Author: Quan Zhou
I've always been interested in the grudges between founders. Silicon Valley also loves this kind of revenge story, and Lucid Motors, founded by former Tesla employees who disagree with Musk's philosophy, is known as the avenger car in Silicon Valley.
Huawei, which entered the automotive industry last year, is definitely the hottest existence, first announced cooperation with baic, changan, and guangzhou automobile three traditional car companies, and took the lead in launching the alpha S Huawei HI version with BAIC Jihu, and the road test video of Huawei's driving automation system that blew up the network last April was demonstrated by BAIC Jihu Alpha S.
The Huawei Smart SF5, which is cooperated by Jinkang Cyris and Huawei, has also entered Huawei's consumer business channels. And according to some sources, because the quality control of Cyrus products cannot meet Huawei's requirements, Huawei's personnel have also been stationed in Cyrus's factory. The ten-digit sales volume of Xilisi in July last year was caused by Huawei's transformation of the Supply Chain supply chain and the shutdown of the production line for a month.
Although Huawei has always claimed that it does not build cars, only as a supplier, from the perspective of cooperation with Jinkang Cyrus, Huawei has participated in all the processes of car manufacturing in addition to not having its own vehicle factory.
On December 15 last year (in fact, half a month ago), Li Yinan, the founder of Maverick Electric Vehicle, officially announced the construction of cars and released the NIUTRON brand, Chinese "self-traveler".
Li Yinan, who was once Huawei's executive vice president, was regarded by Huawei internally as Ren Zhengfei's successor, called "Huawei Prince", and now known as "Huawei Princess" Meng Wanzhou, who was still doing the most basic work at that time. Even Ren Zhengfei once said in a half-joking tone that perhaps Li Yinan was his successor.
However, the relationship between Li Yinan and Huawei may be more appropriately described as a "grudge", so we prefer to see Li Yinan and Huawei competing in the same field again as a "revenge of the prince".
Li Yinan's feud with Huawei
In recent years, Huawei has launched a recruitment plan for top talents called the "Genius Teenager Program", and the highest annual salary this year has even been given to 2.01 million, but Huawei's earliest talented teenager is by no means Li Yinan.
At the age of 15, Li Yinan was admitted to the junior class of the former Huazhong University of Science and Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology), and entered the Huawei internship when he was in the second year of graduate school at the age of 22.
In 1993, the 23-year-old Li Yinan officially joined Huawei after getting a master's degree, and then opened a promotion path that can be called rocket speed: he was promoted to engineer two days after joining; he became the chief engineer half a month later; he was promoted to deputy general manager of the research department half a year later; he became the chief engineer two years later; and four years later, the 27-year-old Li Yinan became Huawei's executive vice president.
However, Li Yinan was not satisfied with his achievements at Huawei, and left Huawei in 2004 in the form of "internal entrepreneurship" to create a harbor network.
Harbor Network fully copied Huawei's product line and technology, the two companies directly competed, the sword was raging, Huawei even set up a "Hong Kong Office", as long as the harbor participated in the project, Huawei will win at all costs. In the end, the performance of the harbor network plummeted, the listing was fruitless, and the sale of Siemens was also sniped by Huawei. In 2006, Harbor Network had no choice but to sell huawei, and Li Yinan returned to Huawei.
But people who have betrayed once naturally can not be reused, in 2008 Li Yinan left Huawei to join Baidu as a CTO (chief technology officer), after which Li Yinan also served as the CEO of China Mobile's 12580. It was not until 2015, when the Maverick Electric Vehicle was founded, that Li Yinan was on the right track.
How Li Yinan views Huawei now, we don't know, but the outside world believes that the relationship between the two is not too good. Even when Li Yinan was detained for insider trading in 2015, some people speculated that It was reported by Huawei, of course, we think it is unlikely.
Neutron is a self-traveler
Although the Self-Traveling Brand was only recently announced, Li Yinan's car-making plan began three years ago. Niu Innovation Energy Technology Co., Ltd. behind Youjia has completed a round of $500 million financing and currently has nearly 1,000 employees.
It should be noted that although the English name "NIUTRON" of The Self-Tourer is taken from the combination of "NIU" and "NEUTRON" (neutron) of Maverick Electric, Niu Innovative Energy and Niu Electric are two independent companies, and there is no connection between the two.
However, NIUTRON seems to have collided with Audi's e-tron electric car.
On the technical route, the self-traveler chooses to walk on two legs, and there are two routes of extended range and pure electricity, which is somewhat similar to Lantu Automobile.
The first high-end model NV from Youjia is a five-seat medium and large SUV with two powertrains, range extension and pure electricity. Looking at the two keywords of medium and large SUVs and extended range, it is difficult not to associate NV with the ideal ONE. However, Ziyoujia said that NV adopts the design concept of Urban Exploring, which will combine urban and off-road styles.
As for the time to market, Since Youjia NV has completed a round of winter testing and summer testing, and is currently undergoing a second round of winter testing, it is expected to accept bookings in the first half of this year and start delivery in the second half of the year.
This listing time is not a big problem, since Youjia has been stationed in the Changzhou factory of Mahayana Automobile, and will complete the acquisition of the factory this year. The plant has an annual production capacity of 180,000 units.
Interestingly, on the 23rd of last month, Jinkang Cyris released the first model of its high-end brand AITO, the M5. This model is different from the previous Huawei Smart SF5, Huawei is deeply involved in the development of the Q&E M5, and even the conference is hosted by Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's intelligent car solution BU.
Although the positioning and price of the Self-Touring NV and the Q&I M5 are not at the same level, in the automotive market in the past two years, I will definitely compare the two together.