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In 2014, when LeTV was at its peak, Jia Yueting vowed to build a super car, catch up with Tesla, and establish an ecological chain.
Six years later, Jia Yueting officially went bankrupt. The FF electric vehicle project he had counted on burned nearly 22 billion yuan, and only "001" was off the production line.
Similar to LeEco Motors, Byton, which burned out 8.4 billion yuan and did not build a single car, is now on the verge of bankruptcy.
Interestingly, after Evergrande, which built cross-border cars, absorbed coO Gao Depth of Field from LeTV Super Cars, and Dai Lei, the founder of Byton Automobile, it seems that it has also fallen into the point of burning money but not being able to build cars.
In order to get rid of such a dilemma, Liu Yongzhuo, president of Evergrande Automobile, said on October 11, 2021, that it has launched a three-month battle to ensure that Hengchi's first car rolls off the production line at the Tianjin plant early next year. At that time, the sound of singing and declining was incessant.
But this time Evergrande seems to have made a huge determination. On January 12, 2022, Evergrande Automobile officially announced that Hengchi Automobile ushered in a major milestone, and the first car of Hengchi 5 was officially rolled off the production line at the Tianjin plant. Judging from the current situation, Evergrande Automobile has indeed produced real results in just three months.
It's just that for the entire Evergrande Automobile, the final assembly line of the Tianjin factory and the first car of Hengchi off the line may only be a glimmer of light on the road of Evergrande's "absurd" car construction, and it is still very difficult to break through.
01 "Alliance of Losers"
In August 2019, the quarter-finals of the AFC Champions League started fiercely, Xu Jiayin's Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao team hosted the defending champion Kashima Antlers, and the always high-profile Boss Xu directly printed the word "Hengchi" on the player's jersey this time, which was to push Evergrande Automobile into the spotlight.
In the second leg, Evergrande drew 1-1 away to Kashima Antlers and successfully advanced to the AFC Champions League Quarterfinals. This life and death battle, "Hengchi" Yangwei AFC Champions League.
Xu Jiayin may want to take advantage of Evergrande's winning east wind to show the world his unswerving determination to build cars with a seamless and intensive inspection trip.
In September 2019, he led a team of executives to visit partners in the European automotive supply chain and hosted more than 60 supplier CEOs and executives in Frankfurt.
At the dinner, Stefan Pischinger, CEO of FEV Group (German Engine Technology Co., Ltd.), said, "Evergrande has gathered everyone in a historic way, which is an unprecedented feat, and it is all going to achieve Evergrande's car dream!" ”
Indeed, finding three engineering design firms to design 14 models at the same time, combined with unprecedented factory planning, to try to quickly launch the number of models that competitors will take nearly a decade to achieve through three partners, is definitely a feat.
A cross-border car-making enterprise, starting from 0 to build a car will inevitably take some detours, and Evergrande is directly from 0 to 14, which also means that the detours taken by a car, Evergrande may be magnified by 14 times.
In fact, under the leadership of a large number of Evergrande management personnel, there have been many problems in Evergrande's car-making road.
According to a former Evergrande automobile employee, most of Evergrande's contracts are signed at a speed far beyond their peers, almost directly by the leader, and the technical staff goes through the formalities. A technical contract of three or four hundred pages, the leader asked him to read it in three days. "If there is a problem, quickly ask it, sign it quickly if there is no problem, and start working after the talks."
If the contract is negotiated sloppily, the assessment of the partner's ability is prone to error. The above-mentioned person said that Evergrande entrusted Bosch's subsidiary BEG to develop the electronic and electrical architecture, and there were many problems in the delivery, and it took 1 month to modify, and the product that BEG was responsible for was equivalent to the neural network of the car, which was at the forefront of research and development. Delays in beg delivery will result in a delay in the development cycle of the entire project.
The project postponement was followed by various problems such as overruns in various expenses, inability to mass production, and investor distrust, and successive outbreaks, Evergrande Automobile CEO Peng Jianjun and Evergrande Vehicle Research Institute President Huang Xiangdong also left their posts.
However, it is interesting that after Changing several rounds of auto executive teams, Evergrande still can't see a few executives who understand cars. It is reported that at present, among the executives above the level of vice president of Evergrande Automobile, in addition to the vice president Gao Jingshen, who is in charge of the manufacturing system, is from FF, the rest are from the various business lines of Evergrande Group, and Dai Lei was introduced as executive vice president in April 2021.
Before Entering Evergrande, Gao was the COO of LeTV Super Auto, but he did not bring vitality to LeTV Auto for many years. Before entering LeTV, Gao Jingshen was the general manager of GAC Gio, but during his tenure, GAC Gio's performance also declined year by year, with an average monthly sales of only 1,000 vehicles.
Looking at Dai Lei, during bmw brilliance's tenure, BMW's sales in China increased by nearly 8 times, and the dealer network increased from 70 to 350, but at that time, it was in the golden age of China's auto market growth, and there were some factors that created heroes.
From the perspective of recent years, Dai Lei's impression on the outside world is still too good at burning money. In particular, the story of spending 8.4 billion yuan during the Byton period but failing to get the mass production car off the production line has become a widely circulated "black history" in the industry. In addition, Dai Lei's advantage lies in marketing and selling goods, and at present, Evergrande has not been able to take out the goods, so Evergrande Automobile wants to rely on Dai Lei to fight a "turnaround battle", and it must first replenish the goods.
However, although Evergrande Automobile's car-making production line has run through, in addition to time, it needs funds to mass production, and funds are currently the most headache problem for the whole Evergrande.
02 How to solve the problem of shyness in the pocket?
At the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, the new president Liu Yongzhuo said that as of the first quarter, Evergrande had invested 47.4 billion yuan in the field of new energy vehicles. Among them, 24.9 billion yuan was invested in the fields of vehicle design and development, power batteries, automatic driving and intelligent networking.
Perhaps for real estate developers, money is the most worthless thing, so Evergrande's investment in car manufacturing is particularly arrogant, fully adhering to Xu Jiayin's 15-character motto at that time, "buy, buy, buy, close, circle, big, good."
In the early stage of car manufacturing, Evergrande almost got everything needed to build a new energy vehicle through "buying, buying and buying". In order to obtain the production qualification of electric passenger cars, 930 million US dollars took 51% of the equity of Guoneng Automobile NEVS; later spent 1.059 billion US dollars to acquire 58.07% of the shares of Shanghai Kanai New Energy to lay out the power battery; 150 million euros to invest in the Swedish supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg 65% of the equity to obtain the vehicle research and development and manufacturing capacity. And for those technologies that can't be bought with money, a cooperative approach is adopted.
However, Evergrande Automobile burns the most money, or the set of real estate crazy "enclosure" model - buying land and building factories in the country. Relevant data show that it has spent nearly half of its investment on buying land to build factories and supporting production lines.
At that time, Xu Jiayin may not think that car manufacturing is a bottomless pit, and in 3 years, Evergrande exchanged nearly 50 billion yuan of investment, but it was a continuous expansion of losses.
According to the data, from 2018 to the first half of 2021, Evergrande Automobile's annual losses were 1.428 billion yuan, 4.426 billion yuan, 7.74 billion yuan and 4.8 billion yuan, respectively.
Of course, the most difficult problem facing Evergrande Automobile is the huge debt of the entire Evergrande Group.
On August 10, 2021, China Evergrande issued an announcement that it "intends to sell some of Evergrande's assets, including but not limited to new energy vehicles and some interests of Evergrande Property Group".
Obviously, evergrande group's own debt problems can no longer give Evergrande Automobile economic help, and even Evergrande Automobile needs to be ready for blood transfusion for Evergrande Group at any time.
In addition, according to the previous estimate of Pan Darong, CFO of Evergrande Automobile, Evergrande Group is expected to invest 9 billion yuan in 2021. After 2022, with the mass production and sales of automobiles, the Group will no longer invest in them. That is to say, after 2022, Evergrande Automobile will have to bear its own profits and losses.
It is not difficult to explain why Evergrande Automobile has frequently sold some of the technology industries it has previously bought, as well as the financing and placement in the capital market.
It can be found that evergrande automobile's huge loss failed to transfuse blood to evergrande group with trillions of debts, but Evergrande group directly affected the mass production progress of evergrande automobile, and the two are constantly viciously circulating, restricting each other's development.
Some insiders said that "it can save Evergrande Automobile and Evergrande Group's current view, only mass production." The story of Musk once relying on Tesla to become the world's richest man in one fell swoop is still vivid, and it is not impossible for Evergrande automobile to mass-produce, sell, and counterattack, and there is hope at present, but whether it can be sold after mass production is also a big problem.
03 If you make it, you have to sell it
"At present, we can't see what advantages Hengchi has and what technical characteristics it has. Releasing the car is only the first step, and whether it can be mass-produced is the second step. But the biggest problem is whether anyone will buy it after mass production. An industry insider said.
Hengchi 5 held the first car off the production line ceremony in Tianjin on January 12. People close to Evergrande Automobile said that this means that Hengchi has entered the countdown to mass production.
However, there is also news that Hengchi 5 is still in the PT0 (small batch trial production) stage, and now it is only the final assembly of the production line, and it is expected that the official mass production will wait until August this year.
It is worth mentioning that the Downline of Hengchi 5 is not without a trace. In November 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's 350th batch of declaration catalogue publicity, can be found about Hengchi 5 declaration information.
Generally speaking, after the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issues a public announcement, the new car will enter the official announcement, and then within 4-6 months, the new car will start the listing process. However, it is interesting that in the latest 350th batch of "Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Products", the information of the car did not appear, which means that Hengchi 5 did not pass the publicity in the end.
Industry insiders speculate that this may be related to a previous news: in a live video circulating on the Internet in early December 2021, Hengchi 5 after the door was closed, the doorknob could not be automatically retracted, and it must be artificially returned to the front before it could be recovered. Such a low-level error also makes people have to worry about the Hengchi 5, which is about to be mass-produced and listed.
In addition, after the listing of Hengchi, it is naturally indispensable to compete in the market. It is reported that the Hengchi 5LX is positioned as a pure electric A-class SUV, with a body length, width and height of 4725 * 1925 * 1688mm, and a wheelbase of 2780mm.
In terms of power, it is expected to be equipped with an electric motor produced by United Automotive Electronics Co., Ltd., with a maximum power of 150 kW and a comprehensive cruising range of up to 700 km. According to Evergrande Automobile's previous planning, the price range of Hengchi 5 should be below 200,000 yuan.
Judging from the parameters of Hengchi 5LX, it is decent in terms of product competitiveness and does not highlight its advantages, especially in the most competitive automobile market of about 200,000 yuan.
In the new energy vehicle market in this price range, in addition to the domestic light BYD sitting in town, Xiaopeng, Tesla and other mature new forces will also explore the price to about 200,000 yuan, in addition, the second echelon of Weima, Nezha and other veterans of this price point.
Evergrande wants to compete for the market, which is tantamount to taking chestnuts from the fire. In addition, compared with these car companies that have already gained a firm foothold in the industry, Evergrande Automobile is also a little worse in brand building and channel construction.
In September 2018, evergrande became its second largest shareholder as a shareholder of Guanghui Group, China's largest auto dealer group, as it prepared to sell cars in the future. If you put it in the present, you may not need to worry about sales channels, but you did not expect that two years later, Evergrande Group completely withdrew for various reasons. That is to say, at present, Evergrande Automobile needs to establish new sales channels if it wants to sell cars, and whether Evergrande Automobile can support high channel sales costs is still unknown.
In addition, perhaps it is the inherent impression of consumers on evergrande group's wealth and wealth, as well as the early momentum is too large, which in turn leads to higher expectations from the outside world, and the market has put forward higher requirements for it. However, Evergrande Automobile, which has blindly "painted a big pie" in the past three years and has not made actual achievements, has aroused doubts, and brand building is naturally not as good as these new forces that have already produced mass-produced models.
Nowadays, there are many players on the outlet of new energy vehicles, and the gap between Evergrande Automobile and other manufacturers is also very obvious, but in any case, 2022 will become an important node for Evergrande to build cars. Everyone will say beautiful words, loud slogans can also be shouted, the specific color geometry, and the day hengchi 5 opens on the road can be known.