The first fight in the car circle in 2022 is still around the topic of "building a car". Ideal Car founder Li wanted to bombard the news of tuanche car manufacturing on his personal Weibo, and said that "it refreshed the bottom line of entrepreneurs", and Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, responded that "don't think of yourself as a prophet, and said that Tuanche can do more than 20 million yuan of cars, but also can do cars below 50,000 yuan", "It doesn't matter if the first car fails, you can do another one in 3 months." ”
The fight between the CEOs of two AMERICAN listed companies has successfully turned the focus of public opinion on "whether the group car network is reliable" into "Li wants to shell the group car".
However, leaving aside this "mutual spraying" battle, in addition to the group car network, there are also Niu Chuangxin Energy, Binli Automobile, Zhixing Box, and Light Orange Era successively building cars.
So why in 2022, there are still companies to build cars, and where are their opportunities?
New players who make cars next
In the past few years, a wave of car-making forces such as Ranger, Singularity, Byton, Qiantu, and Luchi have fallen in the middle of the new energy road, and the "Wei Xiaoli" that has successfully survived is also marching towards more intense sales of 100,000 vehicles. At the same time, a large number of traditional car companies have also begun to take new energy as their future strategy, and are launching new products in large quantities.
So at present, how to establish the five new car-making forces of Niu Innovation Energy, Binli Automobile, Zhixing Box, Light Orange Era, and Tuanche Network?
From this point of view, Niu Innovative Energy seems to be the most reliable of them.
The founder of Niu Innovative Energy is Li Yinan, the founder of Xiaoniu Electric Vehicle. According to the disclosure, the project has been approved since 2018, and the brand "NIUTRON" was officially launched at the end of last year. Niu Chuangxin Energy currently has nearly 1,000 core R & D personnel, the brand headquarters is located in Beijing, Shanghai R & D center, and has a modern intelligent manufacturing base in Changzhou, the first model is expected to be delivered in September this year.
In terms of financing, the A round of financing received $500 million led by IDG Capital and COATUE, which is a steady member of the new batch of car-making forces.
Box Zhixing is to start a B-end business. Founder Zhang Shuguang has nearly 20 years of experience in the automotive industry, before that, Box Auto used as a professional automotive design and development company to provide vehicle and parts design and development for China FAW R&D Institute, China FAW Besturn Research Institute, FAW-Volkswagen, BAIC Group, Jianghuai Automobile and other car companies.
Therefore, Box Zhixing's car manufacturing aims at taxis, online car-hailing, rental cars and other enterprises, and tends to design cars that meet the needs of the public in the field of online ride-hailing.
It is understood that Box Zhixing released two MPV models at the end of December 2021, and the intended pre-sale order for one of the models has reached 42,000 units, and the car of Box Zhixing has landed in Luoyang.
The Penley Automotive team takes the high-end route, founded by Su Weiming, former global executive vice president of Volkswagen Group and CEO of Renault China. Among the five natural person shareholders of its parent company, it also includes You Zheng, deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor Group, and Liao Xianzhi, chairman of Wuhan Dongfeng Insurance. It is understood that Binli Automobile Financing is undergoing a round of financing, and there may be Dongfeng Motor behind it.
The car manufacturing of Tuanche.com is led by Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche. Wen Wei said that the group car manufacturing team is outsourced, with about 100 people. With these more than 100 people, the group car can complete almost all the car manufacturing processes, can reduce the car manufacturing cycle of new energy vehicles to 18-24 months, and can also reduce the mass production cost of a car to about 50 million US dollars.
However, these car-making remarks are beyond the normal cognition of the automotive industry. After all, the amount of money needed to build a car in the industry is usually 20 billion yuan. The total market value of the group car is also about 60 million US dollars, and it seems that the difference between wanting to build a car is a bit far.
Although light orange times unveiled its first model at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, its top management did not have much intersection with the automotive industry, and CEO Mu Lu was the mastermind of a game under Tencent, and later co-founded an in-vehicle ecosystem service company. Such experience does not seem to be enough to support the cause of car building.
Where is the opportunity under the wind outlet
In the process of new energy running fast, as a brand new track, there are countless latecomers rushing to it.
Where fuel vehicles exist at present, they may be replaced by new energy vehicles. According to statistics, in 2021, the production and sales of passenger cars in the mainland reached 21.408 million units and 21.482 million units, respectively, and the annual production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share increased to 13.4%.
The trade-off between fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles provides a hotbed for the rise of new giants. This is also a big reason why by 2022, there are still companies that will build cars.
Of course, if a new group of car manufacturers want to join this track, they still need manpower and funds to escort themselves.
At present, the best time for new car manufacturers to enter has passed, and the scenery of the first batch of people standing on the wind outlet like "Wei Xiaoli" is difficult to reproduce. And it is difficult to find "hot money" in the primary market that is as crazy as it was at the beginning. Now everyone is fighting for cost, intelligence, and brand, and these are also difficult levels for new car manufacturers to cross.
At the same time, after experiencing a fierce round of talent grabs, can the new group of car-making forces still find more talent support for the survival of the enterprise?
In recent years, new players have emerged on the car-making track, and we have witnessed the success of "Wei Xiaoli" and experienced the prosperity and decline of enterprises such as Byton, Sailin, and Future.
In 2022, new cross-border enterprises will follow with confidence, their cross-border flavor is more sufficient and more focused on mobility, autonomous driving, intelligent technology and other fields. Inner rolls are the consensus of the automotive industry, and this is especially true in the new forces of car-making circles in 2022.