Recently, another new car-making force is about to be officially announced, a poster related to "understanding the future of better travel" has been circulated on the Internet, and NIUTRON will be officially released on December 15.
Along with the poster exposure, there are also test spy photos of the new car, and some media reports say that the new car or positioning medium and large SUVs, and the use of extender drive.
It is understood that Niu Chuangxin Energy will focus on intelligent high-end new energy vehicles, and exert efforts in the two fields of range extender and pure electric, and the products will take into account the intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving assistance functions.
Hasn't the tide of new car-making forces entering the game already passed? How can there be "bold" dare to come?
The point is that this guy can release new cars as soon as he comes, faster than Xiaomi and Evergrande!
In contrast, in March this year, Xiaomi officially announced that it had entered the bureau to build cars, and Xiaomi's plan was: to invest 10 billion yuan in the first phase and a cumulative investment of 10 billion US dollars in the follow-up, and to create a smart electric vehicle with a generous price and touching people's hearts in three to five years. It can be seen that Xiaomi is still very cautious in building cars.
So what is the origin of niu innovative energy? From the perspective of timing, funds, technology, etc., will it be smoother and more reliable than Xiaomi car manufacturing?
According to the data, Jiangsu Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was founded by "legendary" Li Yinan, who is also the founder of the two-wheeled electric vehicle brand Xiaoniu Electric.
Li Yinan, who can make two-wheeled electric vehicles into high-end products and sell well, is naturally not simple, Li Yinan, who bears the aura of "Ren Zhengfei successor" and "genius teenager", was admitted to the junior class of Huazhong University of Science and Technology at the age of 15, entered Huawei internship in the second year of graduate school, and was promoted to chief engineer of Huawei and president of the central research department in only two years.
After two in and two out of Huawei, Li Yinan successively served as the chief technology officer of Baidu, the CEO of Infinite Xunqi and the partner of GSR Venture Capital, and after several short periods of "part-time work" experience, Li Yinan, who had both fame and fortune, opened his first entrepreneurial road. In just four years (October 2018), Maverick Electric, which was founded, was listed on the NASDAQ and is now worth $2.232 billion.
In 2018, the Maverick Electric New Energy Vehicle Project was incubated in Maverick Electric and established an independent operating company "Niuchuang Technology". On December 3, 2020, Jiangsu Niu Innovation Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was registered and established with a registered capital of 50 million yuan, and its business scope includes the sales of new energy vehicles, the sales of new energy vehicle replacement facilities, and the retail sales of auto parts.
In September 2021, the company's registered capital was changed from US$50 million to US$400 million, and Li Yinan's dream of building a car surfaced.
New forces such as Weilai and Xiaopeng will encounter a problem when they are founded: there is no new energy vehicle production qualification. So how does Niu Innovative Energy solve this problem? Keywords: Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Technology Industrial Park.
According to the data, with the decline of Mahayana Automobile, all related assets such as machinery and equipment of Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Sales Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Car Service Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Jintan Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., as well as related industrial real estate and related state-owned land transfer rights of Jiangsu Jintan Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., were auctioned.
After several twists and turns, Yuniu Innovative Energy used the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park on a leased basis. In August 2021, it began to move in, and in early September, Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Technology Industrial Park was officially renamed Niutron.
For start-up auto companies, this is a ready-made "meat bun", in addition to qualifications, the factories and equipment in the industrial park only need to carry out some necessary upgrades and transformations to operate, with a large number of auto industry supporting services around the region (more than 40 kilometers away from the ideal automobile Changzhou base), which greatly saves the preliminary preparation work.
There are still several mountains on the road to building a car, and capital, technology, and marketing are all very "money-burning" problems.
Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, once said that there is no 20 billion funds that cannot be played.
Behind Lei Jun's tens of billions of cars, Xiaomi Group has 100 billion yuan of cash reserves as support.
Xiaopeng Automobile built a Vehicle Production Plant in Zhaoqing with 10 billion yuan, with 1,005 R&D personnel in 2019 and a R&D investment of 1.169 billion yuan.
Tesla Shanghai self-built factory, planning production capacity of 500,000 vehicles, a total investment of 50 billion yuan, of which the first phase of investment of 16 billion yuan.
There is also Evergrande Automobile, which is bought everywhere, and since the start of car manufacturing in 2018, it has publicly claimed that it has invested a total of 47.4 billion yuan.
There is also data about traditional enterprises.
From 2014 to 2019, Great Wall Motor's R&D expenditure was 2.57 billion yuan, 2.76 billion yuan, 3.18 billion yuan, 3.36 billion yuan, 3.959 billion yuan and 4.248 billion yuan, respectively. Wei Jianjun revealed that Great Wall Motors will invest a total of 100 billion yuan in research and development in the next 5 years, and the global R & D personnel will reach 30,000 people, of which 10,000 are software R & D personnel.
Changan Automobile's R&D expenses in the past three years were 2.543 billion yuan in 2018, 3.169 billion yuan in 2019 and 2.297 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2020, respectively.
BYD, the world's first to master the core three-electric system of electric vehicles - battery, motor, electronic control, research and development expenses in the first three quarters of 2021 were 5.234 billion yuan, an increase of 6.99% year-on-year.
According to the Forbes Global Rich List in April 2021, Li Yinan's personal value is about 1 billion US dollars, although it will not be much to build a car and start a business, but with his connections and resources, the short-term funding problems should not be difficult to solve.
However, for the future long-term operation, research and development, supply chain, sales channels, etc., the problem of funds is still under pressure.
In the past two years, the tide of "digging people" of automobile companies has been round after round, and new enterprises such as Xiaopeng and Ideal have absorbed many talents in the industry. After Xiaomi officially announced the car, it has immediately launched various recruitments for autonomous driving positions. At present, Niu Chuangxin Energy has also released a large number of recruitment information on various recruitment platforms, and talents related to the automotive industry have become a hot and fragrant feast.
There are also questions about product positioning.
The reason why Xiaomi cars are optimistic about all parties is that many people hope that Xiaomi can "beat" down the price of the car, so that young people can easily own a high-quality, people-friendly car, and Lei Jun's sentence "to create a smart electric vehicle with a thick price and touching people's hearts" also implies that the price of Xiaomi's first product will not be too high.
However, Xiaomi will still encounter many strong competitors, such as rich young people who have begun to become loyal users of Tesla, and young people who have just graduated with a limited budget cannot escape the "true fragrance" law of Hongguang MINIEV.
So, will the prospect of the cattle innovation energy market, which has been positioned as a large SUV in the extender range at the beginning, be clearer than that of Xiaomi? Not necessarily, the current range extended range hybrid models have ideal, Lantu, Xilisi, etc., and 200,000 or 300,000 budget of new energy models, BYD Han, Xiaopeng P7, Weilai ES8, etc. are all strong players, and it is not easy for Niu Chuangxin Energy to share a piece of the pie.
Can the two-wheeled electric vehicle "one brother" bring another business myth in the field of four-wheeled vehicles? Or the December 15 conference can give us the answer. (Photo: Network/Text: Feng)