Rumors of buying Zoox? How does Amazon, with a market value of trillions, deploy driverless and electrification?

In May this year, a Silicon Valley autonomous driving company with a valuation of more than $3.2 billion? Zoox？ It was revealed that it was seeking buyers, and the list of potential buyers included Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce company.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the two sides are in-depth negotiations, and the latest progress has not yet been announced.

This is not the first time that Amazon has been framed with an autonomous driving company. It has invested in Aurora, an autonomous driving company in Silicon Valley.

Not only autonomous driving, Amazon also invested in Rivian, a new American car-making force, as a major investor in February last year.

Why is e-commerce giant Amazon so keen on autonomous driving and electric cars? What are the considerations behind this?

Twenty-five years later, Jeff Bezos built Amazon from an unknown online bookstore into the world's largest e-commerce company. What is its current total market value? 1.23 trillion US dollars, second only to Apple and Microsoft.

Such a huge e-commerce company has to deal with the purchase needs of hundreds of millions of users around the world every day.

In order to enhance the competitiveness and ensure the experience, Amazon's product delivery cycle is controlled in 2-3 days, especially for member users, and strive to achieve the next day.

Because of these strict standards, building a perfect logistics system is the lifeblood of Amazon.

Amazon has long established its own logistics system.

A report published by foreign media Wired in June 2065438+2009 pointed out that Amazon already owns it? 40 planes and 30,000 trucks are used for air transportation and distribution in this city.

In addition, in warehousing and logistics, Amazon has deployed more than * * * in its operation center. 200,000 storage robots and AGV trolleys are used to carry shelves, load pallets and sort packages.

In the whole 20 19 years, Amazon delivered more than? 3 billion parcels, half of which are completed by Amazon's self-built logistics system, and the rest are borne by external logistics partners.

Such a large-scale distribution demand has brought huge warehousing and logistics costs to Amazon.

For example, in the first quarter of 2020, Amazon spent about? 11500 million USD, accounting for more than 26% of the operating costs in the first quarter.

For Amazon, improving distribution efficiency and reducing logistics costs have become the top priority of technological innovation in the future.

In the past few years, Amazon has been promoting this technological innovation process through independent research and development, external acquisition and investment, and achieved initial results.

What is certain is that Amazon's own logistics system will undergo two major transformations in the future: unmanned and electrified.

The transformation of logistics system to unmanned is well understood: Amazon has a huge distribution fleet and needs to be equipped with a large number of drivers and couriers.

In the future, if some drivers and couriers can be replaced by intelligent means, Amazon's logistics costs will be greatly reduced.

At the electrification level, at present, Amazon's distribution fleet is mainly fuel vehicles. For example, 20 18 bought 20,000 Mercedes-Benz V-series vans in one breath, and the fuel, maintenance and operation management costs of these cars are relatively high.

If the fleet realizes pure electric conversion, its operating cost will also be reduced by an order of magnitude.

What attempts has Amazon made in logistics system innovation in recent years around driverless and electrification?

The story should start from 20 16.

In 20 16, there was a global upsurge in developing driverless technology, and Amazon also set up a forward-looking driverless technology research and development team.

On April 20 17, an article in Huaren Street Daily exposed the team. At that time, it was reported that the team consisted of more than 10 employees and planned to develop unmanned forklifts and trucks to transport goods.

In the same year, Amazon acquired a startup company in a low-key way to develop unmanned delivery vehicles? Dispatch, based on the Dispatch team, Amazon established a special hardware and software laboratory in Seattle to develop unmanned distribution technology.

During this period, domestic rookies from JD.COM and Ali also started the research and development of unmanned delivery vehicles, which shows that e-commerce giants have a keen sense of technology.

After more than a year of research and development and productization, Amazon Scout, an unmanned delivery vehicle developed by Amazon, was officially unveiled in June 20 19.

Scout is about the size of a 26-inch suitcase, and has six motor-driven wheels. There are cameras, ultrasonic sensors and other components around the car body, which can identify and avoid obstacles on the route.

For safety reasons, the speed of this delivery trolley is close to that of adults.

In advance, these vehicles were tested on the street near Amazon's Seattle headquarters.

Before the test, developers will use sensors such as lidar, millimeter wave radar and camera to model the environment of the running area.

After the environmental model is established and matched with Scout's path planning algorithm, the vehicle can be simulated and put into actual road test after the training is mature.

After thousands of practical services in Seattle, the test of Amazon Scout delivery truck was further extended to Irvine, California on August 20 19.

Scouts will train during the day from Monday to Friday. Owen's Amazon customers can choose ordinary manual delivery or Scout delivery after placing an order on the website.

Scout will be accompanied by a supervisor throughout the test.

Due to multiple reasons such as laws and regulations and product maturity, Amazon Scout has not yet ushered in large-scale commercialization.

However, during the epidemic in COVID-19, many undelivered domestic and foreign products have stepped onto the front line of anti-epidemic.

We have reason to expect Scout to run a healthy business model in the terminal distribution market with the support of e-commerce giants like Amazon.

The unmanned innovation of Amazon logistics system, terminal distribution is only a small part of its layout. The market scale of urban distribution and long-distance freight transportation is larger.

On 20 19 1 month, American netizens found a car with a front belt on Interstate 10. Get on the boat? The freight vehicle Logo with Amazon Prime logo printed on the carriage was later proved to be a self-driving truck jointly developed by the two companies, and Embark was mainly responsible for the development of the automatic driving system.

1 month later, Amazon shares in Silicon Valley Autopilot Company? Aurora? Innovation? The new round of financing is $530 million. Because of Aurora's star team and huge investment, this investment event has aroused widespread concern.

Whether it is trunk logistics or urban distribution, autonomous driving technology is attractive enough for Amazon.

As Amazon said in the statement after the investment, "Automation technology may help our employees and partners to work more safely and efficiently, whether in the logistics center or on the road. We are excited about these possibilities. 」

From the perspective of Aurora, with Amazon's endorsement, its autonomous driving technology is more secure in the field of logistics.

Not long after investing in Aurora, it was widely rumored that Amazon would acquire Tucson Future, a self-driving truck company in China.

However, it turns out that Tucson accepted the investment from UPS in the future.

Although the rumors did not come true, it is reasonable for Amazon to acquire Tucson in the future. After all, in terms of the fit of unmanned freight business, the two can be said to be very "suitable".

Amazon's ambition in the field of autonomous driving does not stop there.

In May this year, another self-driving star in Silicon Valley started a business? Zoox？ It was exposed that it was seeking to sell, and Amazon was listed on the list of potential buyers.

According to informed sources, after the latest round of financing, the price of Zoox will be lower than its valuation of $3.2 billion.

This is not a small sum, but for Amazon, the company with the third market value in the world and the largest e-commerce field, there is no pressure to acquire Zoox. What Amazon needs to consider is whether the value of Zoox can match its own business development.

As mentioned earlier, Amazon's self-built logistics distribution system includes large-scale urban distribution fleets, most of which are fuel vehicles, such as Mercedes-Benz V-series vans.

Under the wave of electrification, the transformation of these delivery vehicles will also greatly reduce the operating costs of Amazon's fleet.

On this track, Amazon leads the new American car-making forces in February 20 19? Rivian? A round of financing with a total amount of $700 million, and then participated in another round of financing with a total amount of $654.38+03 billion.

Rivian once launched two pure electric vehicles at the Los Angeles Auto Show of 20 18+0 1: R 1T pickup truck and? R 1S SUV .

This company is regarded as a strong competitor of Tesla, and it plans to deliver electric pickup trucks in 20021year.

The goal of Amazon's investment in Rivian is clear, that is, to form a logistics distribution fleet with Rivian models in the future. The confirmed information is that Amazon will purchase 654.38 million electric trucks from Rivian. Of course, as a shareholder, Amazon should get a good offer.

In April this year, Rivian revealed that a brand-new electric van will be specially designed and manufactured for Amazon for logistics and distribution. This van should be included in Amazon's 654.38 million+purchase order.

However, it will take some time for Amazon to use this electric car.

Prior to this, Amazon has been to the electric vehicle company 1 owned by Deutsche Post this year. Street motorcycle? 40 electric trucks have been ordered and will run in Munich.

To this end, StreetScooter also installed 60 charging stations in the Amazon distribution center on the outskirts of Munich.

In 20 18, StreetScooter and Ford introduced the electric truck StreetScooter Work XL, which has been mass-produced.

The design of this car is based on Ford's Transit truck, and it is equipped with a power transmission system and body designed by StreetScooter.

In view of the innovation of future logistics distribution system, Amazon also has a very important business, that is, Amazon air distribution system? Prime Air？ Part of.

On 20 13 12, Amazon officially launched the drone distribution plan to cooperate with the ground distribution system.

Due to American policy restrictions, the plan is progressing slowly. Subsequently, Amazon went abroad and completed the commercial test of drones in the UK in 20 16 and 12.

Amazon's latest generation Prime Air UAV is equipped with six propellers, thermal camera, camera and sonar to adjust the flight trajectory. This all-electric drone can fly 65,438+05 miles and deliver packages under 5 pounds to customers within 30 minutes. At present, this service has not been widely popularized.

If we want to summarize the development direction of Amazon in the field of logistics and distribution, it is "unmanned electrified ground+air distribution".

The realization of this vision will depend on Amazon's independent research and development and the technological progress of a series of invested companies.

From this perspective, in the fields of autonomous driving and electric vehicles, Amazon is likely to acquire an innovative company each.

In the larger tourism field, Amazon also has many acquisition/investment businesses and related technical reserves.

These acquisition/investment companies include 3D map making service providers, express delivery service providers and freight platforms. Jeff Bezos' personal investment company Bezos Adventures also invested $37 million in Uber in the early days.

For the field of in-vehicle intelligence, Amazon has established cooperation with a large number of car companies including Ford, Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and General Motors, relying on Alexa, an intelligent voice assistant independently developed.

With help? Alexa Auto, consumers can not only remotely start the vehicle, check the fuel and tire pressure, but also convey voice commands while driving, realize in-vehicle functions such as streaming media, weather query, institutional reminder, and even remotely control home smart devices.

"Embedding Alexa into all cars" is the strategic goal of Alexa Auto, and voice interaction is its strategic basis for entering the automobile industry.

In July of 20 19, Reuters analyzed more than 5,000 patents obtained by Amazon from February of 20 16 to May of 20 19, and found that at least 2 10 patents covered topics ranging from drones to self-driving cars and vehicles.

This is more than similar patents of Google and Apple.

In the future, how to use these patents is entirely in the hands of Amazon.

As the world's richest man and the helm of the world's largest e-commerce, what kind of chess Bezos will play in the transportation field is worth looking forward to.

At present, the improvement and renewal of its own logistics distribution system is the next top priority of Amazon, a huge commercial body.

If automation and electrification innovation are successfully completed, e-commerce giants will gain huge benefits from it.

Conversely, the business opportunities created by such a trillion-dollar company will also benefit many innovative enterprises in the field of automation and electrification in the future.

Similarly, in China, e-commerce giants such as Ali and JD.COM are also widely deployed in the field of logistics distribution automation, and such industrial changes will also create endless business opportunities.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.