Some time ago, major new energy vehicle companies have released sales data for November, of which the competition between BYD and Tesla is the most eye-catching.
First of all, BYD ranked first in domestic new energy passenger car sales for seven consecutive months with sales of 90142. Among them, BYD's "Qinhan Shuangxiong" achieved another good result, with sales of 30,049 units and 12,838 vehicles, respectively, ranking among the top 3 in the domestic new energy passenger car rankings, of which BYD's "Qin" series sales increased by 466% year-on-year.
Correspondingly, Tesla fell to the third place on the list. Among them, model 3 sales in China fell off a cliff. According to Tesla's official figures, Tesla Model 3 sales in the Chinese market in November were only 8615 units. Although compared with other new domestic car-making forces, this sales may be good, but compared with the sales performance of 21604 vehicles in the same period last year, the sales volume of model 3 fell by as much as 60% year-on-year.
Although there is no data statistics to prove that BYD's "Qinhan Shuangxiong" has grown several times at every turn to rob Tesla of its share. However, from the development trend of the world's two major electric vehicle overlords in China, we can see that the new energy automobile industry has shifted from jointly seizing the fuel vehicle market to "inner volume" between each other.
However, in such a dark competitive environment, the domestic electric vehicle market has ushered in a new player.
I. From "Genius Teenager" to "Huawei Traitor"
According to media reports, niu innovative energy technology company founded by Li Yinan, former vice president of Huawei, officially announced that it will join the fight of the new energy vehicle track, and is expected to achieve mass production in September 2022, and the name is also good, the English name is "NIUTRON", and the Chinese is called "self-traveler". At the same time, Li Yinan's former employer, Huawei, which has always been clear about not building cars, has also cooperated with Xilis to launch a medium-sized luxury SUV , the Q&I M5.
As early as this year's "Double 12" day, Niu Chuangxin Energy announced the recruitment of multiple positions from gauge engineers to general assembly plant technicians. Obviously, Li Yinan's second entrepreneurial plan after the Maverick electric vehicle is by no means the "verbal self-hi" that many people rumor. According to Li Yinan, the market positioning of Niuchuang new energy vehicles is consistent with Tesla. Many people are curious, Niu Chuang originally entered the new energy automobile industry a beat late, but also went straight to the industry C position, can he succeed?
In fact, compared with the identity of the founder of Niu Innovative Energy and Xiaoniu Electric Vehicle, Li Yinan is most widely known as the "Huawei successor". At that time, Li Yinan's promotion path in Huawei was almost no one could replicate.
In 1992, Li Yinan entered Huawei as an intern. Only 2 days after joining Huawei, Li Yinan was promoted to engineer by Ren Zhengfei, and in the next 2 years, Li Yinan was promoted from senior engineer to manager of the central data department and chief engineer of Huawei. By 1997, 27-year-old Li Yinan was the youngest vice president in Huawei's history and had helped Huawei achieve sales of more than 10 billion yuan in 1999.
At that time, both Huawei employees and executives regarded Li Yinan as Ren Zhengfei's successor. According to the normal development trajectory, it is only a matter of time before Li Yinan, who was privately called "dry son" by Ren Zhengfei, was promoted to president of Huawei, but Li Yinan's fate took a turn at this time.
In 2000, in order to combat the impact of the global Internet bubble, Ren Zhengfei issued a call to internal entrepreneurship to Huawei employees. In the same year, Li Yinan took 10 million yuan worth of equipment and hundreds of Huawei technology backbones to Beijing to create a harbor network. But within two years, the harbor network began to confront Huawei in the fields of routers and ether switches. What is even more excessive is that the harbor network has stolen many Huawei patents in the process of rapid development, and even bought Huawei insiders to deliberately release water in the bidding project with the harbor network. These behaviors also made Li Yinan buckle the hat of "Huawei rebel", and also ignited the anger in Ren Zhengfei's heart.
Second, Li Yinan, who was "absorbed", started a business again
In 2004, Ren Zhengfei, who reached a settlement with Cisco in the North American market, allocated 400 million yuan to set up a "Port Office" within Huawei, which was specifically responsible for snatching orders and customers related to the harbor network. Under Huawei's ferocious counterattack, in 2006, the six-year-old harbor network was acquired by Huawei for 1.7 billion yuan, and Li Yinan's first venture failed.
After the harbor network was annexed by Huawei, Li Yinan once returned to Huawei to work, and as when he left, he served as Huawei's vice president, responsible for the exploration and collection of international technology frontier information. However, the actual status of the "vice president" at this time and the vice president ten years ago is very different. At that time, Li Yinan was the vice president of Huawei's R&D headquarters, grasping the core lifeblood of Huawei's development. Ten years later, the "vice president" only undertakes the research and development of the basic technology of terminal equipment, and its importance is the lowest among huawei's hundreds of vice presidents. From this time on, Li Yinan finally realized that his fate with Huawei was exhausted. At the beginning of the following year, Li Yinan left Huawei again.
After fully seeing the strength of his old owner Huawei, Li Yinan no longer had the heart to get involved in the field of telecommunications. In the following years, he held key positions in Baidu and China Mobile. In 2015, Li Yinan founded the Maverick Electric Vehicle and created the hit model "Maverick Intelligent Electric Vehicle N1" in the field of electric vehicles. Unfortunately, in January 2017, Li Yinan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for suspected insider trading.
However, the prison disaster did not extinguish Li Yinan's entrepreneurial enthusiasm in the slightest, and soon after his release from prison, Li Yinan quickly reached a cooperation with Meihua Angel Venture Capital. Subsequently, following Niudian Technology, Li Yinan's second new energy electric vehicle brand, Niuchuang Technology, began to enter the planning stage.
Third, what are the practical problems faced by Niuchuang?
After 3 years of preparation, in December 2021, Niuchuang Technology finally reached the threshold of actual operation. However, as far as the data on all aspects that Niuchuang Technology has released at present, it is very difficult for Li Yinan to gain a foothold in the field of electric vehicles.
1. Funds are stretched:
The first is the issue of funding. According to the data, at present, Li Yinan's personal net worth is about 1 billion US dollars, and the market value of Xiaoniu Electric in the US stock market is only 1.1 billion US dollars, while the market value of Weilai Automobile, Ideal Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile in the US stock market is more than 30 billion US dollars. Even if Li Yinan holds 40% of the shares of Maverick Electric Vehicle, compared with the capital strength of the "new car-making forces", it is still a small witch.
2. Weak R&D foundation:
The second is the weak research and development foundation. According to the official introduction of Niuchuang Technology, the current employees of Niuchuang Technology are about 1,000 people. Nio has more than 7,000 employees, Ideal Automobile has more than 4,000 people, and Xiaopeng Automobile has more than 5,000 people. Byd, the hegemon of the new energy automobile industry, has a total of 220,000 employees, including nearly 30,000 R& D personnel. Niuchuang Technology, which has only 1,000 people, has sufficient research and development potential?
3, no core technology:
The most important thing in the field of new energy vehicles is the car chip and power battery. At present, the world is making a "car chip shortage", only companies like BYD that achieve independent research and development of the whole industry chain can be self-sufficient, including Toyota, Volkswagen, etc. Auto giants are affected by the "car chip shortage", or limit production, or stop work. In terms of power batteries, the world's largest power battery manufacturers have long been scheduled for 6 months after the order for the Ningde era. Therefore, in terms of car chips and power batteries, Niuchuang Technology has no core advantages, if they are all assembled, what can Niuchuang Technology rely on to beat other competitors?
IV. Conclusion
Only from the current paper information, Niuchuang technology to build cars, it is inevitable that there is a suspicion of "bragging". But after all, its founder is Li Yinan, the genius teenager who once helped Huawei break through tens of billions of revenues and was known as "a Li Yinan, half of Huawei's history".
In the more than 10 years since he left Huawei, although Li Yinan has experienced many failures, he has also stood up again and again, and successfully listed his electric vehicle brand "Maverick Electric" on the NASDAQ in the United States. Who can prove that this time Li Yinan will not succeed again?