Autonomous driving and shared cars are not profitable at all at the moment, so why are they still favored by investors?

The automotive industry is currently facing an upgrade and transformation, with the trend of intelligence, electrification, networking and sharing booming. This transformation is very complex, and the industrial chain involved is also very complex. No one company can take charge of the entire industrial chain.

The new energy vehicle industry is very popular now, and a large amount of capital has entered. Although the current new energy vehicle industry is heavily dependent on subsidies and it is very difficult to make profits on its own, where capital is looking, a mature business landscape based on new energy vehicles will emerge in the next few years. Autonomous driving, intelligent networking, and shared cars will all be based on new energy vehicles, forming a complete and complex industrial ecology.

In 2017, global sales of pure electric vehicles reached more than 1.2 million, a 20-fold increase from 50,000 in 2011. Not only new energy vehicles, but also investment in shared cars has increased significantly. In 2015, global investment in shared cars was US$200 million, but this figure increased to US$11.3 billion in 2017, an increase of more than 50 times.

Currently, many car companies regard mobility service providers as their future strategic positioning. Both traditional car companies and start-ups are no longer satisfied with buying car hardware, but hope to establish closer ties with users and expand their own profit models.

This vision drives capital to increase investment in autonomous driving, shared cars, and intelligent networking. In fact, these areas do not bring profits, and consumer demand is not clear. Whether it is new car companies or shared cars, most are in a state of burning money and making losses. Capital's prediction of the development prospects of automobiles is actually an important driving force for the current advancement of the four modernizations of automobiles.

At present, both autonomous driving and shared cars use new energy vehicles as their hardware platform. The shared platform is an ideal application scenario for new energy vehicles. Electric vehicles are expensive, but charging is cheap. The higher the mileage, the more economical the electric vehicle is; and large-scale use makes charging easier.

The development of autonomous driving will greatly boost the development of car-sharing and promote the promotion of new energy vehicles. The significance of autonomous driving is to reduce the labor cost of car-sharing. Only when the labor cost is reduced can car-sharing make a profit.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.