Image source @ Visual China
Text | Tanker, author of | Walker, Edit | Egg total
The surging new energy vehicle track has ushered in a competitor who has "quite a head" - Li Yinan, who was once known as the "former prince of Huawei".
Photo / Li Yinan, picture source @ Li Yinan Weibo
On December 15, The founder of Xiaoniu Technology, Li Yinan's entrepreneurial project - Electric Vehicle, was officially announced, this new energy electric vehicle brand named "NIUTRON", Chinese named "Self-Traveling Home", which announced that NIUTRON's first model is a medium-sized extended range SUV, named Self-Touring NV, which will be listed in September 2022.
Nowadays, the official announcement of the official car-making of the calf and Li Yinan has become a new hot spot in the electric vehicle industry. People are particularly interested in: how did Li Yinan and Xiaoniu, who are two-wheeled electric vehicles, suddenly have a heart for electric vehicles? At this stage, entering the new energy vehicle track, how many car-making difficulties will the Mavericks face? How many odds does Li Yinan have on his hands?
1. The second growth curve is urgently needed
In fact, if you just look at the third quarter of 2021 financial report just released by Maverick Technology, the growth dilemma that Li Yinan and Mavericks are facing now is clear at a glance, and it is precisely the fact that this growth slowdown forces Li Yinan and Mavericks to look for a "second growth curve" as soon as possible.
From this point of view, electric vehicles that have more technology and logic commonalities with two-wheeled electric motorcycles have become the most preferred choice for Li Yinan.
According to the third quarterly report, Xiaoniu Electric achieved revenue of 1.226 billion yuan in the third quarter of 2021, an increase of 37.1% year-on-year and 29.8% month-on-quarter, GAAP net profit in the third quarter was 91.71 million yuan (80 million yuan in the same period last year, 91.83 million yuan in the second quarter of this year), Non-GAAP net profit was 102 million yuan (90.56 million yuan in the same period last year, 104 million yuan in the second quarter of this year), GAAP net profit margin was 7.5% (9.7% in the second quarter).
This seemingly good sales volume and net profit growth was achieved against the backdrop of a leapfrog sales surge. According to the third quarterly report, the sales volume of the Mavericks in the third quarter reached 397,000 units, an increase of 58.3% year-on-year, of which domestic sales were 392,000 units, an increase of 59.9% year-on-year, maintaining a steady increase in the context of the scattered epidemic situation and the slowdown in economic growth in China.
It is reasonable to say that if the sales volume of the company that is still rising increases by nearly 60%, then the revenue and profit should increase with it, but the revenue growth rate of the Mavericks in this quarter is almost half of the sales growth rate, and the net profit is even lower than the previous quarter.
The reason for this situation is that the vast majority of the products sold by Maverick are low-end or special-priced models, and behind the policy of market sales and product price formulation, it shows that the strategy of high-end Maverick electric vehicles is almost unsuccessful.
This means that in order to cope with the corresponding changes in the market demand reduction, Maverick has to adopt the method of reducing price sales and launching special models to promote the growth of market sales, and this marketing strategy has a great negative impact on the company's sustainability.
Since the net profit growth rate in the second quarter was 9.7%, the third quarter was only 7.5%, according to economic theory, in the original curve, along the original technology, products, industries, markets gradual growth, can only produce less than 10% of the growth rate, which is impossible to meet the requirements of a company in the rising period of its own requirements.
In this case, enterprises need to open up a "second growth curve". Therefore, looking for the second curve of calf growth at this time is particularly important for Li Yinan.
Schumpeter, the originator of innovation theory, said: No matter how many carriages are added in succession, a train cannot be built. Only when jumping from a carriage to a train can you achieve ten times the speed of growth.
And to switch from the existing growth curve to the second growth curve, there is a "first principle", which means that there is a most basic proposition in each system, which cannot be violated or deleted. When looking for the second growth curve, the general enterprise must pay attention to the continuity required for the first curve to cross the second curve, and the first principle can help enterprises achieve this.
In other words, companies need to find and convert those high-speed development markets that are relevant to the business, so that the success rate is higher.
2. What is Li Yinan's idea?
For the search for the second growth curve, Li Yinan should have a layout earlier.
Objectively speaking, today's new energy automobile industry meets the needs of The Mavericks to migrate to the second curve under the first principle.
First of all, in recent years, Maverick has accumulated corresponding technology and experience in battery production, management, research and development of two-wheeled electric vehicles and the manufacture of complete vehicles. Many of these technologies are in line with electric vehicles, such as the development and production of batteries, the layout of follow-up electronic control systems, the vehicle management system and tire measurement, speed control and so on.
Previously, on the high-end model of the Maverick electric vehicle, Li Yinan also tried the assistance of automatic driving technology. However, at that time, everyone thought that this technology was a bit "inexplicable" to be used in two-wheeled electric vehicles, but now it seems that Li Yinan wants to use the Maverick electric vehicle to test the data of automatic driving and prepare for the subsequent transformation.
Secondly, the pressure from the capital level makes Li Yinan have to find a new development range as soon as possible. On the day of the release of the third quarterly report, due to the impact of the financial report falling less than the market expectations, the maverick's stock price fell 16.83% to close at $20.01, a new low in nearly a year.
It is worth noting that as of the close of trading on December 15, Eastern Time, the stock price of Maverick Electric was only $16.58, which has fallen by nearly 70% from the high of $53.38 in the year, and the market value is only $1.265 billion.
Previously, Maverick told the capital market the story of "continuous rise in electric vehicle sales", which now seems to be unworkable.
Because with the rise in sales of Maverick electric products, all investors have regarded it as a mature and stable development of the enterprise, the increase in this corporate market of more than 10% is an inevitable thing, and once below this line, all investors will worry about its development prospects.
Finally, it was Li Yinan's own personality that prompted him to enter the four-wheeled electric vehicle industry. From joining Huawei as a "genius teenager" before, to finally breaking up and founding Xiaoniu without joy, Li Yinan's impression to the outside world is mostly "true temperament and willingness to accept life challenges". Coupled with the fact that Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, is his good friend, the distance between the two factories in Changzhou is less than 30 kilometers. Therefore, his determination to build a car may have something to do with his personality and the advice of his friends.
More importantly, with the increasing expansion of low-carbon travel and the global consensus on carbon reduction, new energy vehicles have gradually become a hot spot for capital, and the domestic automobile market has also become the trend of the times.
Therefore, the maverick car has become an understandable option.
3. The challenge of building a car for a calf
On December 15, Li Yinan released the first electric car of the Maverick, the configuration is not low, and even in the field of automatic driving and other technologies, this car seems to have a good performance.
However, in the view of "Tanker", Li Yinan's car construction this time is still taking the route of "Wei Xiaoli" asset-light car manufacturing, and there is no "surprise" in terms of playing style. Now it can be basically confirmed that except for a few parts and vehicle systems, Maverick's electric vehicle batteries, motors, and electronic control core three major system components are almost all from suppliers.
According to media reports, Li Yinan's automobile factory in Changzhou is a Mahayana science and technology industrial park that is used on a leased basis. After the completion of the process, around August, niuchuang automobile employees have successively settled in the industrial park office, which is likely to become the manufacturing base of niuchuang automobile. According to reports, the plant covers an area of 770,000 square meters and has an annual production capacity of up to 180,000 vehicles.
In this park, Maverick did not acquire similar technologies and production lines in other automobile factories, but should only focus on assembly and post-test tuning, and it does not have the production capacity of batteries, motors and electronic control systems.
This point in the previous market supply situation, there is no problem, but the current market competition is fierce, the major manufacturers for the supply chain of the corresponding requirements are relatively high, upstream spare parts enterprises to increase the right to speak, many times large manufacturers can increase the unit price through long-term supply agreements, lock in the next few years of various core spare parts supply, behind this operation must be a large number of car companies every month to deliver and sell to support.
And Li Yinan's newly founded NIUTRON, at the beginning can not have high sales, in the current supply chain tension, how to ensure the production progress and the number of deliveries, has become the first big problem to test his car business.
On the other hand, although Li Yinan's enterprises have experience in manufacturing two-wheeled electric vehicles, electric vehicles and electric motorcycles are not a product, and the corresponding technologies are malleable but not exactly the same. This makes it almost impossible to improve the yield rate of the production line in the short term.
Because of the shortage of supply chain, coupled with the problem of production line yield control, the probability will make Li Yinan's NIUTRON delivery speed slower in the early stage, which will not affect consumer confidence in the brand, and it will become a big problem that Li Yinan must solve next.
In addition, the homogeneity and inner volume of the current electric vehicle technology are also important problems that Li Yinan must overcome.
At present, the vast majority of electric vehicle manufacturers are purchasing mature products in the supply chain, and then assembling them later, and they are only responsible for designing the appearance and operating system. This allows everyone to compare the performance aspects of the actual difference, can only compete in software and automatic driving and other aspects.
Therefore, how to break through the pattern of "industry volume" is one of the important tests for Li Yinan to launch NIUTRON.
Moreover, there is a particularly large "safety limit" difference between cars and electric vehicles. To some extent, the car is a dangerous means of traffic driving, so safety is extremely important. How to make a car design that meets safety and can improve safety efficiency under the condition of controlling costs is also a problem that Li Yinan should think carefully about.
The report shows that the project of Maverick Car will mainly focus on intelligent high-end new energy vehicles, and the future models of NIUTRON will also be built in the direction of range extension and pure electric, and have intelligent cockpits and advanced intelligent driving assistance functions. Today, NIUTRON R & D team has nearly 1,000 people, all from first-line automobile companies, the average working experience of more than 10 years, in addition, there was news that the design team of Xiaopeng P7 was poached by Mavericks with high salaries.
How good the research and development strength of the Maverick depends on the situation of the follow-up mass production vehicles.
It is worth noting that now companies are already fighting for battery density, and have hoped to launch electric vehicles with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers in 2022. This will inevitably make the battery price soar further, and the rising battery price will push up the price of the car itself. Coupled with the decline of national new energy subsidies, the price of new energy vehicles compared with traditional gasoline vehicles has no advantage.
Therefore, Li Yinan can only go to the high-end to create his own electric vehicle brand and configuration, because in this way, it can ensure that the price of bicycles is increased at the same time, and there is a relatively high profit margin. However, at present, the domestic main luxury car electric vehicle Gaohe, sales are not ideal, such as more than 300,000 yuan of electric vehicles, its sales are not as much as 180,000-250,000 yuan between electric vehicles.
To some extent, it can be determined that the most suitable price for electric vehicles in the minds of consumers is 180,000-250,000 yuan. At this price, as long as the car manufacturers do not control the cost well, they will lose money. This is also an important reason why "Wei Xiaoli" also lost money last year, and the cost to revenue ratio remains high.
In general, Li Yinan is now building a car, and he needs to show the courage of "passing five levels and cutting six generals". Because in front of him is not only the development avenue full of flowers, but also the thorns under the flowers.