More than two months after reaching a technology licensing agreement with Steyr USA on intellectual property rights related to its BE21 pure electric platform in early February, the technology transferee of BAIC New Energy's platform was exposed ahead of the opening of the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show.
"BAIC Langu (BAIC New Energy operator) platform is authorized by Fisk, whose first model will be mass produced next year." Liu Yu, general manager of BAIC Blue Valley, revealed this information to the Financial Associated Press after the official release of the HI versions of polar fox Alpha S and Alpha S Huawei on April 17.
On February 1 this year, BAIC Blue Valley announced that Magna Weilan New Energy vehicle Technology (Zhenjiang), a subsidiary of the company, intends to sign a "platform Architecture non-exclusive license Agreement" (hereinafter referred to as "Technology license Agreement") with Steyr (Steyr USALLC) for platform architecture, chassis technology and other related intellectual property rights of BE21 pure electric vehicle product platform. The technology license fee is 50 million euros (about 390 million yuan).
Earlier on January 13, Magna Weilan also reached an agreement with Steyr USA on the licensed use of the EE architecture of the BE21 platform, with the former making a profit of 192 million yuan.
Magna Weilan, funded 50% each by BAIC New Energy and Magna International, was established in December 2018. On April 17, it officially released the sale prices of the extreme Fox Alpha S and Alpha S Huawei HI versions, as well as the previously listed Alpha T and other models from the company. Steyr USA, which successively signed two technology transfer licensing agreements with BAIC Blue Valley, totaling more than 580 million yuan, is a subsidiary of Magna International.
According to public data, the BE21 platform is the first fully redundant electric hardware platform jointly created by BAIC Langu and Magna, which can meet the development needs of cars, SUV and cross-border models through modular chassis and body structure. In addition, in terms of intelligent driving technology, the BE21 platform architecture is equipped with 23 sensors and 2 domain controllers, and supports the development and expansion of intelligent driving technology at L3-L4 level.
"BAIC had a good accumulation of technology in the past, but vehicle enterprises should open up the industrial chain and realize the realization of value and the transfer of technical power to product power." BAIC New Energy executives said in an interview with the Financial Associated Press that the realization of technological value, in addition to their own production capacity, can also be achieved in the form of external empowerment.
The two technology transfer authorization agreements reached with Magna are the concrete embodiment of BAIC's new energy "external empowerment".
Magna, as an international auto parts giant, will not put the BE21 platform on the shelf after paying a transfer fee of nearly 600 million yuan to BAIC New Energy.
In December, Fisk (Fisker), an American start-up for new energy vehicles, announced the signing of an electric vehicle platform agreement and a manufacturing agreement with Gina International. According to the agreement, the Ocean SUV electric vehicle that Fisk has completed will use the electric vehicle platform developed by Magna to improve the FM29 platform tailor-made for Ocean SUV on the basis of the existing platform. Magna will also be responsible for the initial mass production of the model and is expected to take off the production line in Europe in the fourth quarter of 2022.
According to the technical parameters disclosed at that time, the industry speculated that the FM29 platform that gave birth to Fisk's first electric SUV Ocean came from Magna Weilan, that is, BAIC Blue Valley BE21 platform.
In addition to reaching a cooperation agreement with Magna, in February this year, Fisk signed a memorandum of cooperation with Foxconn, under which the two sides will work together to build Fisker-branded electric car products through the "Project PEAR" (Personal Electric Automotive Revolution) project, which is expected to be in mass production in the fourth quarter of 2023, with an annual production of more than 250000 vehicles.
"Fisk's next electric car is likely to emulate BAIC's new energy model, that is, to obtain platform technology licenses from mature car companies through partners." The aforementioned industry insiders said that in this way, the products can enter the market as soon as possible.
