Written by | Liu Yiwei
Edit | Yu Jie
Produced | Automotive Sankei
For the workers who were unemployed in the Mahayana factories, the arrival of the new brand is a good thing.
December 15, 2021, is the big day that Li Yinan (the founder of Ziyoujia) has been waiting for for a long time.
On this day, Li Yinan announced the English brand "NIUTRON" of Niu Innovation Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Chinese brand self-traveler, and the core values of the brand are exploration, refinement and pleasure. At the same time, the official website of Ziyoujia has also completed the synchronous launch.
After participating in the brand release, the media colleagues were invited to visit the NIUTRON Changzhou R & D and manufacturing base, in addition to the highly automated machinery and equipment, in the process of visiting the workshop, we found that the factory did not seem to be "completed".
For example, some workshop machines are still in preparation, and even workers are dismantling and replacing the original factory things.
Someone in the crowd muttered, can we go offline in March next year? Is it too simple to think of building a car?
Li Yinan replied: "We are indeed in preparation, it does not mean that we can't catch up with the time, all the time is carefully calculated, so this is not important, I still believe in the professional ability of professionals." ”
In addition, in the nearly one-hour brand exchange process, you will find that Li Yinan himself does not like to go around the bend, speaking straight, and there is no "according to the convention" to tell an entrepreneurial story in the whole process.
"The order of appearances does not matter"
"In 2014, I judged that I could not raise more than $3 billion to build a car, and now I have a high probability of being able to raise funds to concentrate on car building."
Perhaps, Li Yinan's car-making dream began to sprout from 2014, but based on practical factors, it was not until 2018 that the car-making project began to start.
For nearly three years, Li Yinan, who was born in science, almost did not spend energy on brand promotion, and more time was spent on hard work and research and development.
When asked about the details of research and development and the results of product intelligence, Li Yinan did not talk too much, but simply took it.
"The smart cockpit is developed in-house, and autonomous driving is developed in a collaborative way."
At present, the size of the entire team is about 1,000 people. "The development of autonomous driving and intelligent cockpits is in Beijing, the design aspect is mainly in Shanghai, and the engineering related team is in Changzhou."
In fact, not only the self-touring brand, in just one month, there are new brands such as Binli and Light Orange Times that have announced their entry into the car. For the "Wei Xiaoli" monthly sales of more than 10,000 report cards, this means that the new car market threshold is very high, it is difficult to enter.
So, will it be a little late to enter at this time?
"Japan is an auto powerhouse, and as Japanese companies grow, we know that Honda entered the automotive industry a full 30 years later than Toyota and Nissan. In these 30 years, I don't believe that there is anyone else in the Japanese industry who has done it, so I wait until 30 years (after) honda, maybe Honda is the last large automobile company to be made, (but) I think there will be a lot of people in the middle of the 30 years. ”
According to Li Yinan's point of view, the order of appearance of the brand is not the most important, but the core lies in how to make products that make users feel "proud" at the right time.
At the press conference, we also witnessed a part of the face of this product before the official mass production.
The first model from the Youjia NV, positioned as a high-end medium and large SUV, was born on the Gemini twin platform, and will launch two versions of the extended range and pure electric models after listing, and focus on urban off-road style.
There are iconic headlight designs, special storage space in the cockpit for female users (which can hold large tote bags, high heels, etc.), stitched body colors, and charging indicator lights in the C-pillar position.
"High-end but not luxurious and luxurious", although Li Yinan did not disclose the price range of the new car, there is no doubt about going to the high-end.
The car Sankei learned from the scene that the car will not be equipped with lidar and head-up display.
According to Li Yinan, "The reason why we didn't choose to configure lidar on the first car NV is that there are many reasons, and I don't want to explain them one by one, but we just think that it is a better choice for us at this stage." As for our user, if he uses lidar as a necessary condition, we may not be able to meet his requirements."
In addition, Li Yinan said that autonomous driving is a revolutionary technology brought to the automotive industry by artificial intelligence. But this revolutionary technology will also take a long time to evolve. The arrival of new technologies must be based on the basic premise of improving user experience and absolute security.
As for the full-stack self-research method adopted by many new cars, including Weilai and Ideal Car, Li Yinan believes, "This is like our high school problems, a set of problems are made, and finally concluded that there are many solutions." There is no absolutely correct only way and only way to solve the problem. ”
Can it be mass-produced as scheduled?
"Small-scale trial production will be carried out in March next year, and the product will officially roll off the production line in September next year." This is the only short-term plan that Li Yinan revealed to the outside world.
"We didn't get lazy in the whole process, everyone thought we were doing it slowly, and I didn't think it was fast enough, but I thought the products were polished, and I felt that our time was pressed tight enough."
Since the intensive preparation of the tour home, to what step?
First, the factory.
In August this year, the registered address of NiuXin Energy was officially changed from Wujin District of Changzhou to Jintan District of Changzhou. Subsequently, Jiangsu Jintan Mahayana Automobile Technology Industrial Park was officially renamed NIUTRON.
Li Yinan introduced that Changzhou R & D and production manufacturing base occupies about 770,000 square meters, is expected to have an annual production capacity of 180,000 units, is currently undergoing the final stage of commissioning and transformation, will be put into use in March 2022.
From stamping, welding, painting to the final assembly workshop, the staff accompanies the way, and the modern and digital intelligent manufacturing base will provide quality assurance for the subsequent entry of the self-touring brand into the market.
In small talk with the staff, the auto sankei learned that the internal facilities of the factory are basically left by "Mahayana cars" (the automated machines are at least 90% new), and a small number of machines are re-purchased and installed according to the needs of the factory.
In terms of funds, at present, Ziyoujia has completed a round of 500 million US dollars of financing, and investors include IDG Capital and COATUE. Li Yinan said, "The next round of financing has not yet started, but there is no shortage of money in the whole (advancement) process." ”
There are rumors that many investors have taken a fancy to Li Yinan's rich entrepreneurial experience and are waiting in line to invest money in Li Yinan.
As for the channel model, Li Yinan believes that the new car sales model is mainly a direct store, because all new brands must be directly operated without being recognized by consumers, which is also the only way.
In terms of user operation, the executive of the marketing department of Ziyoujia said: "Now that a user operation team has been formed, we have done user content, user points, and a discovery team, including user ratings. ”
In terms of brand building, Li Yinan said frankly: we took a hammer and knocked for three years without knocking out a look, I was not too anxious, I told the truth, I was anxious and useless, brand this is more difficult than making a car, I think it takes longer to do it slowly.
So, in the nearly one-hour communication meeting, there was no big pie, no competition, no market expectations, and no guarantee that they would become the players who came to the end.
"My car hasn't come out yet, I haven't even come to power yet, and I'm not qualified to say (there are a few mainstream new forces left in the future)."
It's a straight boy.
Write at the end
At the beginning of 2019, Yang Jingyi (the president of Youjia) first met Li Yinan, "At that time, he (Li Yinan) had already made up his mind to build a car, there was no too much nonsense, we directly began to talk about products." The personal charm of the male brother coupled with this pragmatic, focusing on products and brands, attracting a large number of middle-class forces to join the team. ”
At the press conference, Yang Jingyi made a "personal testimony" for Li Yinan's straightforward and pragmatic personal charm.
In the circle, Li Yinan's connections are indeed quite a lot.
When talking to the media about another friend of the new car circle, Li Yinan said, "Before I didn't do (building cars), of course, Li Xiang also gave me a lot of sharing, I asked him questions, Li wants to be a good person, he also knows everything." Since I decided to do this thing myself, I haven't wanted to communicate with Li. ”
As Li Yinan's "old owner", when asked whether it will cooperate with him in the future, he said: "We are definitely exploring and cooperating with leading suppliers." ”
Li Yinan, who does not lack stories in himself, may really not need to tell any more stories.
In short, the whole conference came down, talked a lot, but felt that there was nothing to talk about. But the conference is only a form, the product is the purpose.
What about the product?
As Li Yinan said, "Try to do this thing well and see how it goes." "Then wait until March next year and see how it goes."