On January 24, according to 36Kr, the founder and CEO of Stone Technology Changjing's car-making project Luoke Automobile has received a total of 100 million US dollars of multi-party investment, led by Tencent Group, with an investment of more than 50 million US dollars in this round, and the valuation of Luoke Automobile is about 2 billion US dollars.
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After the electric vehicle industry caught fire, many companies crossed the line to do cars, Tencent said that although it did not make cars itself, it invested in many car companies, and it is the second largest shareholder of T1 Automobile, a new domestic car-making force. Now that Tencent has led the investment in Luoke Automobile, is it a change of heart?
It is understood that Stone Technology and Luoke Automobile founder Changjing is very fond of off-road vehicles, Luoke Automobile benchmarks the Mercedes-Benz G series, not pure electricity, but extended range electric vehicles. Compared with pure electric vehicles, extended range electric vehicles have a stronger endurance, fast refueling, the cost of travel is cheaper than fuel vehicles, and the power is very strong, which is indeed very suitable for off-road vehicles.
However, the demand for off-road vehicles is too small, far less than cars and SUVs. Although the threshold for electric vehicles is low, it is also necessary to invest a lot of research and development funds, and the recovery of costs is far from being expected. Tencent's investment in Luoke Automobile is estimated to take into account that it is not on the same track as Weilai, and the eggs cannot be placed in one basket, and multi-party investment is more secure.
For Changjing, its stone technology has gained a firm foothold in the domestic smart home industry, and its products are very popular, especially high-end sweepers, and its sales are not lost to many old home appliance brands that have been operating for decades. However, at this time to do electric vehicles, it seems a little late, the success rate may not be very high.
Now there are too many players entering the electric vehicle track, in the new forces of domestic car manufacturing, only Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng and Nezha can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000, Xilis, Weima and other reputations are not small, but sales are very general. These car companies have been in the market for a long time, sales are not high, and they can't add up to a BYD car. LuoKe car entered too late, and it was an off-road vehicle for enthusiasts, which was too difficult.
Of course, for consumers, it is a good thing to have more companies to do cars across the line, consumers have more options, and competition between car companies may also promote the decline in product prices. As for the loss of car manufacturing failure, to be honest, so many companies cross the line to build cars, most of them will fall, and the losses will be borne by investors and shareholders, and we have little to do with it.