Under the wind, new players on the car-making track are always emerging, and you can never think of who will be next.
At the end of last year, Li Yinan, the founder of Xiaoniu Electric, announced his official entry into car manufacturing, and the new brand Ziyoujia (English name NIUTRON) was also released.
Recently, the official figure of the first model of the self-tourer "self-touring NV" was exposed, and it is reported that it is planned to be delivered in September this year, from the official announcement to the delivery in less than 10 months, why can the self-tourer be so fast?
In fact, Li Yinan has begun to prepare his own car-making project three years ago, it is reported that Since Youjia currently has nearly 1,000 core R & D personnel, the brand headquarters is located in Beijing, the R & D center is located in Shanghai, and has a modern intelligent manufacturing base in Changzhou, the overall design capacity of 180,000 units / year, will be put into use in March this year.
That is to say, although the official announcement is relatively late, the free family has already begun to form a team, design products and build factories, and it belongs to the silent accumulation of players. And Free home has completed a $500 million Series A round of financing, including IDG Capital.
Judging from Li Yinan's strong resume, it is not too difficult for a free family to get financing.
At the age of 15, he was admitted to the junior class of Huazhong University of Science and Technology at the time, became the vice president of Huawei at the age of 27, was once recognized as the "Prince of Huawei" by the outside world, and also served as the chief technology officer of Baidu, the partner of GSR Ventures and other positions, Li Yinan's workplace experience is quite legendary.
Since then, the entrepreneurial project Xiaoniu Electric has also been successfully listed in the United States, becoming the third two-wheeled electric vehicle listed company after Yadi and Xinri. At the press conference of Maverick Electric, Li Yinan said that this will be his last venture, but obviously, under the wind of car building, Li Yinan wants to make another achievement.
People familiar with the new energy vehicle industry may feel that "free home" is more familiar, in the new force car companies, ideal car has also adopted the "XX home" naming style.
In 2015, after Li wanted to leave the auto home, he founded "Car and Home" and began to build a car, and in 2019, it was officially renamed Ideal Car, which was the second year that Li Yinan began to prepare for the car project.
It is reported that the friendship of "Two Li" can be traced back to the Maverick Electric Project, when Hu Yilin, the original founder of Maverick Electric, met Li Xiang when looking for investors, and then met other investors, including Li Yinan, through Li Xiang's introduction.
How the two personal relationship is unknown, but Li Yinan and Li Xiang do have some similarities, Li wants to be extremely strict with products, and is even called "product tyrant" in the industry, Li Yinan has the same dedication to technology, Baidu CEO Li Yanhong said that there are no more than 3 people in the world who can be qualified as Baidu's chief technology officer, and Li Yinan is one of them.
Judging from the latest product information and pictures exposed by The Free Home, "ErLi" may become the most direct antagonist in the new energy battlefield.
Ideal Car's only model on sale, Ideal ONE, uses range extender drive mode, positioning medium and large SUVs, with a price of about 300,000 yuan, and the Free Home NV will also be equipped with a range extender power system, which is also positioned as a medium and large SUV. And from the body size and overall contour, the Free home NV and the ideal ONE are relatively close.
Although Li Yinan has publicly responded that "it will not target a certain model of the existing brand in the market", it can be said that the two will usher in a head-to-head confrontation.
The difference is that when the ideal ONE was born, the competition in the new energy vehicle market was far less fierce than it is now, and the range extender + SUV also helped the ideal to step out of the road of differentiation, and the free family not only had to face the ideal, but also had the strength of players such as Weilai Xiaopeng and Xiaomi Jidu.
The freedmen who rushed to a late set wanted to break through, but it could not be said that it was very difficult, but only that it was not simple.
Produced by ZAKER News
Text / Bao Xingwa
Editor / Zeng Xiantian