标签归档 苏州夜网

　　There are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests. When Wang Lu, Baidu’s vice-president, and Zhang Xuhao, the founder of Ele.me, clasped hands, even as the delivery guys in different colors outside the window were still engaged in a "contest" over who squeezed into the narrow elevator first, the pattern of the delivery market had changed.

　　On August 24th, Ele.me formally announced the merger of Baidu Takeaway. After the merger is completed, Baidu Takeaway becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ele.me. The two sides did not disclose the transaction amount, but only through two "internal letters" from Ele.me and Baidu Takeaway to close the long-circulated merger. When the dust falls, how will the newly formed "blue and red combination" run in? What changes will happen to the mentality of each individual in the battlefield? Even if many of the core issues of the merger are deliberately "blurred", there are always clues to be found.

　　Will there be Baidu takeaway in the future?

　　Baidu takeaway maintains its existing brand and organizational structure to operate independently

　　"If the two sides merge, will the new brand be renamed Duzi Hungry?" Of course, the joke of netizens did not come true. Baidu Takeaway still develops as an independent brand and operating system, and the personnel structure including management remains unchanged.

　　Zhang Xuhao, CEO of Ele.me, said in an internal letter that Baidu Takeaway and Ele.me come together, but it would be the best decision to let Baidu Takeaway operate independently with its existing brand and organizational structure. Zhang Xuhao said that Baidu Takeaway operates independently, which does not mean that it does not interact with each other. The two sides will help each other and complement each other’s advantages to form a joint force of 1 + 1 > 2. Ele.me will invest funds, traffic, manpower and other resources in Baidu Takeaway to support Baidu Takeaway to become bigger and stronger, so that the user experience can be greatly improved.

　　Baidu Takeaway also said that after the merger, Baidu Takeaway will continue to develop as an independent brand and operating system, and the personnel structure including management will remain unchanged. The acquisition does not involve Baidu Nuomi, which has attracted much attention before. "We will make every effort to strengthen strategic coordination with Ele.me to achieve a win-win effect. This is the trend of industry development and the common choice of management. Some students may not be able to accept this change for the time being. Yesterday we were still fighting in blood, and today we have clasped hands. However, the change must be for a better start."

　　2 Who brokered the deal?

　　Alibaba and Baidu, of course.

　　Alibaba provided financing support for the acquisition of Baidu food delivery by Ele.me. Cai Chongxin, executive vice chairperson of Alibaba Group, said that Alibaba and Ele.me have reached a strategic cooperation for a year, which has created great value for the users of both parties. The market position established by Ele.me so far also proves the excellent strategic vision and execution of the management team. Alibaba supports Ele.me to integrate the food delivery market. It believes that Ele.me will be able to consolidate its leading advantage after merging Baidu food delivery. The group will continue to give strong support to the new platform in terms of traffic and financing.

　　This transaction is of course also supported by Baidu Group. Lu Qi, president and chief operating officer of Baidu Group, said that he is very happy to see Baidu Takeaway and Ele.me marriage, and believes that the integrated resources and technical capabilities can bring a better consumer experience to consumers.

　　Baidu Takeaway also said in an internal email, "Baidu and Alibaba will also give us all-round and greater support. This also means that we will receive double the resources from now on."

　　3 Is Baidu takeaway "cheap"?

　　In 2015, Baidu takeaway was valued at $2.40 billion

　　In yesterday’s official announcement, the parties did not disclose the transaction price. But according to Caijing magazine, the deal is only $800 million, with $200 million in cash.

　　"Caijing" reported that the price is divided into two parts: Baidu takeaway 500 million dollars for sale; in addition, Baidu packaged some traffic inlet resources to Ele.me, priced at 300 million dollars, including mobile Baidu, Baidu Nuomi, Baidu map, the term is five years, Baidu search period is two years. This 800 million dollars 200 million dollars in cash, Ele.me issued shares 300 million dollars, Baidu accounted for 5% of the shares of Ele.me after the completion of the transaction, the remaining 300 million dollars lock period of five years.

　　If the price is true, it is indeed impressive.

　　In 2015, after Baidu takeaway completed the A round of financing of 250 million US dollars, Baidu founder and CEO Robin Li once said that Baidu takeaway was valued at 2.40 billion US dollars. In 2016, Baidu takeaway also frequently contacted investors, and the proposed price of B round financing happened to be about 500 million US dollars.

　　Two years later, the delivery fees of the three major takeaway platforms have quietly risen, but the valuation of Baidu takeaway is far less than that of the year it was established. This price may only make the A round investors not lose money. What’s more, the "traffic package" worth 300 million US dollars covers almost all of Baidu’s high-quality entrances, including mobile Baidu, Baidu Nuomi, and Baidu Map.

　　What does Alibaba want?

　　Another layout of the new retail strategy

　　The latest financial report released by Alibaba shows that in April 2017, Alibaba and Ant Financial further increased their holdings in Ele.me, with a total investment amount of 400 million US dollars. After the completion of this investment, Alibaba’s shareholding ratio in Ele.me was 32.94%, replacing the Ele.me management team and becoming the largest shareholder of Ele.me.

　　In fact, before May 2014, Meituan still belonged to the Ali department, but with the merger of Meituan Dianping, Ali and Meituan also "broke up".

　　The industry generally believes that Ele.me’s acquisition of Baidu takeaway is another layout of Alibaba’s new retail strategy. Ali’s strategy is to develop offline and penetrate into various scenarios related to payment, which will inevitably conflict with Meituan’s business. In April 2016, Ele.me integrated the word-of-mouth of Alibaba to provide operational support for the takeaway service of the word-of-mouth platform. Today’s Ali is building a new retail ecosystem. After losing control of Meituan, the combination of Ele.me + Baidu takeaway is even more important to Ali.

　　5 Baidu to get rid of the burden?

　　The soaring stock price speaks for itself

　　In fact, when the news was not finally confirmed on Monday, Baidu’s soaring share price was enough to explain everything.

　　Although Baidu founder Robin Li said in 2015 that he would invest in 20 billion within three years to support the development of O2O business, including Baidu takeaway, the business model of burning money and unsmooth financing have made Baidu takeaway lose the qualification to compete for the first place in the industry.

　　Since the second half of last year, Baidu Group has made it clear that artificial intelligence will be the main development goal, and Baidu’s takeaway business, which requires a lot of money, will eventually become an "abandoned child". In Baidu’s latest second-quarter financial report, Baidu has set a new strategic goal of transforming AI. Li Yanhong said that Baidu uses artificial intelligence as the driving force to continuously improve its existing core business, especially mobile Baidu, search, information flow and other core products, and did not mention Baidu’s future layout and strategy in the O2O field.

　　How can the takeaway industry landscape be rewritten?

　　The tripod becomes a two-man competition for hegemony

　　After the merger of Ele.me and Baidu Takeaway, some of Baidu Takeaway’s mid-to-high-end customer resources will complement the customer base of Ele.me, which started in the campus market. In addition, Baidu Takeaway’s technical advantages will also become a "weapon" for the development of Ele.me. Analysys analyst Yang Xu believes that Ele.me takes over Baidu Takeaway as a business, user and rider who value Baidu. "Baidu has always been positioned as a high-end and white-collar user, and it is a model of quality takeaway, so Ele.me can access the cooperation of Baidu quality merchants."

　　At present, the competition between Ele.me and Meituan is particularly intense, and the market share of the two sides is also increasing. According to the "Research Report on China’s Online Catering Takeaway Market in the First Half of 2017" released by iiMedia Consulting, Ele.me maintains the lead with a share of 41.7%, followed by Meituan Takeaway with 41%, and Baidu Takeaway retains a share of 13.2%. After the merger of Ele.me and Baidu Takeaway, the market share will exceed 50%, which will greatly change the current stalemate between Ele.me and Meituan Takeaway.

　　7 What does Meituan think of this merger?

　　"There is still a lot of room for growth in the takeaway market"

　　Yesterday, Meituan takeaway officials finally spoke out. Meituan said that the takeaway industry has come to this day, which is a process of mutual achievement for each participant in the market. No matter how the industry landscape changes, what remains unchanged is customer-centric. The takeaway market still has a lot of room for growth, and is willing to work together with peers to expand the takeaway market, improve industry norms, practice social responsibility, and provide better services to consumers.

　　Han Won Jia, Beijing Morning Post reporter

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　　Aizhan’s net profit fell by 80%

　　The sale of Baidu takeaway may affect its performance

　　Beijing Morning Post (Reporter, Chen Qiong) As one of the shareholders of Baidu Takeaway, Weiqian (China) Holdings Co., Ltd. used this investment to achieve a 2.6-fold increase in net profit last year, but this "dividend" did not last. With the sale of Baidu Takeaway to Ele.me, the performance prospects of Weiqian (China) Holdings Co., Ltd. have become increasingly blurred.

　　According to the semi-annual report released by Weiqian (China) Holdings Co., Ltd., Weiqian achieved a turnover of 1.152 billion yuan in the first half of 2017, down 2.5% year-on-year; net profit was 109 million yuan, down 80.9% year-on-year. In addition, the group’s other losses were 3.015 million yuan, down 100.5% from 623 million yuan in the same period in 2016. For the decline in operating performance, Weiqian attributed the reason to the decline in the number of stores and same-store sales during the reporting period. The semi-annual report shows that the number of Weiqian stores in mainland China fell from 625 in mid-2016 to 619 in the middle of this year.

　　In the second half of 2015, Weiqian invested 70 million US dollars (about 466 million yuan) in Baidu’s takeaway business. This investment accounted for less than 10% of Baidu’s takeaway equity, but brought 260.5% net profit growth to Weiqian in 2016. However, this investment has not changed the slump of Weiqian’s main ramen business. In recent years, Weiqian has launched more than a dozen sub-brands such as Hito Zang and Westinghouse Musashi in one go. However, the strategy of intensively launching sub-brands has not saved the decline of Weiqian’s main catering business.

　　With the sale of Baidu Takeaway at a "low price", the performance of shareholder Weiqian (China) has also become uncertain. According to the announcement of Weiqian, according to recent market news, one of the company’s "designated financial assets at fair value through profit and loss has a certain degree of uncertainty", which actually refers to the company’s investment in Baidu Takeaway.

　　With the dual drive of policy and market, China’s new energy vehicle market has experienced explosive growth in the past 10 years. However, it should not be ignored that the first batch of power batteries for new energy vehicles are aging, and a "retirement tide" of power batteries is coming.

　　According to the quality assurance ability of 20% battery decay in 8 years of general vehicle manufacturers, China has ushered in a rapid increase in the number of retired power batteries for new energy vehicles since 2017. It is estimated that the number of retired batteries will reach 9.3 billion watt-hours in 2025, and the number of retired batteries will increase by more than 1 million orders of magnitude every year. This will bring huge potential market value of ladder utilization. If the retired batteries are recycled according to the method of first step and then regeneration, it is estimated that the total market size will reach 37.9 billion yuan by 2025.

　　As we all know, batteries contain a variety of heavy metal elements, which will cause environmental harm if not handled properly. What will happen when the waste power battery has a huge potential market scale and meets the recycling market system that needs to be improved? What are the "blocking points" that need to be opened?

　　1. Value and risk of a "retired" power battery

　　According to the national standard of new energy vehicles, power batteries can often be "retired" with more than 80% remaining. This makes the power battery still have great use value after it is retired from the vehicle, which not only forms a huge potential market, but also means certain environmental risks.

　　"Generally speaking, after the service life of power batteries is 5-8 years, we encourage ‘ Retired ’ Step use of battery. Although the battery’s cruising range is reduced, it can’t meet the needs of vehicles, but it can be recycled for other energy storage needs, and it can still continue ‘ Service ’ For a while, you can also choose the recycling of batteries in the future. " Jia Jingchun, an associate professor at the School of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences of Inner Mongolia Normal University, introduced.

　　Liu Wanmin, an associate professor at material chemistry of Hunan Institute of Technology, told the reporter: "‘ Retired ’ Power batteries can be widely used in power system energy storage, backup power supply for communication base stations, low-speed electric vehicles and small distributed household energy storage, wind and solar complementary, electric forklifts and other fields. Generally, it can be used to about 60% of the initial capacity of the battery. According to different usage scenarios, the service life can range from several months to several years. "

　　It still has the use value of several years, which makes "step by step utilization first, then recycling" become the first choice for recycling "retired" power batteries. Cascade utilization refers to the application of "retired" power batteries in other fields. Recycling is to disassemble, crush and screen the "retired" battery, and extract lithium, cobalt, nickel and other metal elements from the battery by leaching hydrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy, and use them in the production of secondary batteries.

　　The reporter learned that power batteries contain metal elements such as lithium, cobalt, manganese and nickel, and the cost of raw materials accounts for 50%~70% of the total cost. The lithium salt and cobalt salt consumed by power batteries have become the largest proportion in all application fields of lithium and cobalt. With the rapid consumption of primary resources, the recovery of secondary resources should reach the corresponding level. Since the release of National Mineral Resources Planning (2016-2020), China has reserved rare earth metal minerals as strategic resources. Therefore, recycling metal elements in power batteries can not only better develop circular economy, but also effectively alleviate China’s long-term dependence on such resources.

　　However, Jia Jingchun also pointed out that lithium batteries contain heavy metals such as lithium, and some batteries use organic electrolytes and organic separators. Different from the simple recycling method of traditional lead-acid batteries, the metal recycling process of lithium-ion batteries is relatively complicated. Once improperly operated, these heavy metals and organic electrolytes will bring serious threats to the environment.

　　"After the battery is dismantled, we generally use hydrometallurgy or pyrometallurgy to recycle lithium, nickel, cobalt and other metal elements. Improper disassembly will lead to many problems such as safety, environment and resources. From the safety point of view, there are hidden dangers such as electric shock, short-circuit explosion and hydrofluoric acid corrosion. From the environmental point of view, there are heavy metal pollution such as cobalt and nickel, fluorine pollution and white pollution caused by battery diaphragm. From the perspective of resources, there is a waste of high-priced resources such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. " Liu Wanmin said.

　　2. Battery recycling enterprises face three major challenges.

　　Although the recycling potential is huge, at present, there is no leading enterprise in the power battery recycling market, and even some chaos has occurred. Earlier, some media reported that many host manufacturers have established battery recycling business. However, some power batteries did not flow into the formal channels, but were bought at high prices by unqualified and highly polluting small factories and improperly treated, causing hidden dangers of secondary environmental pollution. Why is this so?

　　"First, at present, users of new energy vehicles are not strong enough to recycle power batteries; Second, the recycling price of some small workshops is much higher than that of regular recycling enterprises; Third, the enterprises that recycle batteries have high qualification requirements, which leads to a limited number of formal recycling enterprises; Fourth, the recycling technology is immature and the recycling business model lacks innovation. " Liu Wanmin analyzed.

　　Among them, the ladder utilization and recycling is the most difficult. Although China has become the country with the best development of new energy vehicles in the world, power battery is still a new technology. In the eyes of the industry, enterprises still face three major challenges in battery recycling: inconvenient battery disassembly, unknown residual value of battery health and low economic benefits.

　　The complexity of "retired" batteries is high. Different power batteries have different internal and external structural designs, module connection methods and process technologies, and only have square, cylindrical, soft bag and other shapes. This directly led to the later disassembly work can not be large-scale operation, which increased the difficulty of disassembly and labor costs. If the operation is improper, it is more likely that short circuit will cause fire or explosion, leakage will pollute the surrounding environment and threaten the health of employees, resulting in casualties and property losses.

　　At present, there is no data record of the usage of some "retired" power batteries, only the original data when they leave the factory, and the usage process and current state are unknown. Before the power battery is used step by step, each module must be tested, which greatly increases the cost of the enterprise. At the same time, based on the limited data, the prediction of the remaining life is not accurate enough, which will undoubtedly increase the quality risk of the products.

　　The above factors make the economic benefit of recycling power batteries low. A staff member of a battery recycling enterprise told the reporter that the small workshop gave up many key links such as detection and discharge in battery recycling, and the operators did not receive professional training, so the operating cost was much lower than that of regular enterprises, thus having more room for bargaining power and battery acquisition cost, which caused vicious competition with regular enterprises.

　　3. The maintenance traceability of the "ID card" of the power battery has not been smooth.

　　In fact, as early as 2016, China has issued the "Implementation Plan for Extended Producer Responsibility System", requiring the establishment of a recycling system for electric vehicle power batteries. The plan points out that electric vehicle and power battery manufacturers should be responsible for establishing a waste battery recycling network, recycling waste batteries through after-sales service network, and publishing recycling information to ensure standardized recycling and safe disposal of waste batteries. Power battery manufacturers should implement product coding and establish a full life cycle traceability system.

　　On July 31, 2018, the national monitoring platform for new energy vehicles and the comprehensive management platform for the traceability of power batteries (hereinafter referred to as "the national traceability management platform") was launched. The platform was built by the National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles of Beijing Institute of Technology, and its main function was to collect information and monitor the whole process of power batteries’ production, sales, use, scrapping, recycling and utilization, so as to realize that the source of power batteries can be traced, the destination can be traced and the nodes can be controlled.

　　At present, the national traceability platform has collected more than 5.6 million vehicle information data, including new energy passenger cars, buses, special vehicles, etc., and the total number of supporting batteries exceeds 8.9 million, with batteries exceeding 28 billion watt-hours. It involves more than 290 new energy vehicle manufacturers and more than 180 battery companies.

　　The establishment of the whole life cycle traceability system means that every car’s battery has its own "ID card". But why do batteries still flow into small workshops? Some insiders pointed out that although China has established a traceability management system, due to the lack of mandatory policies, enterprises have problems such as serious lag, incompleteness and difficulty in traceability when reporting data. At the same time, the current policies and regulations are not binding on how car owners deal with batteries, which also gives small workshops an opportunity to buy power batteries.

　　"In 2015, China’s technical policy has clearly stated that a power battery coding system will be established. The Interim Measures for the Management of Recycling in 2018 proposed the establishment of a power battery traceability information management system, coding technical standards and related information sharing mechanisms. However, in reality, there are many types and quantities of enterprises involved, such as battery manufacturers, battery maintenance and replacement institutions, battery leasing enterprises, and cascade utilization enterprises. The battery life cycle is as long as several years, and coding maintenance is difficult. " Liu Wanmin said.

　　Jia Jingchun said: "Professional battery recycling is a large-scale system engineering. How to recycle requires coordination from all sides, especially the cooperation of automobile manufacturers, battery manufacturers and related extension industries. Once a link in the whole cycle is unreasonable, it will inevitably lead to problems of lag and other derivatives in recycling. "

　　4. The national standard system for battery recycling still needs to be improved.

　　By the end of 2020, China’s National Standardization Administration Committee has issued five national standards for the recycling of vehicle batteries, basically forming a standard system framework. In addition, the regulatory policies for the recycling of power batteries, the relevant standards of the echelon industry and the industry regulatory system are also being improved. However, some insiders pointed out that most of the standards currently issued are recommended standards, and there are problems such as insufficient binding force and lack of superior law in the implementation process.

　　"At present, new energy owners are interested in ‘ Retired ’ In fact, most people are still vague about how to dispose of batteries. Some car companies have introduced battery replacement, such as full mileage or ‘ Service ’ Time for battery replacement and recycling. However, the large-area battery life of new energy vehicles has not yet arrived. " Jia Jingchun said that he pointed out that over time, new energy owners will gradually become more experienced in how to properly handle power batteries. "At present, we should establish corresponding supervision and legislation to ensure that used batteries can be returned to manufacturers or recycling enterprises. At the same time, the supervision of battery production and use must be formed. After leaving the factory, traceability, use tracking and battery destination after use all need a set of supervision mechanisms. "

　　Many experts in the industry pointed out that in order to speed up the recycling of power batteries, in addition to strengthening the implementation of the producer extension system, there are still three aspects to be improved in the future: first, we must strengthen publicity and raise consumers’ awareness of environmental protection; Second, we should formulate policies to subsidize or reward enterprises that actively participate in battery recycling, and at the same time crack down on non-compliant recycling; The third is to speed up the transformation of intelligent equipment in enterprises, improve the efficiency of battery recycling, reduce the recycling cost through economies of scale, improve the bargaining power of enterprises, and provide effective protection for the normal operation of enterprises, thus fundamentally solving the industrial problems of high cost and low profit and guiding the further standardization of battery recycling.

　　As many batteries go online, there are many batteries to be "retired". As an important part of the development of new energy vehicle industry in the future, the healthy and standardized development of power batteries is very important.

　　This year’s government work report mentioned that the construction of power battery recycling system will be accelerated. At the national level, China has accelerated the legislative process of power battery recycling. In addition, the reporter learned that on March 29, 2021, the national evaluation and trading platform for "retired" power batteries of new energy vehicles (also known as battery house) was established in Foshan City, Guangdong Province.

　　The platform will aggregate the resources of the National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles, the National Monitoring and Management Platform for Battery Traceability and the specialized committee for recycling new energy batteries, and strive to maximize the battery utilization rate. Based on the blockchain technology, it will provide many services for new energy automobile enterprises, such as performance evaluation of big data power batteries, offline laboratory testing and online trading of power batteries, and it is also expected to help solve the industrial problems such as difficult recycling, limited sales channels and lack of rapid performance testing technology in the recycling of power batteries.

　　(Reporter Li Yulan Du Bing)