Li Yinan's car "boots" have landed and have received $500 million in financing

A new car-making force has been added.

On December 15, Li Yinan, founder of Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd., officially released the automobile brand "Niutron". The "boots" of Li Yinan's car finally landed.

Li Yinan revealed in an interview with China Business Daily and other media reporters that Since Youjia Automobile has received a total of 500 million US dollars in A round financing, investors include IDG Capital, COATUE and other world-renowned investment institutions.

Since Youjia is Li Yinan's second venture after Xiaoniu Electric, focusing on the field of intelligent high-end new energy vehicles, the independent vehicle brand was officially established in November 2018. The first product, Youjia NV, will be available and available for pre-order in the first half of 2022, with deliveries starting in September of the same year.

Since 2014, new car-making forces have sprung up, and after several years of fierce competition, the pattern of new energy vehicle tracks has taken shape, and the monthly delivery of new car-making forces has exceeded 10,000. Since the tourist entered the track at this time, is the timing not dominant?

In the face of external doubts, Li Yinan said that the back wave of the Yangtze River pushes the front wave, which wave can go, or which time point can do it, maybe it can be seen clearly afterwards. For example, he said, Japan is an auto powerhouse, and Honda entered the auto industry a full 30 years later than Toyota and Nissan. During these 30 years, in addition to Honda, I believe that many other companies have been produced in Japanese industry. So, you should explore and try to get things done.

Official information shows that since its inception, Youjia has nearly 1,000 core R & D personnel, the brand headquarters is located in Beijing, Shanghai set up a research and development center, and has a modern intelligent manufacturing base covering an area of 770,000 square meters in Changzhou, the overall design capacity of 180,000 units / year, the factory is currently undergoing pre-mass production transformation and calibration, will be put into use in March 2022.

Li Yinan said that Ziyoujia Automobile has developed the Gemini twin platform with two technical routes of pure electric BEV (Battery Electric vehicle) and extended-range electric EREV (Extended-Range Electric Vehicle) in parallel, focusing on product research and development. The first product launched based on the platform, the Youjia NV, is positioned in a medium-sized high-end SUV and will provide two powertrains for terminals to choose from.

Yang Jingyi, president of Youjia Automobile, introduced that Ziyoujia NV has carried out three rounds of engineering trial production, with a research and development test mileage of more than one million kilometers, the first round of winter and summer tests has been completed, and the second round of winter tests is currently being carried out. 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.

"We don't want to compete with anyone." When asked about the product benchmarking and positioning group of self-travelers, Li Yinan said, "The biggest feature of the automotive industry is that there is no shortage of control models, and there are many products in the market that you do anything." What we are most concerned about is whether the vast majority of users are proud to have a self-touring car or to drive a self-touring car. We don't care who we compare to. ”

"We also don't want to define our target demographic. The brand concept of self-traveler is to explore, improve, and enjoy, and we should at least explore whether bachelors, families of two, families of three, and families of four can buy our cars, I think it is all possible. [So] we don't define the target demographic, we don't define the age group. Nor is there such an idea. Li Yinan said.

(Editor: Zhang Shuo Proofreader: Yan Jingning)