"Layman" Li Yinan, is it serious to build a four-wheeled car?

Building a two-wheeled electric vehicle, Li Yinan is absolutely serious, and the Maverick Electric he founded was listed on the NASDAQ four years after its establishment. Today, Li Yinan has started a business again, announcing the construction of a four-wheel electric vehicle. In this regard, the industry joked that "middle-aged men who do not build electric vehicles are not chinese businessmen who are successful enough."

As early as the beginning of this year, there was news that Xiaoniu Electric would build a cross-border car through baicchi new energy Changzhou plant, but this news was subsequently denied by Xiaoniu Electric. However, less than a year later, The "Niuchuang Technology", which has been incubated by Xiaoniu Electric for three years, announced its official entry into the new energy vehicle market.

Niuchuang Technology recently released a new car brand, and announced the brand name "NIUTRON" in English and "Self-Touring Home" in Chinese. At the release site, Ziyoujia also revealed more new car information, saying that the first model NV will be listed in the first half of 2022 and accept reservations, and the delivery will start in September of the same year.

Every time Li Yinan makes a shot, he can stand on the cusp of the storm. So, is he serious about building the car this time?

Li Yinan's "three noes" theory

Cross-border car manufacturing is not a new thing, the outside world is more interested in the founder Li Yinan, especially his car-making "three noes" theory, which really refreshed the three views of a group of car builders. There is no shortage of money, no shortage of people, and competitiveness is the least important, so the nonsensical view must only come from the mouth of Li Yinan. As for entrepreneurial feelings, future goals, etc., Li Yinan always answered "I didn't think about it", "can't answer it", "I don't know".

Search baidu encyclopedia, Li Yinan has a lot of heavy identities: Ren Zhengfei's legendary former successor, founder of Harbor Network, Huawei's "Hit Hong Kong Office" beaten, Li Yanhong's heart of the world's only three people worthy of Baidu CTO, China Mobile 12580 former trader, venture capitalist, Guangdong province prisoner... So many labels have praise and depreciation, giving Li Yinan a legendary color, but also allowing the outside world to see a casual and even somewhat willful Li Yinan. Announcing the car, Niuchuang Technology appeared to be very low-key, and only held a small internal communication meeting. But Li Yinan single-handedly made this communication meeting loudest.

No shortage of money. "We didn't get lazy a day or run out of money in the whole process." Li Yinan said, "Automobile manufacturing is undoubtedly an industry with a high capital threshold. Others have also asked me why I didn't make cars before, but now I think about making cars. In 2014, I judged that I would not be able to raise more than $3 billion to do this thing, and now I should most likely be able to raise this money to do this thing. "Why is Li Yinan confident of raising $3 billion now?" I have to say that Li Yinan himself has always had a good influence in the capital market. Previously, with Li Yinan's past reputation, The Calf Electric Vehicle received $50 million in Series A financing from many institutions such as GGV, IDG, and Sequoia before it came out. It is reported that at present, Youjia Automobile has completed a round of financing, with a total financing of 500 million US dollars, and IDG Capital, COATUE and other institutions have participated in the investment.

However, compared with the accumulated financing of tens of billions of other new forces leaders, it is obviously far from enough, and there are not many opportunities and time windows left for Niuchuang. According to Tianyan, Li Yinan's shareholding in Maverick Electric has rapidly reduced from nearly 40% to 5% today in the past year. Industry insiders analyzed that Li Yinan's continuous reduction in cash is likely to be a blood transfusion for the car-making project.

There is no shortage of people. "We started hiring executives in 2019, and I thought it was a good recruiter, and I didn't think we had any problems." For the current robbery war of new car-making forces, Li Yinan obviously has the detachment of staying out of the matter. According to reports, Youjia Automobile is headquartered in Beijing, and the research and development center is located in Shanghai. In terms of personnel, Self-Travel Car currently has nearly 1,000 core R & D personnel.

Competitiveness is the least important thing. When asked by the media what advantages ziyoujia have compared with other new car-making forces, Li Yinan bluntly said, "Competitiveness is the least important, what matters is what we can bring to our customers." To be honest, I can't really say it, but we just have to do our own things well. In terms of intelligence, The self-tourer has not done too much preparation, and at the same time clearly stated that "the self-traveling NV will not be equipped with lidar." For the view that there will only be 3 to 5 new car-making forces left in the end, Li Yinan's answer is even more direct, "My car has not come out, I have not yet come on stage, I am not qualified to say this." Whether I can live or not, I can't answer this kind of question. The 3rd place definitely said that there were only 3 left in the world, and the 5th place said that there were only 5 left in the world, so since I am not qualified now, I don't want to discuss this matter. ”

Replica ideal car "no shame"

According to the planning of Niuchuang Technology, the product layout of Ziyoujia adopts pure electric and extender parallel, and the Gemini twin platform has been developed. Based on the platform, the first product launched from the Youjia NV is positioned in the medium and large high-end SUV, which will provide users with pure electricity and extended range two powertrains. In terms of brand positioning, Li Yinan said that "it must be high-end". However, for the target group of the first product, the senior management team of Ziyoujia has not yet given a clear definition, but it is clear that "it will not benchmark a certain model of the existing brand in the market".

From the perspective of product positioning and technical route, the self-touring NV is closer to the ideal ONE, and the appearance design style is a bit like land Rover Defender. According to reports, since youjia NV has carried out three rounds of engineering trial production, R & D test mileage of more than one million kilometers, the first round of winter and summer tests has been completed, is currently undergoing the second round of winter testing. With the completion of the transformation of the manufacturing base, Ziyoujia NV is expected to carry out small batch production in March 2022. In addition, like most new car-making forces, self-touring cars will also adopt a direct sales model.

The Intelligent Manufacturing Base of Niuchuang Technology, the Mahayana Plant, is located in Changzhou, 30 kilometers away from BAIC BJEV Changzhou Plant and only more than 40 kilometers away from ideal automobile's Changzhou base. It is understood that Li Yinan and Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, have a very good personal relationship, and the two people will soon meet on the new track. When asked by the media how to evaluate the delivery of ten thousand vehicles in the past month, Li Yinan said: "Before I did it, Li Xiang also gave me a lot of sharing, I asked him questions, Li wanted to know everything. But since I decided to do this thing myself, I haven't wanted to communicate with Li, because communication is not appropriate, and I think this matter is also a minimum respect for others. Lee wants to do well, and we put our hands together to express our heartfelt congratulations. However, some insiders also pointed out that Niuchuang Technology will inevitably have some impact on the ideal car, the same as Changzhou enterprises, the same as the manufacturing of extended range electric vehicles, including executives, employees job hopping and so on are inevitable.

For car building, a famous saying in the industry is "less than two wheels, that is, two less brushes". I have to say that Li Yinan is an out-and-out layman in the field of car building, and even he himself admits, "There is no experience, making two wheels and building four wheels are completely different, and the complexity of the automobile industry is at least three orders of magnitude worse than two-wheeled vehicles." But Li Yinan, who has a lot of ill-fated fate on the road to entrepreneurship, still does not want to believe in fate at the age of knowing the destiny, and perhaps he always remembers his own words, "No matter how many things are disappointed, there is no reason to be disappointed in the best times."

Responsible Editor: Li Yan'an Editor-in-Chief: Yu Jianping