Wen | Guo Yu Li Yang Li Haoyin Zhao Cheng
Editor| Zhao Cheng
2021 is over, this year, the auto industry ups and downs, the industry changes, the car industry big guys also have their own sweet and sour bittersweet.
Xu Jiayin, Cheng Wei, Feng Sihan, Yao Zhenhua, Dai Lei and other former heroes have all experienced a different life in 2021 - the peak fell. Some of them evaporated tens of billions of dollars in an instant; some were transferred out of their posts due to poor performance; some were secretly investigated after going public in the United States; and even more did not succeed in building cars, encountered employees asking for salaries, and the two sides went to court.
This year was a year of great disappointment and misfortune for them, and the encounters of these characters also reflected the changes in the automotive industry to some extent.
1 Cheng Dimension
▲ Image source IC
Born in 1983, Didi founder Cheng Wei is a native of Leadshan, Jiangxi Province, and graduated from Beijing University of Chemical Technology. In 2012, he was also an employee of Alibaba, and on cheng Wei's weekday companionship, he found that although public transportation is already very convenient, the travel problem of the road from home to the bus station has not been solved, and it is difficult to get a car in time in a slightly more remote area, so the online ride-hailing project has gradually taken root in his mind.
In the same year, Cheng Wei founded "Little Orange Technology" and launched the "Didi Taxi" software in Beijing. Since founding Didi, he has experienced hundreds of battles, successively picking strong opponents such as fast-falling and Uber, and becoming the king of China's online ride-hailing.
However, since Didi chose to go public in the United States, the company's development has begun to decline like a spell.
In July 2021, Didi Chuxing was criticized by domestic regulatory authorities for illegally collecting user information and suspected data leakage, at the same time, all 25 of Didi's software were ordered to be removed from the shelves for rectification, resulting in new users being unable to register and suffering heavy losses.
After Didi took down the shelves, head companies such as T3 Travel and AutoNavi Taxi began to "burn money and grab land" when they were in distress. At this moment, Didi, helpless.
According to the financial report released by Didi, the loss in the second quarter of 2021 was 24.27 billion yuan, and the loss in the third quarter was 30.375 billion yuan, that is to say, in the six months of going to the United States, Didi lost nearly 60 billion yuan.
The removal of apps inevitably leads to the loss of users, and at the same time, the increasingly strict regulatory needs, coupled with the rapid expansion of many car companies' online ride-hailing platforms, have led to the loss of the number of drivers in Didi. When surviving the cold winter and reorganizing the old rivers and mountains, Didi still faces major challenges.
2 Von Sihan
Feng Sihan is the CEO of Volkswagen Group China, but this position will soon be replaced.
At a media briefing in November 2021, Feng Sihan revealed that he would leave office in 2022. As for the reason, Feng Sihan explained that this is the principle and tradition of the Volkswagen Group: when a manager has been in a job position or a place for many years, adjustments and changes need to be made, and although managers can gain more and more experience in the local market, they will lack fresh perspectives.
However, considering Volkswagen's unsatisfactory sales performance in the Chinese market in recent years, everyone does not buy the above reasons.
In January 2019, Feng Sihan took charge of The China region, a year that also became a watershed for Volkswagen's performance in China. Previously, sales in 2017, 2018 and 2019 were 4.18 million, 4.2 million and 4.23 million, respectively, continuing to hit a record high, accounting for about 40% of global sales; by 2020, it fell to 3.85 million units, down 9.1% in the same period, outperforming 6.8% of the market. Affected by the lack of cores, Volkswagen's performance in 2021 is also inferior to that in 2020.
In July 2021, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess publicly criticized China's performance, saying that Volkswagen must change its approach to selling electric vehicles in China to deal with its poor sales in the world's largest electric vehicle market. Feng Sihan said that including heating systems and air conditioning systems, there is a shortage of 3-5 semiconductor parts supply for the ID. family of pure electric models, because these parts are unique to pure electric vehicles and cannot be interchanged with similar parts of fuel vehicles, thus affecting automobile production and causing sales damage.
Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche) learned from volkswagen group that the chip shortage is expected to continue in 2022. In order to reverse the decline, the group will give more priority to the Chinese market in the distribution of chip supply, and then it is expected to rebound in 2022 and return to or even surpass the level of 2020.
Feng Sihan joined Volkswagen in Germany in 1995, came to China in 2004 as Executive Director of Marketing and Sales of SAIC Volkswagen Co., Ltd. and General Manager of SAIC Volkswagen Sales Co., Ltd., in 2012 as Executive Vice President of FAW-Volkswagen Sales Co., Ltd. and General Manager of FAW-Volkswagen Brand, in 2016 as CEO of Volkswagen Passenger Car Brand China, and in January 2019, ceo of Volkswagen Group (China).
After Feng Sihan left, can Song Yinzhe, who is volkswagen's financial director, change Volkswagen's decline in the Chinese market?
3 Yao Zhenhua
No one could have imagined that Baoneng Group would not even be able to pay the social security of some employees in 2021. At the same time, Baoneng Group was also exposed to a short-term funding gap of more than 20 billion yuan, and there were always interest-bearing liabilities of more than 190 billion yuan, which also made Yao Zhenhua a current "crisis Internet celebrity".
This big guy who earned more than 30 billion yuan by "stock speculation" and successfully landed in the bag has entered a number of industries in recent years. For example, Haoqi bought a Qoros car and burned countless dollars, but to this day it has not built a new car.
In fact, Yao Zhenhua and He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, are alumni of South China Polytechnic, and both are post-70s, and the age gap is not large. Therefore, when Yao Zhenhua also began to build cars, it was inevitable to compare with He Xiaopeng, who sold UC for 30 billion yuan at that time, and Yao Zhenhua was already worth 100 billion.
Today, Xiaopeng Automobile's total annual delivery volume has reached 98,155 vehicles, which is only one step away from "selling 100,000 vehicles", which is in stark contrast to Baoneng Automobile.
After the Spring Festival in 2021, employees of Youbaoneng Group found that their social security payments were suspended. For professionals working in first-tier cities, this is a very serious thing. However, it was not until August, half a year later, that Yao Zhenhua publicly talked about the "difficulties of the stage" at a meeting. Although he said that "the total amount is not large and within the controllable range", the tide of departures has swept up the entire Baoneng. Qoros Automobile alone has shrunk from tens of thousands to thousands of people in just a few months.
The employees who were owed wages did not leave immediately, but joined the team of the company downstairs to ask for money.
A former employee of Youbaoneng Automobile said that saying that Yao Zhenhua did not want to build a car was a misunderstanding of him, but only that his understanding and judgment of the automotive industry was wrong. Yao Zhenhua trusts his judgment very much, and to some extent, he carries a certain survivor bias. He must do it according to his own wishes, believing that if he can't do it, he will do it with a whip. ”
Yao Zhenhua personally led the team and asked the management of Qoros to learn from Qianhai Life, believing that as long as everyone "can oppress themselves, they will certainly be able to do a good job in building cars."
How easy is it to build a car? A car more than 30,000 parts, the management of suppliers is also extremely complex, as long as the design of a slight change, will be a start to the whole body, the cost will also increase a lot. In this way, the final car is different from the original imagination.
It is reported that Yao Zhenhua is not ready to give up the automobile project, Baoneng Automobile currently has no clear plan to sell assets, and it intends to introduce war investment at the moment, and is now talking with some institutions and local governments.
Building a car has never been achieved overnight, many capital giants have failed to build cross-border cars, and Yao Zhenhua, who is halfway out of the house, can he stand up to geometry? This may be the inevitable of its frustration. In the face of hundreds of billions of debts, if the former tide merchant crocodile wants to be reborn in Nirvana, at least the leverage Dafa used before is almost impossible.
4 Dai Lei
Dai Lei, the former CEO and co-founder of Byton, who once threatened to break even out by 2021, joined Evergrande Automobile in April last year and served as executive vice president.
Dyley has nearly 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. In 2002, Dai Lei joined BMW and went from Being Manager of Strategy and Planning in the International Production Department of BMW AG's headquarters in Munich to Senior Vice President of Marketing at BMW Brilliance. During Dai Lei's 11-year tenure at BMW, BMW's sales in China increased by nearly 8 times. In the first half of 2013, Dai Lei joined Infiniti as General Manager of the China Business Unit. In March 2016, Dai Lei, who left Infiniti, threw himself into a new car and co-founded Byton Automobile with former BMW Group Vice President Bi Fukang. In June 2020, after Byton fell into a capital chain crisis, Dai Lei ran away.
For entrepreneurship, Dai Lei once said that when he first came out of a large company, he found that he did not know much about entrepreneurship, and at that time he thought that money would not be a problem, and he only needed to do a good job in the product. After starting a business, I found that the original imaginary entrepreneurship was very different from what I actually did.
At the same time, he believes that when the company achieves a certain scale, it is easy to produce dangers, such as losing the culture of the startup company, the problems of large companies, and it will be difficult to control costs. And the cost control can not rely solely on the financial department, first of all, everyone in the company must have this awareness.
However, it is easier said than done. "Burning out 8.4 billion can't make a mass production car", Byton was once named by CCTV, one called "300 people ate 50 million snacks, a box of business cards thousands, how did Byton burn 8.4 billion?" The report is even more lamentable.
Did not do open source, do not pay attention to throttling, the company naturally can not operate for a long time, helpless, Dai Lei chose to leave. But he always believes that many people in the industry have encountered several times when they are about to "die", persistence is the most important thing, and they must not give up.
But sometimes persistence can make people see hope, but it does not necessarily succeed.
At present, Evergrande Group is deeply involved in a debt crisis. Xu Jiayin said in the self-help plan that the transformation from the real estate industry to the new energy automobile industry will be realized within 10 years. Nevertheless, whether Evergrande can turn over by car in 2022 remains to be further observed.
5 Xu Jiayin
If you want to ask who is the most frustrated Autobot in 2021, Xu Jiayin definitely has a place.
In the first half of 2021, Evergrande Automobile is still a dark horse for rapid development. In February, the winter calibration test of Hengchi Automobile was successfully completed at the China Automobile Research Institute Yakeshi Test Base, and in April, 9 models of Evergrande were unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show, and the well-known host Sabine was invited to stand for it. At this time, Evergrande Automobile, which has not yet produced a car in mass production, has made the most of the limelight.
The reason why Evergrande Automobile can be born in just 2 years and has been recognized by many people in the industry is because of the strong capital behind it, but in the second half of 2021, with the explosion of Evergrande, Xu Jiayin changed from the richest auto person to the most money-deficient auto person in a short period of time.
Evergrande Automobile, which has lost its aura of "local tycoon", is almost uncompetitive. Evergrande Automobile's stock price also fell from about 70 yuan / share in April this year to 3 yuan / share, a drop of up to 96%. Such a collapse is rare in the automotive sector.
On October 11, Evergrande Automobile Strategic Partner Conference was held at Tianjin production base. Evergrande Automobile, which has encountered unprecedented difficulties, strives to convey confidence to the outside world: in three months, Hengchi of Tianjin factory rolled off the production line for the first time.
Obviously, Evergrande Automobile has not given up on itself. On December 30, Evergrande Automobile's first mass-produced model, Hengchi 5, successfully rolled off the production line, which also means that Xujiayin's car has moved from the PPT stage to the actual combat stage.
But for the current automotive market, mass production is the beginning of the challenge. The core competitiveness of technology, capital, channels, sales, operation, after-sales service, etc., can only be truly reflected after going to the market. After Hengchi 5 went offline, Xu Jiayin was far from the time when he could breathe a sigh of relief.