Ideal for a group car on a bar

Text/Leju Finance Li Shanshan

In 2022, the automotive circle ushered in the first battle of the new year, and Li Xiang, the ideal car CEO who shook the air, "fired" on Weibo again. However, this time it is not a "battle" for the ideal car, but the "muzzle" is pointed at Wen Wei, ceo of Tuanche.com, who has just announced that he wants to build a car.

Although Tuanche Network is a new recruit in the new energy car-making army, in the face of Li Xiang's "shelling", Wen Wei is not willing to show weakness, he said: "Fearless is not blind, and car building is not a drama." ”

The group car, which was not famous, became famous because the two "teared each other apart" for three days on the social platform.

Compared with the mutual hatred between the two, what is more eye-catching is that Wen Wei revealed the hundred artificial car team behind the group car this time. In Wen Wei's eyes, this team has experience, technology, efficiency, and can do almost everything.

Such a team is really rare in the industry, and as soon as the news came out, it attracted great attention from all parties. For the group car network, whose market value has "shrunk" by more than 90%, perhaps this is just The rhetoric of Wen Wei's momentum.

A battle of tongues

On January 16, Li Xiang forwarded wen Wei's content to the media after announcing the construction of the car on his personal Weibo, shelling him for refreshing the bottom line of entrepreneurs.

Wen Wei revealed in the interview that the foreign car-making team of Tuanche can undertake almost all the car-making processes of new energy vehicles, and also bring semi-finished models, which can not only shorten the previous car-making cycle, but also greatly reduce costs.

In this regard, Li wants to call his entry into the car manufacturing "entrepreneurs who hope to find a super savior", and they are "generally liars, or most likely they are liars", and he also criticizes the concept of car building of Tuanche as "shameless".

Subsequently, Li Xiang also published a long article entitled "The Importance of Rhythm Control for Entrepreneurship" on Weibo, emphasizing the ability and resources needed at different stages of entrepreneurship from the perspective of entrepreneurs, implying that the current ability of Tuanche is not worthy of its car-making ambitions.

This time, Li wanted to "shoot" directly at the group car, and the smell of gunpowder was full of gunpowder. On the 17th, the group car also responded fiercely to it, and the contradictions between the two sides escalated again.

"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. Wen Wei responded so on Weibo, and Ait Lee thought.

Subsequently, the two people's mutual hatred incident rushed to the hot search list of the automobile circle. On the 18th, Wen Wei posted again that fearlessness is not blind, car building is not good at drama, and invited Li xiang to attend when his first product was released.

At this point, the war of words between the two has come to an end, and at present, Li Xiang has not responded to Wen Wei's invitation.

On January 5, the official Weibo of Tuanche Network officially announced the start of car building, saying "2022, we are also going to build cars!" Do you think it's crowded? ", and Aite Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng three new car-making forces, this move is quite provocative.

Imagine building a car

Looking back at the whole process of this mutual hatred incident, what really angered Li Xiang was Wen Wei's personal views on building cars.

As we all know, to create new energy vehicles, talent, capital, technology are indispensable, and in the current lack of core and lithium expensive situation, Wen Wei has a full grasp of the group car.

According to Wen Wei's description, the basis of its car construction comes from an external team of more than 100 people. Wen Wei said that this team can undertake product planning, styling design, engineering development, intelligent driving, supplier management and almost all other car manufacturing processes, and has more than 20 years of experience in car manufacturing.

In addition, he also said that the team already has semi-finished models, and the first car of the group car will choose one of these semi-finished products, priced between 100,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan, and is expected to open pre-sales in the second half of this year.

According to industry insiders, Wen Wei's 100 artificial car team is likely to be just his idea, first throw out the plan, and then find the team.

Even if such a team exists, with only 100 people, it is impossible to really operate.

It is reported that at present, the team size of Weilai has reached more than 9,000 people, Xiaopeng Automobile has more than 5,000 people, and ideal cars have more than 4,000 people, which is the smallest of the three Wei xiaoli. Although it has reached the order of magnitude of more than 4,000 people, the ideal internal division is still a big problem according to different business divisions.

In the car manufacturing cycle, Wen Wei also has the confidence to surpass his predecessors. "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." Wen Wei said that it doesn't matter if the first car fails, you can make another car in 3 months, and you will have to make 2 cars in the next 3 years.

In contrast, even Xiaomi, which has more than 100 billion cash reserves, does not dare to boast about Haikou in the matter of car manufacturing, and the production car will have to go offline in 2024 at the earliest.

As for the source of funds for car manufacturing, Wen Wei said that Tuanche itself is a U.S. listed company, and there are many investors who are currently interested, and the desire of local governments for car-making projects can also become one of the solutions, and "the funds used for mass production of a car are measured by us to be one of the new forces in car-making." Niu Chuang got $500 million, and we could be 1/10 of him. ”

The implication is that the group car may be able to reduce the mass production cost of a car to about $50 million.

As early as 2016, 20 billion yuan has become a recognized funding threshold in the field of car manufacturing. And not long ago, Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Automobile, said that the threshold for car manufacturing has been raised to 40 billion. When Xiaomi entered the car, it said that it would invest 10 billion US dollars in 10 years and invest 10 billion yuan in the first phase.

Although Tuanche was listed on the US stock market in 2018, the data shows that since its listing, its stock price has generally declined. After the announcement of the car, its stock price has declined, and as of press time, it has a market value of less than $50 million.

On January 13, the third quarter of 2021 financial report released by Tuanche showed that the net income of Tuanche in the third quarter was 61.1 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 38.9%; the gross profit in the third quarter was 46.8 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 35.1%; the third quarter of Tuanche offline auto show was only held in 65 cities, a year-on-year decrease of 57.2%. The auto retail platform, whose main business is the auto show, is also being severely challenged.

Checking the information, it can be seen that there is no "super savior" behind the group car network, only Wen Wei's car-making imagination. From this point of view, the car-making strength of the group car is not as strong as wen Wei's mouth describes.

And this mutual intimidation incident, which finally ended with Wen Wei inviting Li Xiang to attend the product conference, can be said to be good at marketing Wen Wei cleverly transformed the contradiction into a successful "porcelain marketing", so that the original unknown group car borrowed Li Xiang's hand out of the circle, which can be called free publicity.

"Angry Youth," Li thought

In fact, this time the group car was complained about by Li Xiang, not "the first to bear the brunt", intimidating peers, intimidating the media, intimidating technical personnel, and so on, Li xiang was not absent.

In public, Li wanted to wear the hat of a "fraudster" to lu Zhengyao, a business giant; also spray his peers as "a bunch of stinky technology"; and also intimidated the media: "Those who spread rumors about us with mercury, I wish you a lot of mercury in your heads." ”

Not long ago, Li Xiang also staged a revenge. Li xiang posted a statistical chart on Weibo titled "24 Months Challenge Medium and Large SUV Sales Champion" with the caption: Thanks for the encouragement, continue to work hard.

It is reported that in September 2020, Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan said when talking about the range-extending power solution that the range-extended electric vehicle is very unenvironmental and is the worst solution.

Although Feng Sihan's speech is not targeted, ideal car as a representative of the new energy vehicle segment in the range extended electric vehicle, everyone pointed to the object of Feng Sihan's complaint to the ideal car.

Afterwards, Li xiang posted on Weibo: "I am very willing to compare with the Audi Q7 e-tron with the ideal ONE size closest to the PHEV technology to see who is more environmentally friendly in real life." ”

After more than a year, Li wants to use sales to rewind the Volkswagen CEO and successfully "revenge". According to the latest data, Ideal Car sold 35,221 units in the fourth quarter of 2021, an increase of 40.2% over the third quarter of 2021 and an increase of 143.5% over the fourth quarter of 2020; ideal car sales in 2021 totaled 90,491 units, an increase of 177.4% over 2020.

The excellent results achieved by Ideal Auto in 2021, even He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, is envious, "In 2021, Li wants to be the most comfortable, and Li Bin and I are more difficult."

From the founding of Bubble Network, to the auto home, to the ideal car, Li Xiang has been called "one of the few entrepreneurs in China who have achieved success in succession", which may also be where Li Xiang often speaks amazingly.