have gone from bad to worse, but the function of the car is a physical mobile tool. If the Internet can realize the instantaneous movement of human body or objects like in science fiction, then it is still possible that Apple or Google will control the car network, and they may indeed be studying this problem. But in the short term, to subvert the physical mobility function of the car itself, the Internet has no chance, which is why the car networking will still be controlled by the OEM in 5-10 years.

What’s more, the R&D cycle of automobile products is too long, R&D investment is a typical asset-oriented model, and at the same time, it is very strict under government supervision, so it is almost impossible for other formats to subvert their status. For car companies, there are many things that can be done by using the Internet of Vehicles, but the advantage of being short, flat and quick is definitely the extension of car warranty. I have to write a special article on this issue. Only by knowing the individual car condition of the car owner can we give a personalized extended warranty service pricing. Once this is realized, the customer loyalty of the after-sales service of the main engine factory will be greatly increased-I can selectively provide longer warranty service for some car owners who cherish the car during the warranty period and screen high-quality users to provide them with better replacement service.

Insurance companies are another industry that can compete with the income of car companies.I wrote earlier that car networking insurance (not the so-called insurance car networking) is promising, and insurance companies are also watching how this business will land.

All kinds of OBD car networking insurance based on afterloading are also being piloted. Judging from the urgency of using the Internet of Vehicles, I think traditional insurance companies will wait and see, because this opportunity will change their own lives, but innovative investment in the insurance industry will firmly seize this opportunity and cooperate with all parties to promote the landing of Internet of Vehicles insurance.

For car networking insurance, the user data it holds will be real big data, and insurance is just a product that sticks to users, so other services extended from it are really powerful things. For example, after auto insurance claims, the main cost will be used for car body panel repair. Previously, domestic insurance companies did not affect the car body panel repair business. For example, paint, which accounts for 25% of the car body panel repair cost, was not designated by the insurance company, but in Europe, insurance companies will designate this supplier to reduce the premium expenditure. Once the car networking insurance company operates effectively, it is logical to establish a car body panel and spray chain system at the expense end, which means that it is not impossible to control the profit of the post-market.

Telecom operators are another 100 billion-level participant, but this part related to cars is still very small, but typical operators also have its urgency.

With the popularity of traffic-based communication tools such as WeChat, the analog voice communication market of telecom operators is shrinking, and traffic management is an urgent matter. The emergence of 4G will only accelerate this demand. However, business traffic is actually more about business user time. At present, mobile phone users in China have spent a lot of time on their mobile phones, and people will have psychological problems if they extend their time.

If communication between people can’t consume traffic, the traffic potential of communication between people and machines, especially between machines and machines, and between machines and the surrounding environment must be amplified. It is the KPI that telecom operators have to improve their performance, which makes telecom operators very enthusiastic about participating in the car networking. Because the entertainment demand in the living room consumes traffic, but it is static, and mobile operators may not have an advantage, and the demand for traffic in the Internet of Things of home appliances will not be too great.

According to the experience of the United States, a vehicle equipped with car networking consumes at least 1G of traffic with the surrounding environment and M2M (machine to machine) every month, which is much higher than the traffic demand of communication between people, and it is an incremental market. If this market demand can be expanded, telecom operators can still NB for many years.

With one or even several mobile phones in hand, telecom operators will definitely not miss the incremental market of car networking, and any player will definitely not be able to play car networking if he ignores the needs of telecom operators. However, from the perspective of telecom operators, there are too many "ideas" of all parties playing with the Internet of Vehicles at present. If they all attempt to obtain data from telecom operators, or even consider subverting the business of telecom operators, or simply regard telecom operators as a pipeline, then no one will want to participate in the Internet of Vehicles business of telecom operators.

Although there is BAT in the mobile Internet, it is still a rabble in the Internet of Vehicles at present, and it is difficult for anyone to climb out of the sky.

Baidu makes its own data by occupying other people’s copyright for free. This model will be hated by the surrounding ecosystem, and it is difficult to be long-term. On the vehicle side, car companies will definitely get their own car networking APP Store. Although it can be cracked, as long as car companies make rules, BAT still needs to temporarily bow to the OEM to participate. Moreover, at present, content integrators such as Gaode are also doing a lot of work, and audio providers such as Koala FM, which is used to replace radios, are also doing audio copyright integration. At present, the advantages of BAT in the car networking are only reliable by WeChat. For example, some car companies are thinking about integrating WeChat into the buttons on the steering wheel.

The problem is that the development cycle of the vehicle is 3-5 years, and it is not easy for WeChat to be popular for 3-5 years. When the product comes out, WeChat is no longer a strong demand, how can this automobile product find a buyer? I will talk about the issue of the mobile Internet entering the ecosystem of the Internet of Vehicles separately. Simply put, most people who play the mobile Internet don’t know anything about cars at present. If vehicles are simply regarded as mobile phones, this nonsense logic will inevitably be abandoned by this traditional industry. Tesla didn’t highlight its huge touch screen and car networking service in the product promotion before spontaneous combustion several times. It still hopes that the upstarts of the Internet will worship its vehicle performance and design.

Many friends told me that there must be a aftermarket to participate in the car networking. This is my major. I know that all kinds of car networking must be realized by various O2O including aftermarket, butIt is a waste of time to talk about O2O before the ecosystem of the Internet of Vehicles itself is established.No system integrator can play O2O first when there is no mature business model for O2O based on PC and mobile terminal. After the professional faction of the Internet of Vehicles establishes the basic ecosystem of the Internet of Vehicles, the entertainment faction of the Internet of Vehicles can go on stage to let the owners stick to it, and then all kinds of O2O will go on stage to calculate the owners’ wallets. Such a business logic is more like our real world! Welcome to the world of car networking!

　

(Here is Zhu Weihua’s observation and thinking about cars, aftermarket, car networking, internet and media. WeChat, Weibo and news client search for "Zhu Weihua" can all follow me.)