War? Battle! With the loneliest dream, to the whimpering and roaring in the night.
【Lieyun Network Beijing】Reported on December 15 (Text/Wang Fei)
In October 2018, Li Yinan, who watched the Mavericks electric listing, but for some reason failed to ring the bell on the stage, had mixed feelings in his heart.
A thought came out of nowhere - to build a car, from two wheels to four wheels.
In other words, during his imprisonment, he has witnessed the upsurge of the new energy vehicle track and has secretly plotted countless times. With the maverick electric landing on the NASDAQ, the idea has become more firm after the company, to the entrepreneurial partners, and to the investors.
In November 2018, the car project was officially established, and Li Yinan silently started a new journey.
After more than three years of preparation, finally on December 15, 2021, Li Yinan and the auto brand Self-Touring Official unveiled (English brand "NIUTRON") and announced that the first product, Self-Tourism NV, will be listed and pre-ordered in the first half of 2022, and will start delivery in September of the same year. At the same time, Ziyoujia Automobile announced the completion of a $500 million A round of financing, and obtained investment from IDG, COATUE and other world-renowned institutions.
Source: Courtesy of the enterprise
From a genius teenager to Huawei's youngest vice president, known as the "Huawei Prince"; from the establishment of the harbor network, forcing Huawei to set up a "Hong Kong Office" and finally being incorporated; from Baidu to China Mobile, from GSR Venture Capital to Meihua Venture Capital, and the "last business" of the Maverick Electric...
Along the way, Li Yinan's legendary life is almost incomparable, and it is quite appropriate to describe it as a "lone brave". As Eason Chan sang: "The wounds on your forehead, your differences, the mistakes you make, are all brave." Love you walking alone in the dark alley, love the way you don't kneel, love you have faced despair, and refuse to cry. ”
The genius boy first grew up, from prince to prodigal son
Li Yinan, born in 1970 in an ordinary family in Hunan, everything does not seem to be so different. Just 15 years later, he was admitted to the first junior class of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology) and became one of the 23 "genius teenagers", and his extraordinary beginnings were revealed.
In 1992, Li Yinan, a second-year graduate student, came to Huawei for internship under the guidance of his tutor Song Wenzhi. In June of the following year, Li Yinan graduated from graduate school and officially entered Huawei. On the second day of his employment, he was promoted to Huawei engineer; half a month later, he was promoted to chief engineer; half a year later, he was promoted to deputy general manager of the central research department; and he was promoted to chief engineer of Huawei and president of the central research department in two years.
By the time Li Yinan turned 26, he had become Huawei's executive vice president and Huawei's youngest vice president. The former genius teenager quickly transformed into a general in charge of the party, with outstanding merits: in 1997, Li Yinan took command, and Huang Yaoxu, director of the transmission business department, was the pioneer, and with the cooperation of the two, the transmission sales of 100 million yuan that year climbed to 1 billion yuan 1 year later, becoming Huawei's second "cash cow".
Since 1998, Li Yinan has been in charge of the product department under the marketing department. This also laid the foundation for him to become Ren Zhengfei's "dry son", "Huawei prince", Huawei's research and development leader, and Huawei's second person.
Until 2000, Li Yinan left Huawei, took Huawei shares converted from technical contributions, converted into start-up funds and Huawei equipment (worth about 10 million yuan), and founded the Harbor Network. In the short three years from 2001 to 2004, the company's annual sales revenue was 147 million yuan, 410 million yuan and 1 billion yuan, and even in the industry, it obtained the nickname of "Little Huawei", and its influence can be seen.
If it is just a simple business competition, the broad-minded Ren Zhengfei will naturally not mind. In December 2003, Li Yinan's Harbor Network and Juntian Technology, founded by Huang Yaoxu, announced a merger with the intention of entering the operator's optical transmission market, which is also the hinterland and fundamental of Huawei. After Ren Zhengfei learned of this acquisition, he quipped, "Obediently, the Red Army and the Red Fourth Front Army have also won the division!" ”
After the dust settled on huawei's "lawsuit of the century" with a settlement, in July 2004, Huawei officially established the "Anti-Harbor Work Office (commonly known as the Hit Hong Kong Office)", which was directly led by Ren Zhengfei. The harbor network led by Li Yinan began to encounter Ren Zhengfei's multi-dimensional hunting.
As a result, everyone knows that in June 2006, Huawei acquired the harbor network for 1.7 billion yuan. In September of that year, Li Yinan returned to Huawei.
Li Yinan also abided by the agreement to "continue to work at Huawei for at least two years" until he left Huawei to join Baidu in October 2010. Since then, Li Yinan seems to have become a "homeless" prodigal son: two years of Baidu CTO career, a year and a half of Infinite Xunqi (12580) CEO experience, and even the days of being a risk partner in GSR Ventures, hurrying and hurrying away.
In August 2014, under the introduction of Ming Mingming, the founder of Mingshi Capital, Li Yinan took himself and his funds to meet the initiator of Maverick Electric, Zhihu Design Red @Token Hu Yilin, in a café next to the Beijing Bird's Nest. After in-depth exchanges, Li Yinan took a lonely courage to enter the field of electric two-wheelers that has long been in the army, and airborne Niudian Technology served as CEO, which he also called "the last entrepreneurship".
In June 2015, Li Yinan was criminally arrested for insider trading involving 7 million worth of stocks while he was an investor, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
In March 2018, Li Yinan resigned as CEO of Niudian Technology and joined Meihua Angel Ventures as a partner. In October 2018, Maverick Electric went public as desired, although holding 43.8% of the shares, Li Yinan did not stand in the C position of the bell ringing scene after all.
Maybe it's out of regret, maybe it's the blood of entrepreneurship is still there. Finally, Li Yinan rarely reneged on his promise, once again chose to start a business, founded a self-tourer, entered the new energy vehicle track, and joined the car-making army.
From calf electric to self-propelled home, the same recipe has the same taste
From the calf electric to the self-propelled home, from two to four wheels, the difficulty factor is not simply multiplied by 2. This time, can Li Yinan replicate the success of Maverick Electric?
In 2014, there were thousands of brands of two-wheeled electric vehicles at that time, but there was no real leading big name. In addition, the lack of added value, poor user experience, and no Internetization of channels are all problems that are ignored by this huge market.
The opportunity is in front of us, And The Maverick Technology led by Li Yinan has received the support of the angel round + A round with a total financing amount of 50 million US dollars at the beginning.
The strong team lineup is also not to be underestimated, With Yilin Hu/Token as Vice President, previously a well-known designer from Frog and Microsoft; Zhang Yibo, Vice President of Marketing, from Xiaomi; Liu Chengdong/Rayman, Vice President of System Research and Development, from Wanxiang Electric Vehicle; He Weihua, Vice President of Supply Chain, from Concentrating Technology; Joseph Nelson, Chief Product Designer, from WILD Design.
Li Yinan, who refused to be subject to people, chose to build a self-built factory for Xiaoniu Electric on the outskirts of Changzhou City, nearly 20,000 square meters, covering an area of 50 acres, with 4 fully automatic production lines and 2 fully automatic test lines.
Li Yinan's self-traveler, the start is equally beautiful. The Series A financing of 500 million US dollars, with investment from IDG, COATUE and other world-renowned institutions, is 10 times the initial financing of Maverick Electric.
On the team side, although Niu Electric Technology has said, "Niu Innovative Energy Technology is not directly related to Maverick Electric." Maverick Electric executives have also spoken out many times, and there is no plan to build a car. However, there are reports that Liu Chuankai, vice president of Maverick Electric Design, will join the self-tourer.
According to public information, Liu Chuankai's team worked on the concept design of the Maverick Electric M1, and before joining Maverick Electric, Liu Chuankai served as the design director of Designworks, a creative consulting company owned by BMW Group.
In addition, Fang Qing, who once served as the head of cost analysis at Xiaopeng Motors, has also joined the self-traveler, and Wang Yafei, editor-in-chief of Blue Whale Financial Automobile Channel, has served as the company's public relations director.
In August this year, the registered address of NiuXin Energy was officially changed from Wujin District of Changzhou to Jintan District of Changzhou. At the beginning of September, Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Technology Industrial Park officially changed its name to NIUTRON. That is to say, Li Yinan did not choose to "take land" to build his own factory, but quickly cut in with acquisition, which greatly saved the preliminary preparation work.
It is understood that the production room and manufacturing equipment in the Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Science and Technology Industrial Park can be used only for system transformation and upgrading, as well as the geographical advantages of the new energy automobile industry near Changzhou, and the supporting services for car manufacturing are readily available.
In the official introduction, the modern intelligent manufacturing base of Youjia Automobile covers an area of 770,000 square meters, with an overall design capacity of 180,000 units / year, and the factory is currently undergoing pre-mass production transformation and calibration, and will be put into use in March 2022.
At present, the official website of Niu Chuangxin Energy has not been officially launched. Niutron public account has just been changed to self-touring NIUTRON, the only few news, are related to recruitment. The latest recruitment is divided into four parts: vehicle management, manufacturing engineering, quality, and trial production tests, involving nearly 40 different positions.
In the official introduction of Ziyoujia Automobile, Li Yinan entered the car and was officially established in November 2018, the brand headquarters is located in Beijing, Shanghai has set up a research and development center, and the research and development and intelligent manufacturing base is located in Changzhou. At present, Youjia Automobile has a core R & D team of nearly 1,000 people, all from mainstream first-line automobile companies at home and abroad, with an average working experience of more than 10 years.
Time is not waiting, but in front of Li Yinan, there are a series of problems from car manufacturing qualifications to team expansion, research and development and production. Is 4 months really enough?
Once, Li Yinan released the first smart electric N1 of Maverick Electric in less than two years, and in only 15 days, it created a miracle of crowdfunding of 72 million yuan.
We can only hope that after more than three years of patient planning, Li Yinan has really been fully prepared to recreate miracles and disrupt the jianghu of new energy vehicles.
The car-making rivers and lakes are bloody and rainy, and the late Li Yinan first asked Li Xiang to fight
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, from January to November, the cumulative output of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 3 million, with sales of nearly 3 million vehicles, and it is expected that the annual production and sales will exceed 3.4 million.
As far as the specific new car-making forces are concerned, the data shows that in November, the sales of the four new car-making forces of Xiaopeng, Ideal, Weilai and Nezha exceeded 10,000. From January to November, the cumulative sales of these four car companies were 82,155 vehicles, 76,404 vehicles, 80,940 vehicles and 59,547 vehicles, respectively, which is expected to achieve a critical point of 100,000 vehicles per year.
For the future of the industry, the market is full of optimistic forecasts. He Xiaopeng had predicted that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles would reach 50% in 2025. Li wants to predict that in 2030, the proportion of global new energy passenger car sales will reach 60%. Ouyang Minggao, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the market share of new energy vehicles will exceed 20% in 2022, and the market share is expected to exceed 30% by the end of next year.
The market potential is huge, attracting entrants to follow, and the smart high-end electric vehicle brand mass production vehicles launched by traditional car companies have also begun to be listed one after another.
However, under the fierce market competition, only a very small number can go to the end. In 2019, a number of new car-making forces fell because of the break in the capital chain, and this also responded to the statement of Weilai founder Li Bin that "the new forces want to build cars, and there is no 20 billion yuan of funds to play".
Recently, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, expressed his views on an online forum, saying, "In the future new energy track, there will be 5 to 10 major players in the world in the future." ”
The late-arriver Li Yinan wants to occupy a place, and the pressure is huge. What is particularly critical is that since the beginning of this year, Internet giants such as Xiaomi, Baidu, and Didi have also entered the game with high profile.
It is worth mentioning that Lei Jun's alma mater, Wuhan University, is only a lake away from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Through decades of time and space, two Hunan fellows are about to meet in the narrow road of car-making, and they have to sigh the magic of creation. It's just that compared to Lei Jun's fame and success, Li Yinan, who is calm and relaxed, and starts again, needs to prove himself more urgently.
However, in the route of building a car, Li Yinan chose the one that was not common.
Although the draft of the Provisions on the Administration of Investment in the Automobile Industry includes an encouragement to "increase the range", the industry has always been controversial about the increase in the range. The qualified faction believes that pure electric vehicles are the real future, and the vast majority of car companies real money and silver research and development investment declares pure electric (BEV); there are different opinions that when battery technology is not yet fully mature, the range is a transitional route.
In the past three years, Ziyoujia Automobile has determined the parallel direction of the two technical routes of pure electric BEV (Battery Electric vehicle) and extended-range electric EREV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle), focused on product research and development, and developed the Gemini twin platform. Based on the platform, the first product launched from the youjia NV is positioned in the medium and large high-end SUV, providing users with two powertrains to choose from to meet the different needs of users for intercity long-distance and daily transportation.
It is understood that since youjia NV has carried out three rounds of engineering trial production, R & D test mileage of more than one million kilometers, the first round of winter and summer tests has been completed, is currently undergoing the second round of winter tests. With the completion of the transformation of the manufacturing base, The NV is expected to be produced in small batches in March 2022 and will be delivered to the first users in September.
This also means that Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, has finally ushered in a new companion and competitor. It is reported that Li Yinan's electric vehicle is priced at about 200,000 yuan, while the national unified retail price of the ideal One is 328,000 yuan, and the pressure of Li Xiang can be imagined.
But no matter what the result is, since you have chosen a distant place, you are doomed to wind and rain. Nowadays, Li Yinan leads the self-traveler, focusing on the field of high-end intelligent electric vehicles, with the mission of "allowing more people to enjoy the beauty of intelligent travel", which can also be applied to the lyrics of "Lone brave":
"War? Battle! With the loneliest dream, to the whimpering and roaring in the night. ”