Economic Observation Network reporter Liu Xiaolin Pu Zhenyu "More than 250,000 new energy vehicle market has been very competitive, in addition to the new car brand, all the traditional OEMs push the car is also in this field, so we feel that now there is a greater opportunity at the entry level." A few days ago, another new electric vehicle brand - "electric house" announced that the first car has been started delivery, electric house managing director Hu Jun said in an interview with the Economic Observer Network reporter, high-end electric vehicles are already a piece of the Red Sea, and his idea is to use "cost performance" and higher operational efficiency to share the rich dividends of the entry-level electric vehicle market.
The "Electric House" brand was officially released by Chongqing Xinte Automobile in August 2021, and the delivery was its first pure electric model product YOUNG Guangxiaoxin.
Although "electric house" as a car brand is relatively unfamiliar to domestic consumers, the company that launched the brand can also be called a veteran in the field of new energy vehicles in China. In September 2017, a new car manufacturer called Xinte Automobile was established in Gui'an New District, Guizhou Province, and with the support of the industry fund of Gui'an New District, Xinte completed the first batch of off-line and shipment of the first model DEV 1 in 2018.
However, from 2019 onwards, due to the unsustainability of the development model, Xinte Automobile fell into a state of shutdown and unsustainable operation. In September 2020, after the introduction of capital such as Chongqing Changshou High-tech Zone and CDH Investment, and the withdrawal of Gui'an New Area, Xinte Automobile completed the restructuring. The place of registration was transferred from Guizhou to Chongqing, and it was renamed "Chongqing Xinte Longevity New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd." (referred to as Chongqing Xinte Automobile). Hu Jun became managing director.
Hu Jun has 25 years of experience in the industry, and after stepping down as executive vice president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover sales and service agency in 2018, Hu Jun chose a new car company as a new career track.
In January 2021, Chongqing Xinte Automobile announced a strategic cooperation with Sinotruk's heavy duty truck Chongqing Automobile, which will OEM for its new products; in August 2021, Chongqing Xinte Automobile officially released the electric house brand and a new corporate strategy, and announced the completion of a new round of financing (A round of financing) and the introduction of Shanghai Feimu Technology Co., Ltd., with a financing scale of 100 million yuan.
Qixinbao information shows that in July 2021, Chongqing Xiaodian Celestial New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xiaodian Celestial) was established with a registered capital of 20 million, Hu Jun is a legal person and the largest shareholder, holding 35.52% of the shares, and the other shareholders are Chongqing Xinte investors. The small electric celestial body has the brand of "electric house". This means that the electric house has become a new car-making entrepreneurial project that Hu Jun personally invested in.
In the official introduction, "small electric celestial bodies with cost-effective pure electric cars as the starting point to cut into the market, the future product planning will be from A0 level to A00 level and A class, from passenger cars to commercial fields, always focus on high cost performance in an innovative mode." ”
"Cost-effective" – this is the biggest advantage that electric houses constantly emphasize. This core competitiveness will be built on the DOCK model, the lightweight resource integration operating model it launched.
In August 2021, Hu Jun first publicized the DOCK model to the outside world, which is different from the high-investment methods of most brands to build their own factories, self-developed technologies, and build their own stores.
"China's new energy industry is very mature, and the entire industrial chain has a lot of resources from the research and development system, production capacity to the supply chain system to the sales and after-sales service system," Hu Jun said. The electric house will focus on the construction of four ports of R&D, manufacturing, marketing and user in parallel with independent and joint research and development, including the integration of independent product control and oem, the cooperation of parts supply chain, and the joint layout of sales and service outlets by high-quality dealer partners, and strive to create a DOCK model.
Liu Hongwei, chief marketing officer of the electric house, explained the model that the DOCK model can achieve cost reduction in four aspects: research and development, production, marketing and operation. Among them, at the R & D level, joint mature and excellent technology companies to jointly develop technology; at the production level, if you do not choose to build your own factory, you will save at least 2 billion yuan of capital burden; on the channel, do not do excessive decoration investment, reduce the cost of dealer store investment; operationally, adopt the DTC user operation model, rather than in accordance with the traditional car companies large-scale advertising method. As the designer of the marketing structure of the electric house, Liu Hongwei was one of the heads of Chery Sales Company and served as the vice president of the huge group.
The fast pace of electric houses also seems to be an argument for the model's high operational efficiency. Starting from the restructuring in August 2020, the electric house took a year to launch the brand and achieve the production and delivery of the first product in 16 months. Even with Lantu and Zhiji, which are backed by large traditional car companies, it takes more than 1 year to deliver the first model. Hu Jun revealed that the electric house will quickly launch three models in 2022.
In addition to mass production delivery faster than most electric vehicle brands, the channel laying speed of electric houses is also relatively fast. According to reports, within 4 months since the birth of the brand, the electric house has built sales and service outlets covering 95 cities, and completed the foundation of the DTC (direct user) digital direct sales system.
On this basis, the electric house hopes to significantly reduce the cost through the DOCK model to achieve the goal of breaking even by 2022.
It should be pointed out that although the DOCK model of the electric house is a lightweight operating model, this lightweight is only relative. As an electric vehicle brand, rigid R&D spending is still essential.
Hu Jun revealed that the total number of electric house teams is more than 100 people, R & D and marketing account for the majority, other departments account for the comparison In addition to platform development, the core of the R & D personnel of the electric house is concentrated in three modules, one is the electronic and electrical architecture, the second is battery life, DMC, etc., and the third is intelligent cockpit and human-computer interaction.
Moreover, all planning will be based on the acceptance of the product. "With a quantitative foundation, we can stand firm, and now it is the so-called first step", Hu Jun said, adding that the second and third cars around other scenes are being built synchronously. In the next two years or so, the product layout for these three core usage scenarios will be completed.
In terms of product planning, the electric house believes that the demand for entry-level pure electric models below 100,000 is not saturated, and it is also the market entry point of the electric house. Its first model, "YOUNG Guangxiaoxin", is positioned as a five-door, four-seat pure electric scooter, with a standard endurance of 402 kilometers, and the price range is 59,800-65,800 yuan.
According to the plan, the electric house will launch three pure electric products in 2022, covering electric vehicles from A00 to A0, with the goal of achieving a single monthly sales of more than 10,000 and achieving a positive gross profit for bicycles, including a more intelligent A0-class model that will seize the C-end market with cost performance, and a more economical A00-class model to develop the shared car market.
Under the current situation of a large number of idle automobile production capacity and the transformation of traditional sales networks in China, it is considered realistic to start a business by taking the "asset-light operation" at the production and sales end as the starting point for entrepreneurship. However, for the market potential of electric cars, although CAR companies such as SAIC-GM-Wuling and Chery have made sufficient demonstrations, it is more due to the cumulative demand for points, and it is not easy to achieve sales scale and profitability in this segment.
However, as a start-up car company that mainly relies on financing to support development, in order to ensure sufficient R&D expenditure in the early stage, the electric house must quickly achieve the accumulation of sales on the market side.
"Financing has been ongoing, and the focus at the current stage is on the first car on the market, quality, control of craftsmanship and initial brand building." Hu Jun said.
In order to support the sales of products, the electric house brand plans to continue to expand the coverage of the sales network in 2022, aiming to achieve coverage in 250 cities across the country and establish 500 stores by the end of the year. Hu Jun expects that by the end of 2022, the monthly delivery volume of YOUNG Guangxiaoxin will exceed 10,000 vehicles.