"The total delivery of 43,121 new cars in the whole year, an increase of 278.6% year-on-year, ranked sixth in the camp of new car-making forces" This is the report card handed over by zero-run cars in 2021.
Excellent? At least for the zero-run cars themselves, such results are enough. After all, a year ago, the annual delivery of zero-run cars was only 11,391 units, and the brand was even on the verge of death. This Spring Festival of the Year of the Tiger, Boss Zhu can still smile.
So, what is the secret to the resurrection of zero-run cars? Two aspects: products and technology.
Make a product: go the way of others, let others have no way to go
Time back to 2019, when the zero-run car launched a niche pure electric coupe S01, which was supposed to kill a popularity, but did not know that the terminal market gave a beautiful slap, and the dismal sales data made the zero-run car have no sense of existence for a long time. But since the launch of the T03, zero-run cars have begun to counterattack the road, which is also reflected in the sales data of 2021: T03 delivered a total of 38,463 new cars throughout the year, which is the absolute main sales force.
What's special about the T03 is that it really does "what bike to want". In the traditional A00-class car market, the core demand of consumers is simple: a sufficiently cheap means of transportation, which is the main reason why Hongguang MINIEV can sell well. But beyond transportation, consumers actually wanted something else, but there was no second, better option on the market until T03 came along. The advantages of the model that achieves the most L2 level of driver assistance functions in the same class, 403 km endurance, excellent space performance, etc., make the T03 a rare and better choice in the same class in a certain period of time, which is the cleverness of the T03.
Then, the "price butcher" C11 who took over the baton will be full of amazing values. The front double wishbone rear five-link luxury suspension, high-power motor, Leap Pilot 3.0 intelligent driver assistance system, and a variety of rare and unseen luxury features in the class make the C11 worthy of the "full match" praise. In zero-run words, C11's price of less than 200,000 has achieved the user's expectation of 500,000. Because of this, the product has received more than 6,000 orders without test drives (the kind that cannot be refunded after paying a deposit of 20,000 yuan).
At this point, Zero Run has once again stood at the forefront of the new forces of car manufacturing.
Engage in technology: "hanging sheep's head to sell dog meat" zero run
In 2015, Zero Run Cars was founded. From beginning to end, founder and chairman Zhu Jiangming has positioned Zero Run as a technology-based enterprise. Zhu Jiangming was once the vice chairman of Dahua Shares, and from the pedigree point of view, zero-run cars can be said to be born from Dahua Shares. Who is Dahua? The world's second largest security manufacturer, the core business is the intelligent Internet of Things solution provider and operation service provider, strong R & D strength. From this point of view, it is logical for Zhu Jiangming to label Zero Run as IT. In actual action, the result of zero running sacrifice is "full stack self-research".
High-power motors, autonomous driving chip chips, vehicle controllers, body controllers, door controllers, Bluetooth key controllers, power MCUs, battery BMS, etc., are all created by Zero Run and Dahua, including the automatic driving chip described by Zero Run as "the most cost-effective" - Lingxin 01. To put it bluntly, the new three major parts of the car: intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit and three electric technology, zero running all have to do their own. In the parts exhibition hall of the zero-running headquarters building, it is filled with core components such as powertrain, battery pack, electronic control system, and intelligent driving system. Such a painstaking effort to do things, is a rare independent brand, fortunately in Dahua is engaged in visual origin, which directly created a zero-run excellent AI research and development team, at least in a variety of face recognition, license plate recognition competition, zero-run is not the first or second.
But in other technical aspects, take the electric drive system, full-stack research and development includes from the circuit board, structure, software, operating system to the motor, reducer of the software and hardware integration of the global self-development, each of which is the traditional automotive industry chain outside the "additional items", almost need manufacturers from scratch to explore, which is undoubtedly a huge cost of the project. Both to sell products, but also to engage in a full set of research and development, from the powertrain, intelligent driving assistance system, intelligent network system to the factory, industrial chain, etc., for zero running This front is too long, cash flow is bound to be insufficient, which is also one of the important reasons why zero running will propose an IPO in 2022.
The advantages of "full-stack self-development" are obvious, and the ultimate cost reduction can be harvested in the later stage, C11 is the most obvious example, but the drawbacks are also fatal: the early entry threshold is high and the time is long. Especially for those start-up brands with shallow qualifications, research and development is never a simple task, it not only meets the functional requirements, cost constraints, but more importantly, the quality is reliable.
Although zero running has made a breakthrough in self-research, but the quality problems can not be ignored, S01, T03 two products exposed quality control problems, and even user rights protection, recalls, etc., are still vivid, in the new forces are rare.
Automobile is a bulk consumption, durable goods, users are more demanding on quality, which requires car companies to consider quality at the same time as self-research, if self-research is still immature, it is better not to use first, choose mature spare parts, market promotion at the same time and then improve self-research.
Will going public be a lifesaver for zero runs?
At present, the new domestic car-making forces are very clear that playing with concepts, engaging in PPT, and selling futures cannot be moved at all, and real money and silver bags are king. "Wei Xiaoli" has been listed one after another, and successful cases are in front of them. However, in the long run, even if you find the golden father, the future of zero running will be difficult to smooth. Just to make up for the pit in terms of products, zero running is already busy.
After the delivery of the thunderous rain point of the S01 in its original form, a variety of failures continue to occur, eventually leading to the owners of the collective rights protection; the main model T03 on the third-party complaint platform also frequent complaints, steering wheel errors, brake failures, endurance discounts, etc. can no longer be common; C11's NVH and configuration price changes led to a reduction in cost performance, etc., but also directly made its reputation decline. Of course, the deeper problem is that the market popularity of zero running needs to be improved.
According to official statistics, 40% of T03's sales sources are referred by old customers, and 10% of C11's sales sources are T03 users. If you introduce zero runs to your friends, there is a high probability that they will reply to you: What is this brand? To put it mildly, even the owners of zero-run cars may dislike their own brand and have no reputation. And if you relate to the price level, you can also find that the excellent performance of the C11 is actually stained with the light of the wool party. Of the more than 6,000 orders, more than half were made in the first two months, which means that consumers don't necessarily recognize the product much, they only covet huge inflatable gold offers.
Therefore, "breaking the circle" must be the main line task that needs to be achieved in the future zero run. Otherwise, for most people, these two words are still the impression of the obedient earth-created demon.
It is worth mentioning that there is one more thing that needs to be solved before the IPO: to stabilize the military's heart. Director Li Ke, director Wu Liqiang and general manager Jinghua have withdrawn not long ago, and such huge personnel changes are rare in the industry. While it is impossible to guess the exact reason, at least for the capital side, these actions will not be a good signal.
With 800,000 vehicles sold in 2025, can the Zero Run 2.0 strategy work?
In the middle of last year, Zero Run held a huge "Zero Run Car 2.0 Strategy Conference", and founder Zhu Jiangming drew a brand blueprint for the next five years for the outside world: "By the end of 2025, we will successively launch 8 models covering the price range of less than 350,000, enter the overseas market in 2022, put into production of lidar solutions at the end of 2023, realize full-scenario autonomous driving technology in 2024, and sell 800,000 vehicles in 2025, surpass Tesla in three years..."
Is it difficult? To paraphrase Su Jing, president of Huawei's intelligent driving business: "It is difficult for us to see L5 level autonomous driving in this lifetime, because it is too difficult to achieve", you can speculate on how feasible the zero-run 2.0 strategy is.