Written by / Windsor
Editor/ Liu Baohua
Design / Zhao Haoran
This was an unexpected Buddhist conference.
"What is the status of the founding team's upfront capital investment?" "I certainly won't share the money";
"What are the differences between the two ventures of Maverick Electric Vehicle and NIUTRON?" "No feeling";
"What are the advantages of NIUTRON compared to other brands?" "I can't answer";
"Can you disclose the pricing of the first product?" "Inappropriate disclosure";
"Talk about the market goals and expectations after the launch of a new car" "I have no opinion"
……
A group interview that lasted for an hour, Li Yinan, the founder of The Tour, replied very willfully and rejected it very thoroughly.
It's not that I don't understand, it's that the world is changing too fast. The car is still that car, just two years later, the new car-making forces have not been popular storytelling, the founders changed to Geng Zhiren.
"Genius", "high intelligence", Li Yinan has an aura on him, and people who have worked with him have endorsed his ability.
Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu, once said, "There are no more than three people in the world who can be Baidu's CTO, and Li Yinan is one of them." ”
Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, once commented, "A 25-year-old Li Yinan, who is as light as a swallow and as thin as a bone, shoulders the burden of the president of the Central Research Department... I always thought of him holding an integrated network platform, shouting 'narrow road meets the brave to win' rushing across the canoe bridge and killing a bloody road. The team of the Central Research Department, these hundreds of young people, you will forever go down in history. ”
Unlike other new car-making forces that need to painstakingly find brand stories, the experience of Li Yinan alone can support the first round of brand communication since Youjia Car. If he is willing, "touch" Huawei, bundle ideals, and then recall the days of Recall Baidu, the story can be told for three days and three nights, but he is not willing.
When referring to the possibility of cooperation with Huawei, Li Yinan said, "We will definitely explore and cooperate with leading suppliers." ”
When it comes to Li Xiang, the founder, chairman and CEO of ideal automobiles with a lot of personal friendship, Li Yinan said, "Since I decided to build a car, I have not communicated with Li Xiang, because it is not appropriate, I think this is the minimum respect for others." Before building a car, Li wanted to give me a lot of sharing, others are very good, know everything. ”
It is said that there is only a line between genius and madness, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk often does some amazing things, but throughout the morning, Li Yinan is unusually low-key, not talking about dreams, not ready to challenge Tesla.
In the interview, a casual sentence seemed to answer all his "questions and no answers" and "because my car hasn't come out yet, I'm not qualified to answer these questions." ”
"NIUTRON" is coming
On December 15, 2021, there are still three days before the fifth NIO Day of NIO. Weilai Automobile, which started as a user, is about to usher in an annual party, and the new model ET5 also has a high probability of debut.
No. 99, Jintan District, Changzhou, 40 kilometers away from the ideal Changzhou production base. About two months ago, the 100,000th vehicle of Ideal Automobile rolled off the production line there, claiming to have set a new record of 100,000 vehicles of the new car-making force at a speed of 708 days.
At a special and coincidental time and place, Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd. released the English brand "NIUTRON", Chinese brand "Self-Traveling", and announced that the first product, Self-Traveling NV, will be listed and accepted for pre-order in the first half of 2022, and the delivery will start in September of the same year.
On the day of the event, Li Yinan was the first to take the stage and concisely publicized several key information: Niu Chuangxin Energy has started to build cars since 2018, taking two different technical routes of pure electric BEV and extender electric EREV, currently has nearly 1,000 core R & D personnel, Changzhou factory covers an area of 770,000 square meters, and the overall design capacity is 180,000 units / year...
The longest paragraph li yinan said was to explain the origin of the brand.
"Neutron's Chinese are neutrons, the smallest, uncharged particles. My school is also general, the two students are already the youngest academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one is the director of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the other is engaged in mathematical physics research at Peking University, the most outstanding contribution is to make a quantum field, is a real major breakthrough in the field of theoretical physics. ”
Admitted to the junior class of Huazhong University of Science and Technology at the age of 15, Li Yinan studied physics, and perhaps because of this, he has an obsession with exploration.
"I, knocking on the hammer, knocking for three years, has not yet knocked out, but the dream of exploring the Upanishads still has to have, the word 'niu' everyone knows, whether it is the streets of New York, the streets of Shanghai, the avenues of Paris, or the hutongs of Beijing, we are also very proud, so we combine these two words together." Our four rounds are much bigger than the two, so our brand is capitalized. ”
"NIUTRON", another new brand has entered the automobile market.
Calves and calves, we are not the same
In hindsight, Zhuge Liang said that it was inevitable that Li Yinan would build a car.
Huawei and Baidu, who were inextricably linked to him, are gaining momentum in the automotive sector; like the founders of many new car-making forces, Li Yinan is a serial entrepreneur.
At the age of 30, he took the equity dividend of 10 million yuan from Huawei and opened his own harbor network; at the age of 40, he announced a new entrepreneurial project, the Maverick electric bicycle; at the age of 50, he entered the smart electric vehicle track.
The difference is that his last entrepreneurial project is still ongoing. On November 22, Xiaoniu Electric Vehicle released its third quarter 2021 financial report, with revenue of RMB1,226.4 million and adjusted net profit of RMB102.2 million.
A two-wheeler, a four-wheeler, about the relationship between the maverick electric vehicle and the ox innovation energy, Li Yinan firmly said that the two companies are completely separate, the brand is not the same, the category is not the same, there is no experience to learn from. "The difference between the two is not two orders of magnitude, but three orders of magnitude, so I want to borrow it, but I can't borrow it."
In addition to the fact that the two factories are in Changzhou and the founder is the same, at present, Niu Innovation Energy is completely different. Yang Jingyi, executive director and legal representative, born in 1981, worked at Honda in Japan for ten years, mainly responsible for technology and product research and development, marketing and sales teams, most of which are from traditional car companies and new car manufacturing forces.
Interestingly, Li Yinan also inadvertently mentioned that ten years ago, it was funds that blocked himself out of the car building door. "Automotive is also an industry with a high threshold for funding, there's no doubt about it. In 2014, I judged that I would not raise more than $3 billion to do this thing, and now I think I have a high probability that I should be able to raise money to do this thing. ”
At present, Free home auto A financing of 500 million US dollars, has received IDG Capital, COATUE and other institutional investment.
It's 2021, and there are still people building cars
On December 13, Musk was elected as the 2021 Person of the Year of Time Magazine.
This is a well-deserved award, throughout 2021, Musk became the world's richest man, and the wealth myth made smart electric vehicles a little feverish.
In August 2016, AutoMotive Business Review launched the first quarter of the new car-making power reliable list, and then every six months or so will be updated according to sales, qualifications, factories, products, financing, exposure, etc., september this year has released the ninth season, but the speed of update of the auto market is too fast.
It's 2021, and there are still new people entering. In three months, Niuchuang, Light Orange Times, Binli, and box four brand new enterprises announced that they had entered the car track; OPPO made a car, and it was almost officially announced.
On the same day as Ziyoujia Auto, Zhixing Box held a press conference in Beijing and released two new products for the B-end travel market, namely the BM-400 model positioned as a compact MPV and the BM-600 model positioned as a medium- and large-sized MPV. It is reported that Chi Heng Box aims at the B-end market such as taxis, online ride-hailing cars, and rental cars, and the first mass-produced model, the BM-400, is expected to be listed in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Su Weiming, who worked for Volkswagen China in the early days, joined Renault China and founded the Penley Intelligent Electric Vehicle brand, which received support from Dongfeng and Renault. It is reported that Bingli Automobile will be positioned at the million level, benchmarking the Porsche Taycan, and the first new car will be released at next year's Beijing Auto Show.
The light orange era is the capital itself to build the car, from November 9 to announce its entry into the new energy automobile industry, to November 19 at the Guangzhou Auto Show to release the first new car, the whole process is caught off guard.
When the head of the first wave of new car-making forces has begun to publicize the results of monthly sales of more than 10,000, and the new people have also accelerated the launch of products with a posture of waiting for no time, whether the arrival of the youjia car is a little late. For this question, Li Yinan rarely made an answer.
"Honda entered the automotive industry a full 30 years later than Toyota and Nissan, and in those 30 years, I don't believe that anyone else in Japanese industry has done it, but in 30 years there is a Honda." Li Yinan said, "The situation in Japan is different from that in China, but the back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave, and which wave can go, or which time point can go, or a specific wave can be moved, maybe it can be seen clearly afterwards." ”
"My ups and downs of life are like a roller coaster." Li Yinan once said. Perhaps it is precisely because he has experienced ups and downs, his mentality looks stable enough, he started to build a car because the money is enough, the whole process of building a car "no day is lazy, there is no day of lack of money", after having a product, there is no hurry for brand building, "to tell the truth, it is useless to be anxious, the brand is more difficult than to do a car, I think it takes longer to do it slowly." ”
During the visit, Niu Chuangxin Energy's smart factory is still in the debugging stage; some of the product details of the self-touring NV are being adjusted; the brand's channel layout has not yet been unfolded, and it is only 9 months from the delivery of the first product, and the new team led by Li Yinan has more problems to solve.
Ben had the opportunity to take over Huawei, whether the young Li Yinan, who had achieved great success, was expected by people, but Li Yinan did not seem to show the mood of ambition, and he even thought about what to do if the car was not successful, "Pay off the supplier's money, and give the employee's severance pay, just fine." ”