From "calf" to "big cow", will Li Yinan's road to car building go smoothly?

Li Yinan, this young man has too many stories: he was a leader of Huawei's technology, but he founded the Harbor Network to confront Huawei, and finally was absorbed. In 2010, he joined Baidu as CTO. In 2014, the CEO position of Niu Electric Technology was airborne, that is, The Maverick Electric listed in 2018.

Now, the calf has become a "big bull" and two rounds have become four rounds. On December 15, Li Yinan and the car brand Ziyoujia (English brand "NIUTRON") official unveiled, the company named Niu Innovative Energy, still with some calf electric atmosphere. But this time they had to face a completely different war.

There are money and factories, and the self-travelers are more stable than the new forces

The news of Li Yinan's car construction has been reported at the beginning of the year, but the project can be traced back to 2018. According to himself, "NIUTRON" is deformed from "Neutron", which means neutron, representing the exploration and dream of the mysteries of the universe, and the logo of "NIU" is used because Maverick Electric itself is also a brand that makes him proud.

Although Liu Chuankai, vice president of Maverick Electric Design, joined The Self-Tourer, the new car brand has no equity relationship with Maverick Electric. So, where does the money from the wanderers come from? I have to say that Li Yinan's deep technical background and previous experience in investment institutions such as Meihua Venture Capital may have helped a lot. Since Youjia Automobile has received $500 million in Series A financing from IDG Capital, COATUE, Meihua Venture Capital and other institutions. Li Yinan said in an interview that he has not lacked money since the establishment of Youjia.

In contrast, the financial problems of the new car-making forces, especially non-head brands, have always been the line of life and death, and the self-tourer is more comfortable. This may indicate that after the market education of predecessors, the acceptance of new energy vehicles has been greatly improved.

However, in the face of the continuous loss data given by the new forces, it is still unknown whether the money from the traveler can support a stable cash flow. Li Yinan said that at present, Ziyoujia has a core R&D team of nearly 1,000 people, and for comparison, Xiaopeng Automobile, which is known for its technology in the new forces, aims to have a research and development team of more than 4,500 people by the end of 2021. There is still some distance between the new forces and the first-movers, and future expansion will inevitably be accompanied by cost growth, including but not limited to manpower, venues, and industrial chains.

In addition, on the issue of the industrial chain that the new forces are worried about, the self-traveler chooses to quickly enter the game with acquisitions. The Mahayana Automobile Plant in Changzhou was divided between Ziyoujia and BYD, which earned Ziyoujia a production capacity of 180,000 vehicles per year and a car production qualification. Within 50 kilometers, there are also many car-making industry chain companies, such as BAIC BJEV Changzhou Factory, Ideal Changzhou Manufacturing Base, power battery manufacturers AVIC Lithium Battery, Honeycomb Energy, and Xiaoniu Electric's power battery factory and manufacturing base, which lays the foundation for the future expansion of industry talents.

There are money and factories, the progress of self-touring cars has accelerated rapidly, and the car market story reported that before the problem of factory ownership was solved, the team of self-travelers entered the office in the form of leasing.

Perhaps it is under the guidance of this efficiency thinking that Li Yinan dared to announce the construction of cars at the end of 2021, small batch production in March 2022, and the bold words of listing and delivery in September. This progress is comparable to the delay in the beginning of the new forces' entrepreneurship. It is reported that the first model of the tour home NV has been accumulated in 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 testing.

Li Yinan and Ziyoujia caught up with the good time, giving the outside world the feeling of a "spoiler" out of thin air. Regarding the positioning that the outside world is concerned about, Li Yinan said that the brand positioning is "definitely high-end", but "it will not be a model of the existing brand in the benchmark market". According to our understanding, the product benchmarking this matter, the opinions of manufacturers, can not change the user's mind.

"I don't want you to feel, I want you to feel". In the eyes of users, who will self-traveler compete with first?

Claiming not to benchmark, how to fight the car-making battle of the self-traveler?

In the official information, the technical route of the self-touring home is pure electric BEV (Battery Electric vehicle) and extended-range electric VEHICLE (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) in parallel, the first product self-touring NV is positioned in the medium and large high-end SUV, using the Urban Exploring design concept, focusing on urban travel, to create an urban-off-road fusion wind.

When the words "extender, mid-to-high-end, and SUV" come out, the opinions of the onlookers should be unbearable: Isn't this a proper benchmarking ideal ONE? However, for start-up self-travelers, the high-end pricing of the ideal ONE of more than 300,000 yuan is not necessarily a suitable price, after all, when the ideal ONE was born, the competition for new energy was far less fierce than today. At least in terms of cost performance, the outside world is expected to see some differentiation.

In the long-term strategic planning, Tesla and Weilai, which are bound to the high-end, are obviously also the targets of self-travelers. However, in detail, Weilai and Tesla have encountered a series of problems about funds, security and other aspects around 2019, and have experienced obvious lows in the early stage of development, and finally have a stable high-end image. In addition, the high-end is a status and an invisible restriction, especially when it comes to expansion. NIO is currently building an independent new brand in order to expand the market.

Since the positioning of the traveler will not involve this series of problems at present, in the long run, the doubts are still there.

At the level of the industrial chain, self-travelers can give priority to learning the ideal cost control. All are the main models, whether it is parts or post-maintenance services, they have the advantages of easy procurement and low cost standardization. Therefore, in the new forces, the net loss of the ideal Q3 this year has only 21.5 million yuan, and the operating profit and net profit of the Non-GAAP caliber have both turned positive, and in theory, profit is no longer a problem.

Of course, the ideal of the current problem is already product diversification, otherwise even if it is profitable, it is difficult to have an advantage in the follow-up competition with Weilai and Xiaopeng. For self-travelers, the importance of surviving and establishing brand image and sales channels at this stage is much higher than other product planning, otherwise everything is a mirror.

Whether Ziyoujia can gain a firm foothold depends on whether Li Yinan's expression in the interview of "mainly meeting market demand" can replicate the ideal development path. In April 2019, the seven-seat SUV Ideal ONE with a hybrid range extender and a price of more than 300,000 was also incomprehensible to the market when it was first listed. But it turns out that Li Xiang, the founder who once founded Autohome, really understands what the target user needs, whether it is plenty of large space or a more assured endurance, the ideal ONE has done the idea.

When the baton of demand comes to the hands of self-travelers, the competitive landscape of the market has changed. In particular, traditional car companies that were once tied up have begun to make big moves. For example, the recent demand for high-end new energy MPV by BYD executives on social platforms corresponds to the rumors that it will release a new brand of independent operation in the first half of 2022.

When more and more car companies are working hard in the field of subdivision demand, can the "fast" of self-travelers take the lead? This question of financing and industrial chain construction is not a definite answer, only the market can make a final conclusion.

epilogue

When the news of Li Yinan's car was circulated in April this year, it was widely believed that his first car would be a small scooter similar to the Wuling Hongguang Mini. However, the currently disclosed planning shows that Li Yinan and Ziyoujia have great ambitions in building cars, and the support force is also very strong.

When Maverick Electric started its business, it raised 72 million yuan in 15 days, and Li Yinan took less than two years to build The N1, the first smart electric vehicle of Maverick Electric. Now, there are less than four months to go before the production line of the self-tourer is running. Perhaps, since the traveler can finally squeeze into the list of new forces by his own efforts like the Nezha car that is catching up. Production will be the first test after the official announcement, and it is already close.