Reporter 丨Dong Tianyi
The car-making track is becoming more and more lively, but the "new car-making forces" have quarreled with the "new car-making forces".
A few days ago, Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Automobile, forwarded a content interviewed by Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, on his personal social platform, and bombarded him for "a high probability of being a liar".
Li wants to think, "Those entrepreneurs who hope to find a super savior, those entrepreneurs who expect to be able to open the second vein of Ren Dou, and finally find a liar, or most likely they are liars." There are still people who can openly speak out of this view, which really refreshes the bottom line of entrepreneurs. ”
Image source: Sina Weibo
Subsequently, Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, responded to Li Xiang's question through his personal Weibo: "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 (CEO of Volkswagen China) being repulsed too early to see his eyes sprayed? Therefore, no one should think of themselves as prophets, nor should they be the ones they hate the most. ”
On January 18, Wen Wei once again called out to Li Xiang through his personal Weibo and said: "These two days have inexplicably appeared on the hot search, thank you @ Mr. Li Xiang for your attention and questioning." The only constant in the world is the change itself, and the reason why the new forces are new is the accumulation of predecessors and the fearlessness of future generations. Fearlessness is not blindness, and building a car is not a drama. Therefore, I cordially invite Mr. Li Xiang to take the time to attend our first product launch. ”
And this air battle stems from the latest strategy of the regimental car. A week ago, tuanche announced that it will enter the bureau of car manufacturing, Wen Wei said that tuanche has found the industry's top team, the external team can undertake almost all the car manufacturing processes including product planning, engineering development, intelligent driving, and can significantly reduce the car manufacturing cycle and mass production costs, far beyond the general recognition of the industry.
At present, intelligent networking has broadened the boundaries of the automobile industry, and "new forces" such as Xiaomi Automobile, Light Orange Era, and Niu Innovative Energy have poured into the track one after another and are optimistic about the outside world, but why is the group car with a high degree of correlation between the main business and the automobile fall into the center of public opinion?
1
The ability of the group car to build a car has been questioned
The outside world's doubts about the feasibility of the group car are mainly focused on its research and development capabilities and capital reserves.
According to Wen Wei's description, the confidence of the group car to build the car mainly comes from an external team of more than 100 people. The team has more than 20 years of experience in car manufacturing, can undertake almost all the car manufacturing processes including product planning, engineering development, intelligent driving; can do more than 20 million yuan of cars, can also do less than 50,000 yuan of cars, including commercial vehicles, logistics vehicles; can reduce the new energy vehicle car manufacturing cycle from 36 months to 18 to 24 months; the mass production cost of a car to about 50 million US dollars.
The above-mentioned "omnipotent" car-making team is "most likely a liar" in Li Xiang's view. Li wanted to say: "Those entrepreneurs who expect to find a super savior, those entrepreneurs who expect to be able to open the second vein of Ren Dou, and finally find liars, or most likely they are liars." ”
In fact, in the era of software-defined vehicles, the strengths and weaknesses of R&D capabilities often become a watershed between enterprises. In this context, the "foreign R&D team of more than 100 people" of tuanche may be slightly thin. According to public information, as of June 30, 2021, ideal automobile, one of the "new car-making forces", has a total of 6596 employees, including 2224 R&D personnel and 1104 production employees; Xiaopeng Automobile has a total of 7923 employees, including 3091 R&D personnel and 988 production personnel; even if the newly announced Niu Innovation Energy has nearly 1000 people, its core R&D team is also close to 1000 people, and all of them come from mainstream first-line automobile companies at home and abroad, with an average working experience of more than 10 years.
On the other hand, it is at the level of capital reserves. Previously, Li Bin, chairman of Weilai Automobile, publicly stated that the current car-making threshold has risen to 40 billion yuan. Lei Jun, who gambled on "all honors" for Xiaomi's car manufacturing, promised to spend $10 billion in 10 years to ensure the normal operation of its car-making plan, and the group car obviously does not have such a strong financial strength.
Image source: Tuanche.com CEO Wen Wei Sina Weibo
According to TC's third-quarter financial report, its net income in the third quarter of 2021 was 61.1 million yuan, a decrease of 38.9% year-on-year; the gross profit in the third quarter was 46.8 million yuan, a decrease of 35.1% year-on-year. Looking back at the past, tuanche has been in a state of loss since 2016. Among them, from 2016 to 2018, the loss was 0.87 billion yuan, 0.9 billion yuan and 114 million yuan respectively, and in 2019, it was a huge loss of 251 million yuan. In 2020, due to the epidemic, the core main business was difficult to carry out, and the annual loss of the group car was 163 million yuan.
As the head of the group car, Wen Wei has experienced five entrepreneurships, the first four times are fruitless, and the group car is the entrepreneurial result of his "last bet again". With tuanche announcing its entry into the car-making field, Wen Wei said that he would see it as the last venture. "I think there's at least a 50 percent chance of winning." Wen Wei said.
2
Or focus on the sinking market
It should be noted that thanks to the advantages of the current mature supply chain system, it is not out of reach to realize the dream of car manufacturing in the short term. In terms of hardware, such as the "UP Super Chassis" released by Yo-Pao Technology recently, the Aptiv SVATM intelligent car architecture, etc., all provide shortcuts for new car makers.
Taking the UP super chassis as an example, it integrates the core components of electric vehicles, including three electrics, suspension, braking, steering, intelligent driving and thermal management, etc. The chassis can be self-driven and can be coupled with a variety of cockpits.
Li Peng, founder and CEO of Yo-Pao Technology, said at the press conference that the up and down split development of the UP super chassis will improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce the entry threshold and cost, based on the super chassis model, tooling adjustment and process verification time will be greatly shortened, the research and development cycle can be shortened by 6 to 12 months, and the research and development and manufacturing costs will be reduced by 90%, which coincides with the car-making process proposed by the group car.
At the capital level, as a U.S. listed company, Tuanche has certain financing capabilities, which will provide protection for its car-making plan. For reference, after KXIN, a car sales company, announced its entry into the research and development, production and marketing of new energy vehicles in mid-2021, its stock price rose by nearly 90% on the same day. Recently, Happy Auto said that the company has obtained a strategic investment commitment of $20 million from several investment institutions, of which $2 million has been in place, and the rest of the funds are expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2022. According to reports, the funds will be used for the development and design of new energy trucks in the second half of 2022.
At present, Henan Yujie Times Automobile Co., Ltd., which is acquired by Happy Automobile, has launched the punk (POCCO) brand, and its two electric vehicles, Meimei and Duoduo, have also been listed for sale. According to the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the cumulative sales of punk cars from January to November 2021 were about 32,000 units.
The success of "peers" may provide a reference for the route of group cars. Wen Wei said that the team that provides car manufacturing business for the group car already has semi-finished models, and its first car will be selected from these semi-finished models, priced between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan, and is expected to open pre-sale in the second half of this year.
Some analysts believe that the products of the group car will most likely enter the market with lower prices, because from the current sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland, they are mainly concentrated in the high-end and low-end fields, and the market that the group car has been deeply cultivating happens to be the sinking market with the largest demand for low-end new energy vehicles.
Wen Wei also mentioned that Tuanche will be based on the current innovative business model and the huge user group that has been operating in depth for many years, and integrate into the future new business with a sales network covering the first line of the country to the county, as well as a strong sales ability. "We give priority to the direct sales model, and also have the channel advantage of landing in the sinking market, in fact, whether it is franchise or direct sales, we have a variety of options." Wen Wei said.
In Wen Wei's view, the domestic new energy automobile industry still has a two-year window period, and now the threshold for car manufacturing is not very high, and the market can also accept new enterprises to enter the car industry. But the fledgling encountered such strong doubts from the "friends" may have exceeded his previous expectations. As for the outcome of this controversy, only time can give the answer.
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Article from: NBD Cars
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