Before the end of 2021, a calf stirred up the last waves in the field of new cars.
On December 15th, with the holding of the first internal communication meeting of NIUTRON Niuchuang Automobile, the news of Maverick Electric's entry into the field of four-wheeled electric vehicles was officially hammered.
When he founded Maverick Electric in 2015, Li Yinan said that it was his last venture, but in the face of the promising new energy vehicle market, how could this entrepreneurial master hold back?
After 6 years, Li Yinan personally led the team again.
According to the latest news of official exposure, the size of Niuchuang Automobile's first product is close to the ideal ONE, positioning medium and large urban SUVs, and the price is above 300,000 yuan.
But on the other hand, the Maverick electric car, although this brand looks very popular, Li Yinan also said that this is a brand that makes him very proud, but in fact, its annual sales of 600,000 vehicles are less than the annual sales of tens of millions of Emma and Yadi. For such a cross-border car in the field of two-wheeled electric vehicles has not yet been able to seize the forefront of the cross-border car, but also to build more than 300,000 yuan of models, many viewers are not optimistic.
However, if people know Li Yinan enough and the Maverick electric car brand enough, they will realize how powerful the energy behind this upcoming new power car company is.
After three years of low-key stealth, Niu Chuang is not a newborn calf
In fact, the calf entering the game to build a car has long been not a matter of a day or two.
In the recruitment website, the profile of Niu Innovative Energy Technology does not shy away from writing: Niu Innovative Energy Technology is Li Yinan's second entrepreneurship after the successful listing of Xiaoniu Electric, focusing on the field of intelligent high-end new energy vehicles, the car project was established in November 2018, the brand headquarters is located in Beijing, Shanghai has set up a research and development center, and the R & D and intelligent manufacturing base is located in Changzhou.
In addition, the enterprise investigation shows that as early as late October 2020, Changzhou Niuchuang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Changzhou Niuchuang") has been established, and by the beginning of December 2020, as the core body of Niu Innovative Energy Technology, Jiangsu Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangsu Niuchuang") was established.
That is to say, the ox creation car project has been brewing for 3 years, and it has been laid out for more than a year even from the establishment of the company. Moreover, unlike Xiaomi, which was still 0-based when the official announcement of the car, this half-covered cow creation of the pipa, the current progress of car construction has long exceeded everyone's imagination.
In mid-March this year, the industry reported that Xiaoniu Electric would acquire the Changzhou plant of BAIC New Energy, and Li Yan, CEO of Xiaoniu Electric, said: "This has nothing to do with Xiaoniu Electric, it is a misinformation. In fact, the negotiation with BAIC BJEV was Niu Chuang led by Li Yinan, but it did not negotiate, and Niu Chuang finally chose the Mahayana automobile production base at No. 563 Jinlong Avenue, Jintan District, Changzhou City.
In 2018, after the restructuring and mixed reform, the sales volume continued to plummet, and this year, it has filed for bankruptcy reorganization three times. In June this year, the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park in Jintan, Changzhou, was auctioned off for 1.551 billion yuan. The takeover is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company under the Office of the Public Asset Management Committee of Jintan District, Changzhou City, which means that the industrial park is still owned by the Asset Management Committee of Jintan District.
A number of people familiar with the matter confirmed that Niuchuang Automobile is currently using the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park in the form of leasing. Niuchuang Automobile employees have successively entered the industrial park in August, and the logo of the park gate has been replaced by NIUTRON. Enterprise investigation shows that the addresses of Changzhou Niuchuang and Jiangsu Niuchuang were also changed to No. 563 Jinlong Avenue, Jintan District, Changzhou City, on August 6.
After solving the problem of the plant, Niu Chuang immediately began intensive recruitment.
In mid-August, the main account of Jiangsu Niu Chuang Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was launched, and released more than 40 positions covering engineering design, cost budget, powertrain, electronic architecture, procurement, etc. On August 30, the account released more than 30 positions including vehicle management, manufacturing engineering, quality and trial production experiments.
At present, Niuchuang is recruiting grassroots employees for the society, but large-scale recruitment has not yet started, and the core R & D team has approached 1,000 people, all from mainstream first-line automobile companies at home and abroad, with an average working experience of more than 10 years.
It is worth mentioning that the official revealed that the recruitment of executives has been implemented as early as 2019. Compared with the current situation where the competition for new car-making talents is seriously involved, Niu Chuang has undoubtedly seized the opportunity.
With the implementation of the personnel, niuchuang trial production vehicle was quickly put on the agenda. In late November, some insiders have already taken photos of Niuchuang trial car spy photos. At the media communication meeting on the 15th, Niuchuang Automobile not only officially announced the brand Chinese named "Self-Traveler", but also directly showed the car model with a higher degree of completion, and many details such as central control and appearance were also exposed at the same time. The model is positioned as a large five-seat city SUV, and the price is positioned at the level of 300,000 yuan.
What is even more surprising is that as early as before the communication meeting, the official exposed its own product route on the recruitment website early: including the independent development of the Gemini platform, and the technical route covers range extenders and pure electric. The products integrate the design concepts of automobiles and consumer electronics, and intelligent cockpits and autonomous driving systems will also be developed in-house.
Every key word declares to people that this upcoming new car brand has planned a very clear route and is very well prepared.
People thought that this was a newborn calf that did not understand the world, but they did not think that this cattle car was already a prepared tiger.
Niu Chuang Auto was born an Internet player
However, although the menacing niuchuang is well prepared, many melon-eating masses will still feel that the calf is only a small enterprise that builds two-wheeled electric vehicles after all, "Bicycles are not good at building cars? ”
Before Niuchuang, Baidu, which entered the game of car manufacturing, was an Internet giant, not only with strong capital, but also self-developed automatic driving technology, and Xiaomi was a consumer electronics giant, not only in the field of intelligent interaction for many years, the number of users is hundreds of millions. As a supplier of smart automotive components, Huawei is known as the "backbone of the nation".
Compared with the former with its own brand Buff, what does Niuchuang have?
In a sense, Li Yinan, a man, can be said to be the biggest Buff of Niuchuang Automobile. This year, Li Yinan is in the 51-year-old year of knowing the destiny of heaven, but he has always been a person who does not obey the destiny.
Pushing forward 20 years, the 26-year-old man who became Huawei's executive vice president was once regarded as Ren Zhengfei's successor. However, for undisclosed reasons, he gave up the aura of "Huawei Prince", left Huawei in the position of executive vice president and created the harbor network, once beat Huawei to the ground to find teeth, a few years later the harbor network was acquired by Huawei, and he did not stay long when he returned to Huawei.
He has served as Baidu CTO, CEO of 12580, became a partner of GSR Ventures, and founded Beijing Niudian Technology in 2014 to start two rounds of Maverick's journey, but unexpectedly went to jail in 2015 for insider trading in the stock market. Although many people who have come into contact with Li Yinan think that his emotional intelligence is not too high, on the road to entrepreneurship, Li Yinan is really a genius or even a ghost talent.
Li Yinan has amazing sensitivity and accurate grasp of technology development trends and product trends. This is an important reason why Ren Zhengfei once wanted to train him as a successor.
"Without a man, there would be no calves now", "It was a man's firm determination of the prospects of lithium battery travel that made the decision to personally go down and start a business with Hu Yilin in just 2 weeks, and then he quickly formed the cornerstone founder team of Mavericks in the first month." It is he who dares to position the product at the international high-end when there is no product prototype. Huang Mingming, the second largest institutional shareholder of Niudian Technology and founding partner of Mingshi Capital, commented on Li Yinan.
In addition to being sensitive to products and technology, Li Yinan is also first-class sharp in the eyes of employing people. For a long time, the outside world believes that the founding team of Niudian Technology is a "golden team" gathered because of Li Yinan's personal charm. In addition to Li Yinan, there are also Microsoft returns, Hu Yilin, a designer, and Zhang Yibo, a marketing expert from Xiaomi...
It is such a genius founder who made Maverick's first product set a "crowdfunding myth" of 72 million yuan in 15 days. Although the product has not yet been born, it has received angel and A series investment.
It is such a team that brings Mavericks a German Red Dot, an American IDEA, a Japanese G-Mark, a Chinese Red Star, a German IF Design Award and other industrial design grand slams, triggering friends to imitate; it is such a team that brings Mavericks an intelligent interactive experience that is different from many friends; it is such a team that has created an unprecedented fan marketing phenomenon in the industry, from naming fans as "butter", to the creation of online maverick communities, to the offline "Strawberry Music Festival" ingenious" World Guess Boxing Competition", let users still remember.
It can be said that the Mavericks are a new power player with deep Internet genes in the two-wheeled electric era.
Nowadays, in the field of four-wheeled electric vehicles, it seems that the technical threshold has been raised, but in essence, no matter how many car companies develop their own electrification platforms, the differences in endurance and safety will eventually be erased by these leading suppliers in Ningde; only personalized ideas in intelligence, aesthetic design, and user operation can bring consumers a tangible and differentiated experience. Therefore, The rich experience of Mavericks in two-wheeled electric vehicles will undoubtedly help Niuchuang to create a new power brand system with deep Internet.
It is worth mentioning that two months ago, there was gossip that the Xiaopeng P7 design team has been poached by the Maverick electric vehicle with three times the salary; recently, it was pointed out that Liu Chuankai, vice president of maverick electric design, will join NIUTRON. It can be seen that Li Yinan, who has a sharp eye, has already begun to exert his strength.
Funding is a hurdle, but after all, there is Li Yinan
At present, Niuchuang Automobile, which has not yet been officially unveiled, can be said to have a very strong energy.
If we have to point out some potential difficulties of Niuchuang, the biggest uncertainty should be the hurdle of funds.
At the communication meeting, Li Yinan revealed that the company has completed a $500 million (about 3.18 billion yuan) Series A financing. In addition, Li Yinan also said that since the project was established in November 2018, there has not been a single day of lack of money in the whole process.
However, building cars, especially smart cars, is a money-burning job after all. Weilai Li Bin said that if new start-ups want to build cars, they need at least more than 20 billion yuan of capital preparations, otherwise they don't want to do a good job.
Nowadays, The embryonic Niuchuang has not yet opened a large-scale recruitment, there are nearly a thousand people of the core R & D team to support, the factory can only be used in the form of leasing for the time being, which shows that despite the A round of 500 million US dollars of funds, Niuchuang's life is not very generous.
In the lack of funds for the Maverick electric project, Li Yinan, who has a good family foundation, can inject additional funds by himself. However, in the automobile era, in the face of hundreds of millions of capital investments, it is difficult to support the founder's family no matter how strong it is.
$500 million is a lot less, but it's not much more.
Taking the ideal car, the most "iron rooster", as an example, from July 2015 to the end of 2020, the total net investment and financing of the ideal car reached 36.2 billion yuan. Niuchuang's $500 million is less than one-tenth of that.
Therefore, for all the niuchuang that is ready, continuous financing is the most urgent priority. In order to get the favor of investors, niuchuang, which is about to debut, must come up with its own housekeeping skills and products with bright competitiveness to tell investors their own brand story.
However, thankfully, in the arduous task of financing, with Li Yinan, everything will become more effective with half the effort.
On the one hand, Li Yinan not only served as a partner in the GSR Venture Capital Fund, but is now also a partner in Meihua Angel Venture Capital, so whether it is the strength of personal connections or the pinching of investor psychology, Li Yinan has a grasp that far exceeds that of many new car-making peers.
Secondly, in the era of Maverick Electric, the "crowdfunding myth" of 72 million yuan created by Li Yinan in 15 days is enough to see his personal charm. In addition, in the previous report of 36Kr, more investors familiar with Li Yinan said bluntly: "If Li Yinan opens up financing, we will be the first to invest." ”
Based on Li Yinan's experience and personal charm in the capital market, it will not be too difficult for Niu Chuang to raise funds.
Previously, industry sources revealed that the first product of Niuchuang Automobile will be listed in 2022. At the media communication meeting on the 15th, Li Yinan once again made it clear that the first product will be trial production in March next year, and will be officially put into production in September to start delivery. Judging from the current perfection of production lines, products and personnel, this schedule plan is not too difficult for Niuchuang, and everything is within the plan.
That is to say, the latest official announcement of the car of the calf, will be in the millet, Jidu and other star cross-border brands before landing on the market.
Such a low-key sneaky and vigorous style of work, in the context of the transformation of traditional car companies and the arrival of cross-border brands, will not only seize the opportunity for Niuchuang Automobile, but also accumulate the potential for Niuchuang to break out in the follow-up terminal market competition.