In the past two years, it is no longer news that capital outside the automotive industry has entered the new energy automobile industry. In addition to the first batch of "forerunners" such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Nezha, as well as "latecomers" such as Zero Run, Extreme Krypton, and Co-creation, last year, there were Ziyoujia, Zhixing Box, Light Orange Era, Millet, AITO, etc. that became "new forces for new car manufacturing".
Just at the booth of the 2022 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Japanese electronics giant Sony unveiled a new concept SUV called VISION-S 02. At the press conference, Sony's chairman, president and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida officially announced that sony group will set up a new division - Sony Mobility, a new company focusing on electric vehicles, planned to be established in the spring of 2022.
However, this is not the end, just stepped into the New Year, on the evening of January 5, the car trading and service platform Group Car also announced the next car. However, just yesterday, the ideal car CE0 and tuanche CEO Wen Wei had a mutual hatred, Li wanted to say that the group car's statement about car manufacturing refreshed the bottom line of the entrepreneur, and Wen Wei also replied: no one should think of himself as a prophet, nor should he become the group of people he hates the most.
This "big drama" of the new car-making forces since the beginning of the year has not only become a topic of conversation after people's tea and dinner, but also made people focus on the "car-making industry" of the new car-making forces again.
Lee wanted to be angry:
X X refreshes the bottom line for entrepreneurs
The trigger that sparked Li Xiang's anger was a media interview with the CEO of Tuanche about the idea of building a car. On January 14, Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, gave a small media interview at the company's Headquarters in Beijing to answer basic questions such as why Tuanche should build cars, how to build cars and what cars.
Previously, on January 5, the auto trading and service platform Tuanche.com announced that the strategic plan for the formal establishment of a new electric vehicle business line includes design, research and development and manufacturing teams, and expands its business to electric vehicle manufacturing. That is to say, the group car that previously managed the car sales business planned to build its own car.
According to public information, Tuanche.com is an automobile e-commerce platform, and its main business is also to lay out a new retail strategy around the automobile trading scene, including the nationwide development of large-scale Huimin Tuanche Festival activities, automobile sales, new energy vehicle sales, etc. On November 20, 2018, Tuanche was listed on the NASDAQ, becoming the first new retail stock of automobiles listed in the United States in China.
Back to the main topic, Wen Wei introduced in this media interview that the reason why the group car decided to build a car, in addition to the commonality of industry opportunities, the biggest driving force came from a foreign team of more than 100 people. This team can undertake product planning, modeling design, engineering development, testing, chassis, three electrics, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, systematic integration program, production support, supplier management of almost all car manufacturing processes, with more than 20 years of car manufacturing experience, in the technology, sample cars have precipitation.
"This team can make cars with more than 20 million yuan, and can also do cars with less than 50,000 yuan, including commercial vehicles and logistics vehicles."
"The international manufacturers of the fuel vehicle era of the car manufacturing cycle are 48 months, the domestic manufacturers have done 36 months, and our current team can do 18-24 months."
"The technical route prefers pure electricity, and the choice is relatively large. This team has done solar energy, hydrogen energy. ”
"It doesn't matter if our first car fails, we can make another one in 3 months."
In Wen Wei's description, this team is almost omnipotent, and is with semi-finished models to come, the first car will be selected from these semi-finished models, "the first car using mature programs, mature technology, mature suppliers, the product itself quality, quality control is completely mature and controllable", priced at 100,000 yuan - 200,000 yuan range, 2022 golden nine silver ten can be pre-sold. After the model may be newly developed, the next 3 years to produce 2 cars, the face of the crowd is likely to be different.
Simply put, this team is responsible for building cars, and group cars are responsible for selling cars, and the reason why the two sides can come together is also that "they have a reverence for selling cars, and we have a reverence for car building."
In the eyes of the outside world, it is not difficult to build a car that is very professional, requires a lot of investment, and requires a lot of painstaking efforts, because the regiment car has mastered "nuclear weapons", "most of the new car-making forces are racking their brains in order to find a weapon to take advantage of, and we are racking our brains in the arsenal." ”
It is also for this statement of tuanche that Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang angrily said on social media: "I really can't help but talk a lot: those entrepreneurs who expect to find a super savior, those entrepreneurs who expect to be powerless by opening the second vein of Ren Dou, and finally find liars, or most likely they are also liars." There are still people who can openly speak out of this view without shame, which really refreshes the bottom line of entrepreneurs. The essence of entrepreneurship is: rhythmic and patient long-term growth. ”
Group car back to the car:
Pull out a public case of Volkswagen and Ideal
For Li Xiang's anger, Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, also responded: "I didn't expect that the first shot of the Long March came from Mr. Li Xiang. Apart from rhythm and patience, have you forgotten your vision and judgment? Wasn't Feng Sihan's repulsion that he had seen his eyes spray too early? Therefore, no one should think of themselves as prophets, nor should they be the ones they hate the most. ”
In a word, a public case between former Volkswagen (China) CEO Feng Sihan and Li Xiang was pulled out.
On September 8, 2020, then-Volkswagen (China) CEO Feng Sihan said at a media briefing that the range-extended electric vehicle is an outdated technology, and it is likely that it is not as environmentally friendly as imagined, because relying on the ignition of non-renewable resources to generate electricity for the car's powertrain is a "trough cake solution".
Since Ideal Auto is a loyal warrior of range-extending electric vehicle technology, this statement subsequently provoked a response from Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto: "I very much want to invite the technical professional news media in the three major regions of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen to test the seven-seat version of the Audi Q7 PHEV series that is most similar to the idealized ONE and Volkswagen's brand, carry out green and environmental protection comparative testing, and speak with data." ”
Wen Wei's reply this time was a bit of a reminder that Li wanted not to take the enemy lightly, let alone learn from Feng Sihan to despise his competitors.
However, Li Xiang did not dwell on Wen Wei's response, but after "shelling" the group car to build a car, he released a long article "The Importance of Rhythm Control for Entrepreneurship" based on his entrepreneurial experience.
Li xiang said that entrepreneurship is divided into 0-1, 1-10, 10-100 a total of three stages, corresponding to the verification period, growth period and maturity period, the three stages of the ability and resource requirements are completely different, ability, resources and stage mismatch, often the root cause of enterprise failure, rhythm control is the most core of the entrepreneur and the number one ability requirements.
"During the 0-1 verification period, companies have no real competitors, mainly competing with their own growth rate, because the leader will not put you in the field of vision at all."
"During the verification period, the most important thing is to give full play to their own strengths, such as Tesla's early three-electric system, Weilai's user service, Xiaopeng's intelligent driving, and ideal and accurate product capabilities for home users."
Li xiang said that the "three fools of car building" (that is, Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal) completed the verification period from 0-1 in 2021, and everyone ate about 3% of the market share in their own market segments, such as the ideal car ate 3% in the 250,000-500,000 passenger cars, and also became the first place in the sales volume of medium and large SUVs with the most distinctive characteristics of home users, verifying the product strength for this user group.
Li Xiang also pointed out that in the past six or seven years in China, there have been many entrepreneurs in smart electric vehicles, more than 300 left less than 10, and the three Internet laymen have become the sales in front of the new forces, rather than those executive entrepreneurs in the automotive industry, the core reason is that Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, and Li Want as serial entrepreneurs, have a control and mental strength for rhythm.
At the same time, he also said that from 0-1 is the most difficult stage, according to statistics, more than 96% of start-up companies will end from the 0-1 stage, many industry leaders in the industry transformation and technological transformation of the reason for not success, but also because of the unwillingness to do from the 0-1 stage, which is the root cause of the failure of the transformation of large enterprises, but also the opportunities for latecomers and new forces.
The implication is to remind the group car, do not think of building a car so simple, and do not think that you have shortcuts to go, otherwise you may not even have the opportunity to become 1.
Now enter the game to build electric vehicles
Is it really that easy?
Obviously, the focus of the mutual hatred between Li Xiang and Wen Wei is whether there is still a chance to build electric vehicles now, and if there is a chance, is the road to success difficult?
As an outsider, what we can see is that the proportion of new energy vehicles in the automotive industry is increasing rapidly. According to the Statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China reached 3.521 million units in 2021, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year. BYD, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Geely and many other independent brands have a year-on-year increase of more than 150% in the new energy market. The annual sales of the head enterprises of the new car-making forces such as Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile also exceed 90,000 vehicles, among which Ideal Automobile has completed sales of 90,491 units last year with its only model on sale, Ideal ONE.
A series of figures show that in 2021, the new forces of car manufacturing collectively ushered in a highlight moment, with the continuous improvement of new energy vehicle sales and market penetration, new energy vehicles are gradually forming a replacement effect on the fuel vehicle market.
The prospect visible to the naked eye is the reason why Xiaomi, Sony, Tuanche and so on continue to pour into the electric vehicle industry. However, in the face of the counterattack of traditional car companies, the days of new car-making forces are not so easy. Up to now, no car company in the new car manufacturing force has been able to sell more than 100,000 vehicles. At the same time, the subsidy standard for new energy vehicles in 2022 will decline by 30% compared with 2021. With the pressure of rising car prices, coupled with the pressure of chip shortages and rising raw material prices, the competitive environment for new car-making forces in 2022 is not ideal.
Not only that, from the perspective of the new car-making forces themselves, it is still the key to achieving their own hematopoietic profitability. Wei Xiaoli's third quarter financial report last year showed that the gross profit margin increased significantly compared with the previous period, but there was still a loss.
Therefore, for the "new car-making new forces" such as tuanche, the pressure to survive may be greater, and it will definitely not be as simple as Wen Wei said, "It doesn't matter if the first car fails, it can be done again in 3 months", the probability is just a self-emboldened posture.
After all, Jia Yueting's Faraday future is still hanging in the balance.