Produced | Wave Breaking Graphics Group
Wen | Zhao Miaolin
When I was a student, when I took the lesson "Introduction to Communication", there was a video of "Elevator Herd Effect" that still impressed me to this day.
When a person takes the elevator, it is easy to unconsciously imitate the consistent behavior of others, such as when everyone stands "with their backs to the elevator door", the individual will begin to doubt the rationality of his "facing the elevator door" and choose to maintain the same behavior as the public.
This is the "herd effect", which is colloquially speaking, that is, herd mentality, which is a phenomenon that can often be seen in life, such as "Chinese-style crossing the street".
Nowadays, this effect seems to have spread to the automobile circle, when the new forces of car manufacturing in the new energy track to achieve the "dividend" is seen, more and more people can not stand the loneliness and want to share a piece of the pie, technology, home appliances, mobile phones, real estate and other enterprises have come down, cross-border car manufacturing "hot" more and more intense.
Make a car "big cake", everyone wants to bite
Looking back at the year, Baidu and Geely formed the "Jidu Automobile", Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun announced that the group entered the intelligent electric vehicle business, 360 invested in Nezha Automobile, Huawei "Curve Car" launched the Xilis SF5, Foxconn acquired, invested and cooperated with more than ten electric vehicle projects within a year, Green Orange Times posted its first small car at the Guangzhou Auto Show, and Skyworth delivered 3409 cars globally in December.
Just last year, there were countless companies that announced cross-border car manufacturing, both well-known manufacturers and grassroots companies, but it was only Liao Liao who really handed over products.
At the beginning of 2022, Tuanche announced the construction of cars in a big way, and its CEO Wen Wei even publicly shouted Wei Xiaoli on Weibo, making a lot of noise.
Of course, the heat of this matter is indispensable to Li Xiang's handwriting, as a CAR company CEO who often "boldly opens wheat" in the face of public events, after Wen Wei released keywords such as "100 people are proficient in foreign teams", "the car-making cycle is compressed to 18-24 months", "three months to rebuild", etc., he made "high probability is a liar", "no shame" and other evaluations.
According to its CEO, the current group car manufacturing team is about 100 people, with these more than 100 people, the group car can complete almost all the car manufacturing process, not only can shorten the new energy vehicle car manufacturing cycle to half of multinational and domestic manufacturers, but also reduce the mass production cost of a car to about 50 million US dollars.
According to his description, it was more like they were picking weapons in their arsenal than other companies were busy building a weapon that was worthwhile. Its team already has semi-finished models, and the first car of the group car will choose one of the semi-finished models, priced between 100,000 yuan and 200,000 yuan, and is expected to open pre-sales in the second half of this year, even if the first car fails, they can also build another one in a short period of time.
Maybe it is my shallow experience, if it were not for its car-making, I might not have known about the enterprise of Tuanche.com, and I believe that many people are the same.
It is understood that it is essentially an exhibition company that specializes in cooperating with automobile manufacturers to build offline car purchase scenarios and hold auto exhibitions to earn service fees, although it is related to automobiles, but it has little to do with vehicle manufacturing.
In the past five years, the group car has not made a profit, and the loss has gradually increased, with a cumulative loss of nearly 700 million yuan in 5 years, according to its Q3 financial report last year, its total assets are only 396 million yuan, and the cash and its equivalents are only 100 million yuan.
According to its internal staff, since the second half of last year, the performance bonuses of all employees have not been paid, and on December 30, they entered the state of full standby, and they can only receive a minimum wage of 2,000 yuan.
Combined with its various current situations, it is not difficult to understand why Li wants to "shell" it. On the one hand, its capital status has greater restrictions on car manufacturing, unless it actively seeks investment, but it is a huge obstacle to the risk of investing in non-well-known laymen.
On the other hand, wen Wei's mouth said that the 100-person team, whether true or false, no matter why it is willing to bend to the regimental car, but this number, it is difficult to support the entire process from the birth of the concept car to the car FOUNDRY off-line, Xiaomi at the beginning of the car construction set up an elite team of 500 people has not dared to release this bold statement, the group car this time there are some bragging suspicions.
It's 2022, does the automotive industry really need so many new ventures?
At present, new energy vehicles are still in the early stage of development, not as crowded as traditional fuel vehicles, and there are still many blank areas, so it is reasonable that some people enter the game in order to speculate, expand the industrial chain and even save enterprises in times of crisis.
This hot track gives the traditional single enterprise the opportunity to transform and expand the sector, and also gives innovative enterprises/talent investment and entrepreneurship opportunities, and even provides a "life-saving straw" for companies that have fallen into crisis.
However, this more inclusive field also makes new entrants ignore their original thresholds, and they only care about dividing up the pie, and the impetuousness on their bodies is also revealed.
Impetuousness is gradually gaining, and "PPT car building" is intensifying
I think that the manifestation of its impetuous atmosphere is the increasing "PPT car- " atmosphere in the automobile circle.
PPT car manufacturing refers to a mass production car, but the use of PPT to blow the concept car and the company's blueprint very strongly to attract the limelight of car manufacturers. Combined with what the CEO of Tuanche said, although they have not yet shown PPT, they already have that taste.
Speaking of this word, I have to think of its originator Ranger Car. In 2015, Ranger Auto released the concept car Ranger X, when its founder spoke on the stage for nearly 1 hour in front of the PPT, and shouted: "It can be listed in 2017", which was sought after by many people as a small Tesla.
In more than six years, game cars have received more than 8.7 billion yuan in financing, and have twice been listed on the "unicorn" enterprise list with a valuation of 20 billion yuan, but the cars that once claimed to be listed within 2 years have been delayed, and today, its research institutes and factories have long been shut down, and the chairman of Wei Jun, who took over, has also frozen 45 million yuan of equity.
And another known as the PPT car king Jia Yueting, although on the domestic list of untrustworthiness, but with the "car dream" in the United States to establish FF company, in 2017 announced that it will officially release the first mass production electric vehicle FF91, the result to today, the same period of car manufacturers have already had mass production cars, he has not yet handed over the product, and now is accused of fraud.
Speaking of this, it is not necessary to elaborate on knowing that the purpose of such enterprises to build cars is not pure, and it seems to have racked their brains to draw products that make consumers move their hearts and outline a beautiful blueprint for the development of the company, in fact, it is just to establish an image and attract investment.
Take Jia Yueting, looking at the price of 640,000 yuan to 1.15 million yuan proposed by FF91, coupled with the seemingly hard work but no product for 4 years, rather than he is "suffocated by the dream of building a car", I believe that he wants to use FF to promote the listing of LeTV equity capital to achieve the purpose of repaying domestic debt.
Evergrande and Baoneng were also once considered to be members of the "PPT car-making" operation, and they wantonly enclosed the land in the name of car-making. However, due to the financial crisis, Evergrande had to implement the PPT, but the strength of the products of the downline still needs to be considered; and baoneng, another company that drags wages and lays off employees, does not need to mention, and does not give up the idea of enclosure after financing self-help, and the title of Qoros Automobile's "abandoned son of the car industry" still does not change.
If it is not too impetuous in the face of the "big cake" of new energy vehicles, these companies should be able to more clearly define their positioning, rather than from a half-informed layman to build a car, it is better to cooperate with car manufacturers to sell cars.
On the bright side, it is also the car-making road of Xu Jiayin and others that provides a warning for subsequent real estate developers, such as Wanda Group, which invested in the establishment of Wanda Automobile, entered the automobile sales business, catered to the growing commercial supermarket direct car purchase model, and sought profitability in its own familiar chain.
In addition, I think that the impetuous atmosphere not only exists in companies that like "PPT car-making", but even new forces are inevitably involved.
Since the car to intelligent, the concept of OTA upgrade has risen and become inextricable, especially the new forces of car manufacturing that focus on intelligence, taking it as a major selling point, and the problem is here.
Many consumers who have purchased the products of the new power car companies pointed out that many of the functions mentioned in the publicity cannot be realized immediately on the model, but must be gradually improved through subsequent OTA upgrades, in other words, consumers are more like buying a "semi-finished" car.
For example, the zero-run S01, which was criticized by car owners in "1818 GoldenEye", the "listed version configuration" displayed on the PPT, after most of the year of car purchase, many functions are still not fully realized, although the official website indicates that these functions will be pushed to customers through OTA upgrades in the future, but for the specific time, it is not stated.
This situation also exists in Weilai, Xiaopeng and other enterprises, some of the publicity functions are not implemented in the current car, but to wait for OTA upgrades, and even the NOA functions of the previous Tesla fire are also upgraded and pushed through OTA.
In fact, the essence of OTA upgrades should be the same as mobile phone system upgrades, which can make products keep pace with the times and allow consumers to experience more perfect and advanced functions, rather than becoming a reasonable reason for car companies to deliver "semi-finished products" in order to save time.
I can roughly understand the purpose of car companies to do this, but in order not to disconnect the products, miss the best node of competing with competitors, or put in-depth research stranded, in the same time to make more products to improve the overall competitiveness, of course, there should be some slack factors.
However, when the impetuous atmosphere intensifies, more and more car companies follow suit to deliver "semi-finished products", which is not conducive to consumer product experience, and "PPT" car manufacturing may not only be cross-border companies to pull investment, land enclosure and other plans, but also become the overall atmosphere of the automotive circle.
In the final analysis, cross-border car construction is not good, rather than completely attributing the reason to the immature technology, it is too impetuous to calm down to create high-quality finished products.
Che Tanjun observation
In the 19th century, a California gold rush "fever" made a large number of young laborers leave their hometown to manufacture and run to the west to pan for gold, although it had a certain impact on the social economy, it also led to the industrial development of the United States and promoted the process of urbanization in its western region.
In the 21st century, after the "heat" of mobile phones faded, the "heat" of car-making followed, and in this boom, a large number of new car-making corps emerged, and from the end of last year to the beginning of this year, there were many new and old faces.
Car manufacturing is a money-burning technical work, especially in this year's new energy subsidies the slope of the new forces of the intensified competition in the environment, for the group car network, the green orange era and other small enterprises, may be difficult to continue to chase the deer intelligent black technology due to financing problems.
As for Canon, Sony and the like, I think it can be classified with Xiaomi, Huawei, etc., after all, electronic products and smart cars have a lot of similarities, especially as an industry leader, whether it is technology or word of mouth, can convince many consumers.
In fact, I recommend that companies with enthusiasm for car building look up to Canon, not to create large goods at the beginning, but to take a cooperative approach, starting from parts, combining the needs of smart cars and new energy vehicles, exerting their own strengths and providing solutions.
Curve car-making Huawei is like this, rather than making a big fuss about building a car from the beginning, it is better to cut in from the small mouth, test the water first, and so on to find out the way, after assessing its own level, the car may be more like a fish.
On the whole, as of today, there are still people who have gone forward to build cars, and there are many people who smell new opportunities and want to show their grand plans, but there are not a few people who have other plans by making cars.
However, when the tide recedes, whoever swims naked will know at a glance that the market will never unconditionally tolerate companies that just say nothing and set up car "scams" to circle money. Whoever wants to stay in the knockout rounds needs to show real skills, after all, success is often only a minority.
However, perhaps national ideas such as "water drops wear stones" and "sincerity is true, gold and stone are open" are deeply rooted, so for those who are determined to do something even if they are poor and white, we are always inclined to praise their courage and ambition rather than talk about their chances of success.
For cross-border car manufacturers, we have to admit and admire their courage and vision, but as consumers, we also hope that they can produce good products, rather than blindly "drawing a big pie" and staying at the level of "PPT car manufacturing".
I would like to believe that these people who have poured into the field of new energy vehicles are like the original gold diggers, "entrepreneurs with ideas and courage", but I also hope that they can fade the impetuousness of their bodies, build really good cars, and promote the development of New Energy Vehicles in China.
Careers are often made of stoicism and ruined by impatience. The new energy track is hot again, and no matter how hot the car is, it must also be calm.
*The pictures in this article are from the Internet