"No matter how many things you are disappointed in, there is no reason to be disappointed in the best of times." Li Yinan once said so.
Now this best of times seems to be beckoning to him, and this former talented teenager is also going to throw himself into the army of car builders.
01 "Two rounds" becomes "four rounds"
"My ups and downs of life are like a roller coaster," Li Yinan once lamented at the 2015 Calf Press Conference. "Genius Boy", "Ren Zhengfei's Successor", "Maverick Founder"... Li Yinan's life trajectory has ups and downs and experiences are quite abundant.
After 3 months out of prison, Li Yinan, after successively performing his duties Baidu, China Mobile, and GSR Ventures, in 2015 Li Yinan established Niudian Technology (later Maverick Electric), and successfully broke through under the siege of Yadi, Emma, etc., resigned as the founder of Niudian Technology in 2018, and in 2019, Maverick Electric ushered in a highlight moment and successfully landed on nasdaq.
The success of the Mavericks' entrepreneurship has laid a solid foundation for Li Yinan to march from two-wheelers to four-wheelers. In 2018, Li Yinan officially established Niu Innovation Energy Company, and the automobile research and development project was officially launched in November of that year. This is his third venture.
In October 2020, Li Yinan, who had said that he would not build a car, officially established Changzhou Niuchuang Technology Co., Ltd. (100% controlled by Niu ChuangXin Energy).
Niu Chuangxin Energy will build models in both range extender and pure electric directions, and the first car planned to be built is a range extender SUV, which is priced at about 200,000 yuan in the mid-range model market, cleverly avoiding the competition with the ideal ONE priced at more than 300,000 yuan.
Niu Chuangxin Energy has also developed the Gemini Twin Platform, which can be based on the Gemini Twin Platform to create a variety of models in the later stage.
Niu Innovative Energy Technology Chinese brand for "self-touring home", English brand "NIUTRON", the first product since the tour home NV has been accumulated three rounds of engineering trial production, R & D test mileage of more than one million kilometers, the first round of winter and summer tests have been completed, is currently undergoing the second round of winter testing. It is expected to be available and available for pre-order in the first half of 2022, with deliveries starting in September of the same year.
Niu Chuang Energy is located in Beijing, Shanghai set up R & D center, set up R & D and intelligent manufacturing base in Changzhou, the current Niu Chuang core R & D team is close to 1,000 people, all from mainstream first-line automobile companies at home and abroad, the average working experience of more than 10 years, of which the development of automatic driving and intelligent cockpit is carried out in Beijing, the design team is mainly in Shanghai, and the engineering personnel are in Changzhou.
This time from two rounds to four rounds of entrepreneurship, Li Yinan chose the "modern R & D and manufacturing base" in Changzhou, including Li Yinan's own office location is also arranged in Changzhou. Changzhou's modern intelligent manufacturing base covers an area of 770,000 square meters, 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.
Coincidentally, No. 387 Changting Road, Wujin District, 20 kilometers away from Niu Chuangxin Energy Changzhou Base, is the global R&D and manufacturing base of Maverick Electric Vehicle.
Before December 2021, Niu Chuangxin Energy still has not introduced external capital, and its shareholding structure is as follows:
On December 15, 2021, Niu Chuangxin Energy announced the completion of a $500 million Series A financing round led by IDG and COATUE. But the danger of the road to building a car is precisely that the early capital consumption is large, and I don't know if Li Yinan is fully prepared.
02 "Dove occupies the magpie's nest", the bottom of the Mahayana
As early as March 2021, the market rumors said that Li Yinan planned to acquire BAIC BJEV's Changzhou plant and began negotiations, but failed. In the end, he chose the Dacheng Automobile Plant, which is more than 30 kilometers away from BAIC BJEV's Changzhou plant.
The Mahayana Automobile Plant was established in 2018 at No. 99 Kejiao Road, Jintan District, but five of Theravada's models have previously stopped production due to their inability to meet China VI emission regulations.
At present, the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park has been renamed Jiangsu Niu Innovative Energy Technology Industrial Park, replaced by the NIUTRON logo. At present, the factory is still not put into production and is still in the preparatory stage. In this regard, Li Yinan said, "For mature companies, it is not necessary to start production 9 months in advance, 3 months in advance is enough." ”
If you go further back, the relationship between this industrial park located at No. 99 Kejiao Road in Jintan District and Zotye Automobile is also quite delicate. In fact, Wu Xiao, the founder of Mahayana Automobile, is the son of Wu Jianzhong, chairman of Zotye Automobile.
Wu Jianzhong, chairman of the board of directors of Mahayana Motor, took the project of Zotye Damai to produce Damai models at the Jintan base during his tenure as chairman of Zotye Automobile. After the listing of Zotye A shares in 2017, the industrial park in Jintan was spun off to be used as the Changzhou production base of Mahayana Motors, and Wu Jianzhong intended to let his son practice his hands.
Unexpectedly, Mahayana, which was only established in 2018, collapsed so quickly. According to the auction announcement released by the Jintan District People's Court, in June 2021, Jiangsu Zhongzhiyang Investment Management Co., Ltd. took over the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park in Changzhou Jintan for 1.551 billion yuan through bidding. The former is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jiangsu Jintan Guofa International Investment and Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the Office of the Public Asset Management Committee of Jintan District, Changzhou. In other words, the science and technology industrial park where Mahayana Automobile was originally located has been taken over by the Jintan District Government.
It is worth noting that the attribution of the most critical production qualifications is not mentioned in the auction announcement. Relevant people confirmed that at present, Niuchuang Automobile is using the Mahayana Science and Technology Industrial Park in the form of leasing from Jintan District. The use of production bases on a leased basis will undoubtedly benefit them in terms of capital operation, eliminating the need for large-scale investment. In August 2021, Niuchuang Automobile employees successively entered the industrial park, and the "Dove Occupy Magpie's Nest" finally came to an end.
However, the remnants left by the Mahayana car are still faintly visible, and at the east gate of the industrial park, the sign of "Jiangxi Mahayana Automobile Co., Ltd. Jintan Branch" is still hanging recently. This huge factory also has many traces left by Mahayana cars, and the shells and other parts left by Mahayana cars have been cleaned up in batches.
Since the launch of the car-making project, Niu Chuang has been recruiting soldiers and even digging some people from the old owners.
For example, the addition of Liu Chuankai, vice president of calf design, has made the cow create a little more calf color. Liu Chuankai may be on the styling design team of Niuchuang Automobile.
This Liu Chuankai is also quite a way out, his team is responsible for the concept design of the Maverick Electric M1, before joining the Maverick Electric, Liu Chuankai was the design director of Designworks, a creative consulting company owned by bmw group . Sources revealed that there will be more Maverick employees in the future, but Li Yinan specifically explained that it is not allowed to work in both companies at the same time.
Niuchuang Automobile is also constantly recruiting some people from its external counterparts. At present, many employees of Niuchuang are from Great Wall Motors, such as Ge Feng, who is in charge of the production and manufacturing of Changzhou Base, who has worked at Great Wall Motors.
Yang Jingyi, the legal representative of Niuchuang, as the boss of the Changzhou base, mainly manages the technical team, according to rumors, Yang Jing also worked in Great Wall Motors before, and Ge Feng also reported to it.
Another senior executive member, Fang Qing, will manage the cost budgeting team, according to the investigation information. In Fang Qing's LinkedIn information, he served as the head of cost analysis at Xiaopeng Automobile and the head of cost management at Geely Automobile Research Institute.
When asked where you can learn from The Maverick Electric, Li Yinan's answer is: No, because the complexity of the automobile industry and two-wheelers are not one or two orders of magnitude, but three orders of magnitude, so even if you want to borrow, you really can't borrow it.
As for the time of entry, Li Yinan believes that it is undoubtedly late to build a car at this stage, but he also uses Honda as an example - Honda started a full 30 years later than Toyota and Nissan. In these 30 years, Japanese industry must have other companies that have tried to build cars, and in the next 30 years, Honda will not be the last large car company to be made.
Li Yinan once said confidently, "We have been knocking on a hammer for three years and have not knocked out a look, and I am not too anxious." It is useless to be anxious, it is more difficult to do the brand than to make the car, I think it takes longer to do it slowly. We don't care who we compare, we only care about whether we can make the vast majority of users proud to have our products. ”
The first two owners of "No. 99 Kejiao Road in Jintan District", Zotye Automobile and Mahayana Automobile, have all ended up hastily, and it is not known whether its fate can be rewritten by Li Yinan.
Hui Ze Lee