The new energy vehicle track is hot, but car building cannot be a child's play

Per commentator Li Shuo

A few days ago, the air shouts of Li Xiang, founder and CEO of Ideal Automobile, and Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche.com, made "cross-border car manufacturing" once again become a hot word in the car circle.

It is understood that the incident began with the announcement of the car network. On January 5, Tuanche.com announced that it will enter the field of electric vehicle manufacturing by forming a new electric vehicle business line including design, research and development, production, etc.

A new energy vehicle on display attracted the attention of visitors and was photographed by reporter Sun Tongtong

Shortly thereafter, Wen Wei said in an interview with the media that the biggest driving force for Tuanche to decide to build a car came from an external team of more than 100 people, which can undertake more than ten car-making contents such as product planning and engineering development, covering all car-making processes. Its current technical route is pure electricity, and this team has done solar energy and hydrogen energy. In addition, the group car manufacturing cycle can be shortened to 18 to 24 months, which is at least one year shorter than the 48 months of the international manufacturers and 36 months of domestic manufacturers in the era of fuel vehicles.

This remark was reprinted and commented by Li Xiang on social platforms: "Those entrepreneurs who expect to find a super savior, those entrepreneurs who expect to be able to do everything (no) by opening the second pulse of Ren Dou, and finally find that they are generally liars, or most likely they are also liars... The essence of entrepreneurship is: rhythmic and patient long-term growth. ”

The next day, Wen Wei publicly responded: "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 child's play. Subsequently, Wen Wei also invited Li Xiang to attend the first product launch of the group car, but Li Xiang did not respond to this for the time being.

Putting aside the right and wrong of the dispute, if you want to clarify the logic of the incident, you may wish to first see who the regimental vehicle that was "shelled" by Li Xiang was. According to public information, Tuanche.com was founded in 2010 and positioned itself as a "professional automobile new retail platform", with its main business involving Internet car sales, second-hand car trading, car rental, etc. In November 2018, Tuanche.com was listed on nasdaq at an issue price of $7.8 per share. Wind data shows that since its listing, the stock price of Tuanche.com has generally shown a downward trend. As of January 21, the share price of Tuanche.com was $2.50 per share, down nearly 70% from the initial issue price.

At the same time as the poor performance of the capital market, the performance of Tuanche Network also declined. According to the third quarter of 2021 financial report released by Tuanche.com recently, the net income of Tuanche in the third quarter of 2021 was 61.1 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 38.9%; the total sales of new cars in the third quarter fell from 7 billion yuan in the same period of 2020 to 2.2 billion yuan, a decrease of 68.6%; and the gross profit fell from 72.1 million yuan in the same period of 2020 to 46.8 million yuan, a decrease of 35.1%.

In fact, the epidemic, the shortage of global semiconductor supply, more car companies choose the direct operation model and other factors have led to a difficult situation in the automotive e-commerce industry, weak cash flow, poor risk resistance and other weaknesses have led to salary cuts, layoffs and even shutdowns on many automotive e-commerce platforms.

Therefore, there are views in the industry that the entry of the group car network into the car is a road of transformation that cannot be retreated, but there are still great variables in whether it can succeed. For Tuanche, the first challenge of its car construction comes from funding. In 2018, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, said: "There is no 20 billion yuan to build a car. At the end of 2021, Li Bin's statement was: "There is no 40 billion don't think about building a car." As of January 21, the total market value of the group car was only about 50.54 million US dollars, equivalent to more than 300 million yuan.

For the issue of funds, Wen Wei responded in an interview with the media that Tuanche itself is a listed company in the United States and has the ability to raise funds in the open market and private equity channels. At the same time, both state-owned assets and local governments are very interested in the project of group cars, and they are currently advancing. In addition, the funds consumed in the research and development stage of the group car are only a few fractions of the new forces of car manufacturing, which is about hundreds of millions of yuan, so at present, the group car does not need too much money.

The accuracy of Wen Wei's statement cannot be verified, but in addition to funds, the challenge of the group car also has time and team ability. Wen Wei's so-called "100-person team to complete the process" and "it doesn't matter if the first car fails, 3 months can do another car" and other remarks, in the eyes of the auto industry, there is a big gap with the actual car-making required talent resources and R & D and design process.

Compared with Niu Innovative Energy, which also announced its entry into the car-making field not long ago, its company team size is more than 1,000 people, and the first model has been brewing for 4 years from the launch of the project to the listing of the Youjia NV. Li Yinan, founder of Niu Chuangxin Energy, once said: "Cars have the attribute of high threshold of funds, and it takes less than $3 billion to do the whole thing." In contrast, the group car from the size of the team to the car construction schedule to the capital investment is too "efficient".

However, the group car is not without advantages, its coverage of the first-line to the county offline sales network and scene digital marketing field layout, so that it has a unique advantage in marketing, channel network, but this advantage is mostly reflected in the vehicle sales link, at present, the vehicle research and development and manufacturing link of the booster is very limited.

As the sales of new energy vehicles in the mainland continue to rise, the heat of its track attracts more people with car-making ideals to join it, but the author believes that joining the new energy vehicle track cannot be a fashionable gimmick for enterprises to "change their lives against the sky". As Wen Wei said on social media, building a car is not a child's play.

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