Text | Ray Tech leitech
"A few joys and a few sorrows", this sentence can fully summarize the changes in the new energy market in 2021.
During the year, some people ushered in their own highlight moments. Tesla is still the king of this market, sales continue to grow, the market value exceeded the trillion DOLLAR mark, becoming the world's first car company with a market value of more than one trillion US dollars; although the "Wei Xiaoli" in the new car-making forces has been fighting for the position, but their respective sales have still hit a new high, of which Xiaopeng Automobile even broke through 10,000 sales for 2 consecutive months to become the sales crown of the new car-making forces. In addition, Nezha Automobile not only gradually narrowed the distance with "Wei Xiaoli" in terms of sales in this year, but also its IPO was only one step away.
However, during this year, some people also left the scene dimly. Byton Automobile, which had spent 50 million yuan to buy snacks, finally withdrew in the hustle and bustle, and then many traditional car companies such as Borgward, Brilliance and Lifan ushered in the final bankruptcy liquidation.
The new energy market is a huge vanity fair, some people have gained great attention here, become a winner in life, it is also a huge meat grinder, buried a lot of people with lofty ideals. Although there are many losers, there are still many people who have come to the scene, and box, Binli and most recently Niuchuang have all entered the game to participate in this car-making feast.
In this ushered in vanity fair, some silent car companies are also taking advantage of the new energy outlet to seek the last trace of vitality, Zotye Automobile has been approved to be approved for bankruptcy restructuring, and the previous arrears of suppliers, employees for a long time the future of the car has also recently been active, and the action is not small, it seems that there is an idea to continue to work in the new energy market.
On December 18, Qiantu Automobile pushed new news on its official micro-blog and officially released the 2022 development plan of Qiantu Automobile. According to the development plan, Future Auto will develop and apply new materials, new energy and new intelligence in the future. At the same time, Qiantu Automobile also announced that its new model, the Qiantu K20, will be officially launched in 2022 and deployed in overseas markets. In addition, Qiantu Automobile also held a ceremony for Qiantu Automobile to roll off the production line and deliver the Qiantu K50 to new users at the factory site of Qiantu Automobile.
For the operation of the future car, the anecdotes have exclaimed that the future should be "resurrected". In fact, the signs of the "resurrection" of the future car have been seen before.
On December 2, 2020, the future automobile official micro, who has been silent for more than a year since the push on July 30, 2020, once again pushed a new message with the text "Speed car loves Maplewood Night, Yoyo future road heart", in fact, it is already hinting that future cars are about to resume work. On December 7, Qiantu Automobile said in a new tweet that it would sign a strategic cooperation agreement with Goldenport Holdings and Blue Ocean Creative to enter the Meta-Universe, and the three parties would work together to enter the Meta-Universe, and Future Automobile would provide vehicle modification programs and modified parts in this cooperation; on December 10, Qiantu Automobile promoted its own Douyin number on its own official micro-micro, and with the text, "Long time no see, I am back ...", officially announcing its return to the outside world.
With the official release of this new development plan and the continued delivery of the K50, the future car that has been in the market for a while has returned to the mainstream vision. So will the future car that has re-entered the market have a chance to make a comeback?
Is the future of the car born at the right time?
For Qiantu Automobile, its parent company, Great Wall Huaguan, was a focus on automobile design before founding Qiantu Automobile, and had participated in the electrification transformation projects of Saab Automobile, Changfeng, BAIC and other car companies in 2007, and has rich resources and experience in the automotive industry. In 2010, Great Wall Huaguan set up an electric vehicle division, which is the predecessor of Future Automobile, it can be said that in the new energy track, Future Automobile has also begun to enter the game early.
However, early entry does not mean that there is an opportunity to take advantage. It is said that car manufacturing is an extremely money-burning industry, Li Bin once said that there is no 20 billion yuan not to build a car, and Future Auto has been worried about money since its inception. In fact, whether it is compared with the zero-run car backed by Dahua Security, or the invincible "Wei Xiaoli" in the capital market, the future of starting to build cars early is not rich, and it has always been able to rely on the blood transfusion of the parent company, Great Wall Huaguan. According to the data, since the official listing on the New Third Board in 2015, Great Wall Huaguan has raised more than 2 billion yuan in funds, but as the New Third Board continues to decline, Great Wall Huaguan also terminated its listing on the New Third Board in 2019, and issued four consecutive announcements to suspend the transfer of shares, and finally chose to delist and delist, since the future of the automobile even the final financing channels have been lost.
In addition to the small amount of financing, Qiantu Automobile, which has long solved the dual qualifications of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, built the Suzhou base of Qiantu Automobile with the support of the suzhou local government, and its initial planned production capacity is only 50,000 units, compared with the production capacity of 100,000 and 150,000 yuan of Weilai and Xiaopeng Automobile, the scale of Future Automobile's car manufacturing is really shabby.
Although money and resources are relatively scarce, the road to the future of automobiles has been opened since then. In order to be able to quickly open up the situation in the new energy market, Qiantu Automobile chose the route that had been proven at that time, that is, to imitate Tesla's growth trajectory, relying on opening the market with sports cars first, and then launching other low-end products. In fact, such an operation was not uncommon at the time, and NIO also adopted a similar operation in the initial stage, using the super electric sports car EP9 to refresh the New North record and the form of Formula E's annual championship to achieve widespread dissemination.
Although in hindsight, the operation of The Future Car ended in failure, but at that time, the launch of the K50 by the Future Car still attracted great attention. At the booth of the Great Wall Huaguan at the Beijing Auto Show in April 2014, Qiantu Automobile's first concept car, the K50, made its debut, and became the focus of the auto show with its all-aluminum body, large carbon fiber covering and good performance. In the view of Lu Qun, CEO of Future, K50 is to "set the tone, position, and set space" for Future Auto, so it is extremely important. As a pure electric sports car, although the price of the K50 after its official launch of nearly 700,000 yuan caused great controversy, it was a successful start for the future car that lacked attention at that time. In fact, Lu Qun, CEO of The Future, said bluntly in an interview with the media that the K50 is not satisfactory in terms of price and even performance, but in terms of the overall situation of the company, this product may only be one of its "bullets" to break through the fuel vehicle market, which shows that the target sales of the future car to the future K50 are not high.
Unveiled in 2014, after several rounds of difficult production of the future K50 finally in the third quarter of 2018 finally caught up with the tide of the first batch of production delivery, but after the listing, this once hot car company has caused a lot of controversy, the market does not buy it, the cumulative sales of the year after the listing is less than 200 units, it can be said that the development of this excellent pure electric sports car is obviously not as expected.
When K50 sales were sluggish, Future Auto also suffered a financial crisis. According to media reports, Since July 2019, Qiantu Automobile has already had employees stop paying wages, and in November, Qiantu Automobile cancelled the housing provident fund for almost all employees. The roof leak coincided with the overnight rain, and the future car that encountered the crisis also encountered the cold winter of the industry. With the sharp decline of new energy policy in 2019, a large number of new energy companies fell into a crisis, starting in the second half of 2019, Huatai, Zotye, Yangtze River, Luchi, Yundu and Bo County have been exposed to the news of unpaid wages, and even the industry giant "Wei Xiaoli" has had to spend the winter in a variety of ways such as layoffs, open source, and throttling. In the end, Luchi Automobile, which was deeply in financial difficulties, was "pocketed" by the Henan government, becoming the first enterprise to be controlled by state-owned assets among the new car-making forces, while Weilai Automobile held hands with the Hefei government and got more than 10 billion yuan of life-saving money. In contrast, the future car, which is not rich in itself, did not wait for a savior in the end, and finally could only land on the ground and turn around and exit.
Looking back at the history of The Future Car in the past few years, some people say that its failure is a strategic mistake, and it is a wrong choice to enter the performance pure electric sports car, but at that time in 2014, the future car, which was not excellent in itself, could only feel the stone of Tesla to cross the river, and the previous article also mentioned that Weilai Automobile also took a similar approach, but one succeeded, one failed. However, in recent years, with the increase in domestic new energy penetration and the increase in consumer recognition of independent high-end brands, especially in the context of the continuous hot sales of Gaohe HiPhi X, an SUV model with a price of nearly 800,000 yuan, many people have begun to talk about if the future car is still there, the fate of the K50 and even the fate of the future car may have different results.
Does FutureCar still have a "future"?
Does a more tolerant market mean it will have a better future for the promising car that restarts the delivery of the K50? Not necessarily.
There is no doubt that even from today's point of view, the future K50 is still a sports car with good performance and styling, and the K50 is the only new energy sports car on sale in this segment, if the future car is well publicized, I have no doubt that the future K50 back to the market can get some consumer pursuit of performance and personality.
However, even if the future K50 can get a certain number of orders next year, and even have the opportunity to complete the annual sales target of thousands of units it has previously set, this is not enough for the future car that wants to stand out again, and the sales of thousands of units are difficult to support the future car. It can be said that the re-delivered K50 is of great significance to the future car, but its positioning has not changed, it is just a totem of the future car.
The future car still has to rely on a hot model to survive. According to the plan of the future car, in addition to the first pure electric sports car K50, it will also launch 10 new cars based on the three major platforms. These include different types of vehicles such as cars, medium and large passenger cars, and small passenger cars. At the 2022 strategy release held on the 18th, Qiantu Automobile said that its second model, K20, will be launched in 2022. After 1 and a half years of separation from the market, the speed of iteration of the new car of Future Automobile is indeed much faster, but from the perspective of the released models, Future Automobile still seems to adhere to the previous route planning. For why not develop SUV models, Lu Qun has said before, "Whether the current fiercely competitive SUV models still need a pure electric SUV model, followed by whether a new model category will be popular in the future, and finally, the owners of SUV models often need to consider long-distance travel, and the disadvantages of pure electric vehicles in terms of endurance will be magnified in this demand." Today, his view does have some truth, but the second model it launched still has no way to support it. The K20 is the same as the K50, but the positioning is obviously lower than the K50, which is very close to the positioning of the S01 launched by the previous zero-running car. For such a new car, there is a zero-run S01 in the past, with the positioning of K20, it should be difficult to do hot sales.
In fact, in the planning of the future car, it is once close to the K10, which is positioned as a micro-electric vehicle, which has a chance to sell well. With the outbreak of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, the current micro-electric vehicle is currently the hottest segment of the new energy market, and many car companies have targeted the market and launched new models one after another. However, according to the revelations of the insiders of the future car, the mass production plan of this new car was eventually cancelled due to problems such as funds. With the strategy conference of Future Automobile in 2022 officially confirming that the K20 will be mass-produced in 2022, the mass production of the K10 has become far away.
For future cars, the most important thing to return to the mainstream vision is to survive. Like the Future Car, the Zero Run car was originally built as a sports car, and the first entry-level sports car was introduced. At that time, zero-run cars also had high hopes for zero-run S01, but like the K50, the zero-run S01 market also suffered Waterloo, and eventually ended in failure. It's just that the zero-run car was slightly luckier, and quickly launched the micro-electric zero-run T03 after the failure of the S01. Although it was initially questioned by the industry to imitate the Mercedes-Benz Smart model, with a low purchase threshold and the highest endurance of the same level, the zero-run T03 is still sought after by many young people. After the launch of the T03, its cumulative sales in 2020 reached 10,266 units, becoming the main sales force of zero-run cars. Coming to 2021, the cumulative delivery of zero-run cars from January to September reached 34,731 units, most of which were contributed by zero-run T03, and it can be said that zero-run cars can survive T03 today, so many people in the market are puzzled about why the 2022 strategy for future cars chooses mass production K20 instead of K10. In summary, the early choice of K50 by Future Auto can be said to be helpless, but now after the re-"resurrection", it still adheres to the initial strategic plan, instead of stopping the loss in time, which is obviously somewhat unexpected.
In fact, with the passage of time, Tesla's development model is no longer suitable for the "resurrection" of the future car, but the business model like zero-run cars and ideal cars is more suitable for car companies that are deeply involved in the Chinese market. Jun, Li Yinan, who started a business again, also faced the problem of funds, and only raised 500 million US dollars of Niuchuang Automobile directly to the ideal car "copy the operation". It is not difficult to find that if the strategy is not adjusted in time, the "future" of the comeback future car is still dim.
A new way out in the fog
So for the future car of this high-profile return, is it really just the use of K50 combined with some hot spots to hype up and add more talking about the new energy market that is already full of tricks today? I think that the future car should not be so short-sighted.
In fact, although Qiantu Automobile has previously fallen into an operational crisis, Qiantu Automobile, which has obtained dual qualifications too early, is still a good target in the current new energy market. In addition, the future auto welding workshop covers a total area of 18974 square meters, with 131 sets of process equipment, and the workshop to achieve high automation, high flexibility of the production requirements, although most of the workshops in Suzhou factory in Jiangsu are currently in a state of shutdown, but already has the ability to produce and deliver vehicles, in this 2022 strategic conference, Qiantu Automobile specially held a K50 off-line ceremony and delivery is to prove this.
It is worth mentioning that the Bingli automobile, which was previously considered to be rubbing the heat of bentley, is also related to the future car. According to the enterprise investigation information, Binli Automobile, founded by former Volkswagen China executive Su Weiming, has been associated with the parent company of Future Automobile, Great Wall Huaguan, which currently holds a 20% stake in the newly established Beijing Binli Automobile Technology Development Co., Ltd.
As former Global Executive Vice President of Volkswagen Group and former CEO of Renault China, Su Weiming has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. From past experience, Su Weiming is not only very familiar with the strategic operation of the enterprise, but also knows how to build brands and products. At the same time, he also has very deep contacts and resources. It can be said that in the track of car building, Su Weiming is not inferior to Ding Lei, Li Xiang and others of Huaren Express.
It is understood that some media reported that the first new car under Binli Automobile will be officially released and announced at the Beijing Auto Show, which opens in April 2022, and its product information will be announced. According to the information obtained so far, the first model of Bingli is likely to be a high-performance four-door pure electric coupe that focuses on luxury and intelligence, positioned as the benchmark Porsche Taycan.
However, as of now, Binli Automobile is still a car-making new force car company without car-making qualifications and no production base, which is associated with the Great Wall Huaguan at this time, combined with the positioning of Binli's new car and the flag of The Future Automobile, Binli Automobile has a great opportunity to enter the car through the Future Automobile OEM, so the behavior of the Future Automobile before the many actions and the release of the new strategy in 2022 can be understood, in addition to showing its own strength, I think there should also be the idea of selling at a price.
Summary: Today's new energy market has long been not the new energy market produced in 2015, with the return of new energy vehicles to market orientation, such as the rise of new car-making forces such as Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng and so on, while traditional car companies accelerate the transformation of new energy and technology companies frequently enter the game of car manufacturing, in this context, the future of returning to the mainstream vision of the car color geometry, still have to play a question mark. If the future car's return is really intentional, then it urgently needs to launch a fist product that attracts users to achieve a perfect turn. It's just that the future car has really wanted to rebuild the car or shake a false shot, or a hype before the "sale"? I think I'll see the answer soon.