Didi Chuxing Announces New Joint Venture with BAIC BJEV

Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行) has established a new joint venture, the Beijing Jingju New Energy Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd., with BAIC BJEV (北汽新能源), one of the biggest NEVs makers in China, according to Chinese technology media 36Kr.

The search result provided by company information revealing platform Qichacha.com shows that Didi Chuxing holds 67% of the joint venture's stake, while BAIC BJEV holds 33%. It also reveals that the company was officially registered on 27 December 2018.

The new company is supposed to integrate the two sides’ advantages to conduct businesses such as new energy vehicles operating, traffic big data, NEVs hailing, and customized vehicles hailing. The two parties will cooperate on applying NEVs to Didi Chuxing’s ride-hailing through the new joint venture.

The new company will also work to develop the so-called “next-generation connected-car system” by using new energy vehicle and artificial intelligence technologies.

The 2012-founded Didi Chuxing is always regarded as China’s Uber, which owns more than 500 million rider users and 21 million drivers. The company dominated China’s ride-hailing market by acquiring Uber’s China branch in 2016.

The company now faces competitors like Meituan, Yidao, Gaode, and even Ant Finance in the online ride-hailing market, and it believes that the next step is to march to the new energy vehicle industry and combine it with its previous business.

The company formed an industry consortium in April 2018called the Hongliu League to establish a car-operator platform, which consists of 31 automobile companies such as BAIC BJEV, BYD, and Bosch would work together on automobile making, auto parts manufacturing, new energy, digital mapping, and connected car.

“Taobao connects goods, Baidu connects information, WeChat connects people, and the vision of Didi Chuxing is to connect all the vehicles and increase the efficiency of city traffic,” says Cheng Wei (程维), the founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing, citing the top three most-used online products in China.

Didi Chuxing says it has around 400,000 new energy vehicles registered on its online ride-hailing app, most of which are made through its cooperation with automakers such as BYD and BAIC BJEV.

Vehicle sales in China have seen an unusual decline of 6% in 2018 for the first time in 20 years, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). But when it comes to electric vehicles (EVs), China still keeps its escalating trend, with the production and sales number of new energy vehicles reaching 1.26 million in 2018, up 64% compared to 2017, as EqualOcean reported before.

China's goal of new-energy vehicles in 2020 is to produce and sell 2 million of new energy vehicles, said MIAO Wei (苗圩), China's minister of industry and information, in an interview with state-owned broadcaster CCTV. "Even though the industry continues to rely on the government subsidies," said him. In the interview, Miao Wei said that his ministry will supervise the quality and safety of new-energy vehicles, and he is confident that the goal of 2 million NEV sales will be realized.