Introduction | turns out that things are like this...
On January 16, 2022, Li Xiang forwarded the content of Tuanche CEO Wen Wei's plan to build a car on Weibo, bluntly saying that the other party was a liar, without shame, and refreshing the bottom line of entrepreneurs.
This kind of fierce use of words also refreshes the bottom line that Li wants to publicly scold people.
The last time was on August 29, 2020, when he exploded three TMDs in a row for more than a minute at a user event in Chengdu. At that time, he scolded the friends and businessmen as "a bunch of stinky technology, who understand a fart technology, and talk nonsense." ”
What is this time scolding friends?
1 group car Wenwei: a team of more than 100 people can do anything
On January 5, Tuanche announced that it would build a car and become the latest new force. This is an automotive e-commerce company founded in 2010, the main business is offline group car festival, assist manufacturers to sell vehicles directly, provide dealers with a platform for selling cars, etc., in 2018 on the NASDAQ listing.
▲Image from Automotive Business Review
On January 14, Wen Wei, CEO of Tuanche, was interviewed by a small range of media at its headquarters in Beijing. According to the "Automotive Business Review", the car-making plan of tuanche is roughly like this:
▎The biggest driving force of car building comes from an external team of more than 100 people, which can undertake product planning, modeling design, engineering development, testing, chassis, three electrics, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, systematic integration program, production support, supplier management and almost all other car manufacturing processes.
▎The team can do more than 20 million cars, can also do less than 50,000 cars; in addition to passenger cars, but also commercial vehicles, logistics vehicles; the technical route is preferred pure electricity, there are also solar energy, hydrogen energy experience; the car manufacturing cycle can be 1.5-2 years, while domestic manufacturers are generally 3 years.
▎ The team came with a batch of semi-finished products, and the group car will choose one of them as the first model, priced at 100,000-200,000 rooms, and it is expected to be pre-sold in 2022. After that, the model may be newly developed, and two new models will be produced in the next three years. It doesn't matter if the first car fails, you can make another one in 3 months.
▎The two sides can come together because of complementary advantages, the team is responsible for building cars, and group cars are responsible for selling cars. Funding can come from interested investors or local governments eager to build car projects, which are said to be one-tenth of the new forces, or about $50 million.
▎Wen Wei decided to build a car for only a few months, and the target market, product definition, and brand positioning have not yet been determined. He believes that cars are not like mobile phones, more like clothing, and there is more room for differentiation. He is very confident in the outsourcing team, believing that there is a 50% chance of winning, and he will have all in the future to build a car.
After seeing the report, Li wanted to scold directly:
"I really can't help but have to make a big mouth: those entrepreneurs who expect to find a super savior, those entrepreneurs who hope to be able to do everything by opening the second vein of Ren Dou, and finally find liars, or most likely they are liars themselves." There are still people who can openly speak out of this view without shame, which really refreshes the bottom line of entrepreneurs. The essence of entrepreneurship is: rhythmic and patient long-term growth. ”
Let's first take a look at Tuanche Wenwei's dream of building a car to see if there is an element of "deception".
2 External Team: When will the Illusion of View be suspended?
Wen Wei said that the greatest confidence in car building comes from the mysterious outsourcing team, a team that can do almost everything to build cars. Does such a team really exist in this world?
▎If it is outsourcing, the two parties are a cooperative relationship, please refer to the "Magna Model". It has worked for Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Chrysler, from the whole vehicle chassis, from luxury cars to personalized cars, from large displacement to new energy, it can do. For example, Mercedes-Benz G-Class, BMW X3, MINI Paceman, Jaguar I-PACE.
So the question is: Does China have a team that rivals Magna? Strictly speaking, there certainly isn't. Magna can build its own cars, but building cars in China not only requires a regular company, but also has to obtain dual qualifications. The only close is the Great Wall Huaguan, which not only has R&D and design capabilities, but also has a scarce double qualification. Unfortunately, the company's first electric vehicle, the K50, was sold for more than 100 units and disappeared.
In addition, even if there is a team of 100 people close to Magna's strength, can the group car afford the OEM fee? The latest news is that the bonus of the group car in the second half of 2021 has not been issued, and all employees will be on standby from 2022 onwards, and only the minimum wage of 2000/ month will be given.
▎ If this team of more than 100 people joins full-time, then both parties are in an employment relationship. This becomes the "Qoros model".
Ten years ago, how luxurious was the Qoros car-making team? It is a dream team, enough to write into the history of automobiles. However, the superficial strength is ultimately an illusion, and the internal strategic direction, product definition, marketing communication and even the most fundamental corporate culture have deviated from the market law. You can see the ending.
Another "poisoned" is Evergrande Automobile, thinking that "buying, buying and buying" and "combining" can get the car-making secret and become famous in one battle, and everyone has seen it.
If this is the model, can Tuanche afford the salary given by Qoros/Evergrande? It is said that at that time, Qoros manager-level positions, monthly salary in 30,000-40,000, directors and VP is even more outrageous. If we take a median value of 40,000, then these 100 people (temporarily calculated as 120 people) will have a monthly salary of at least 4.8 million. More than half a billion a year goes out. This does not include the cost of purchasing models, manufacturing costs, marketing and promotion costs, etc.
Back to a realistic question, can the group car allow the old employees of the concubine family to take a monthly salary of 2,000 and go to a foreign monk with a monthly salary of 40,000? If you don't pay a high salary, why do these "almost omnipotent" experts fight for you?
A simple logic is: if there is such a bullish team, why don't they look for Huawei, Xiaomi, these more well-known, more cash-out brands to cooperate?
From this point of view, Li wants to say that the "foreign team that acts as a savior" is a liar, and there is some truth to it. As for whether Wen Wei is a "liar", it is necessary to analyze the logic behind his plan.
3 Quick Build: Buy a Shell or Buy a Skateboard?
The foreign team mentioned by Wen Wei may be in the following two forms:
The first possibility: there are some small car companies in the industry with a very low sense of existence, or some old car companies with poor sales, will use idle production capacity to provide a complete set of body-in-white + chassis to another part of the more in-class car companies, which will purchase the three-electric system to debug, and the so-called new car can be launched.
The paradox here is: the original manufacturers have not been able to sell this car well, and the new owner can hang an equally unknown brand after taking over? And you use what people have, it is impossible to reopen the mold for you, so the "user orientation" advocated by the new enterprise has not become an empty phrase?
The second possibility: the group car may have contacted the latest car-making technology - the skateboard chassis.
This technology allows the integration of three electric, steering, braking, suspension and other systems on a chassis, forming standard parts, reselling to other car companies to install different styles of bodywork, to achieve chassis and body object understanding coupling, to meet the contradiction between rapid development and functional diversification; at the same time, the chassis adopts wire control technology, which can ensure intelligence and maneuverability.
At present, the main force pushing skateboard chassis is Rivian, Canoo, REE, PIX Moving and other foreign new forces, and the domestic emerging is - Yo-run Technology.
Coincidentally, on January 11, 2022, Yo-Yo Technology held the first "UP DAY Yo-Yo Running Experience Day" and released the UP Super Chassis and UP SPACE Super Cabin. This date is between the announcement of the car and the voice of Wen Wei to the media.
More coincidentally, Li Peng, the founder of Yo-Pao, introduced: The products that used to cost 40 billion yuan to develop can now be developed with only 4 billion. This is completely consistent with Tuanche Wenwei's statement that the funds only need 1/10 of the traditional new forces; Youpao also said that the upper and lower split development saves 6-12 months of development time compared with the traditional vehicle integrated development. This is also basically close to Wen Wei said that the development of new cars is as short as 1.5-2 years.
But it's not that simple. Wen Wei said that the required funds are 1/10 of the 500 million US dollars created by another "new new force" Niu, which is 320 million yuan, which is an order of magnitude different from the 4 billion yuan said by Youpao. Then, the car construction cycle can be as short as 1.5-2 years? The most daring teacher in the automotive industry, when he hears this, he will also take a breath of cold air. You know, under normal circumstances, it takes about 2 years to just do part certification.
In reality, how long does it take for a new car to go from 0 to 1?
▎Ideal ONE announced its product positioning and prototype car outline in February 2018, announced the brand name and officially unveiled the actual car in October, opened pre-sales in April 2019, and officially delivered in December.
▎ The Zero-Run C11 was unveiled as a C-More concept car in April 2019, with a pre-price announcement in December 2020 and official delivery in October 2021.
▎ Extreme Krypton 001 was unveiled as a Zero Concept in September 2020, with pre-sales opening in April 2021 and official delivery in October 2021.
It can be seen that it takes 20 months for mainstream new forces models to take 20 months from concept cars to pre-sales, 14 months from announcement of product positioning to pre-sale, and 6-7 months from real car debut to pre-sale.
Wen Wei said that the product definition had not yet been clearly thought out, and on the other hand, he said that the first car would be pre-sold as early as September. The problem is that this first car is currently only a semi-finished product, not even a concept car, but it takes 8 months to achieve pre-sale, 6-12 months faster than the predecessors.
There must be a demon when things go wrong, and it may be speculated that:
The first new car of the group car or the "buy shell carpool" method, only this "take-ism", it is possible to start from scratch for 8 months pre-sale. Precedents include Electric Bull No. 3, Huatai Little Bee, Jiangling E100, BAIC EC180, etc., and the fastest from project establishment to listing really only takes 8 months.
After the new car or with the "skateboard to make a car" mode, only this "pre-made dish", can make the group car like a fast food, the car manufacturing time to the maximum compression, foreign precedents are Rivian, Canoo, Pix, etc., there is a yo-yo run in China, otherwise 3 months to redo a new car is pure fantasy.
It is quite surprising to say that it is surprising, and it may also be possible to say it. Without discussing product quality and reliability, Wen Wei's astonishing remarks are not impossible. From this point of view, it is too early to say that he is a "liar".
4 Real challenges: the threshold is as high as 40 billion
Frankly speaking, it is not difficult to build a car to come out, but the difficulty is mass production. Baoding's hand-made Geng can also knock out a cool concept car, but it is difficult to achieve commercial mass production, which is difficult to go to Qingtian.
LeTV Automobile's FF91 "mass production car" has not been really mass-produced since its debut in January 2017, and It has not been really mass-produced for 5 years, and Jia Zong has not returned to China so far. Evergrande invested 50 billion yuan and launched 9 concept cars at a time, but now it has not seen the mass production car off the production line, and Evergrande Group has repeatedly reported the news that it will go bankrupt.
The main reason is that the car is too expensive, how much is it burning?
In less than 6 years from June 2015 to January 2021, NIO has raised 11 rounds of financing, with a cumulative financing amount of more than 70 billion yuan; almost in the same period, the cumulative financing of Ideal Automobile has exceeded 30 billion yuan; And Xiaopeng Automobile has also raised nearly 20 billion yuan in the three years from 2017 to 2020.
In 2021, Xiaomi announced its entry into the automotive manufacturing industry, with an initial investment of 10 billion yuan and an investment of $10 billion in the next decade.
Li Bin said in an interview at NIO DAY 2021: "The capital threshold for car building, a few years ago I said 20 billion, and now there is no 40 billion that may not be able to do it." ”
Listen to the threshold of 40 billion. Wen Wei said that the demand for funds is more than 300 million, and it has not yet been implemented.
So why do so many people, including group cars, have to face the difficulties? Because once the new energy is done, it is indeed a double gain of fame and fortune. Not only is there local support, consumer support, media cheers, but also the favor of the capital market: Weilai has soared from $1.19 in 2019 to $66.99, and its market value in 2021 exceeds Honda and Ferrari; the ideal has also soared from $14.31 to $47.7, and its market value in 2021 exceeds Renault and Chang'an.
As a result, everyone believes more and more in "seeking wealth and danger" and forgets the old saying that "only thieves eat meat and do not see thieves being beaten". Probably, what many entrepreneurs think is: What if it becomes? Not spending my money anyway.
It's not impossible, it's just that Wen Wei seems to express the optimistic side too fully, and it is in the case that he has not yet thought of a product definition. In public, he cannot see the contribution to consumers and the industry; in private, the current information is not enough to support his logical self-consistency. If you play the capital game in a low-key manner, or preach with a slightly formed product, you may not be so surprised and resistant.
Of course, Wen Wei has some views that are still worth referencing, such as cars in the new situation are more like clothes, and less like mobile phones, allowing more room for personalization. Che Jujun has also said before that the definition of a car is more like a large wearable device, but it needs to comply with the safety level of the car regulations.
Overall, the interview is a normal business boast. There are more exaggerated remarks in the industry than this, and Li wonders why Shan scolded Wen Wei as a "liar"?
5 In public: Lee wondered why he shelled the regimental car
Li wants to be the first to rush out and scold the street, on the one hand, the straight temper of Shijiazhuang people, on the other hand, as a mentor of serial entrepreneurs, he can't see this kind of remarks that seriously deviate from reality. It is even more possible that this kind of remark may have hit a core word that circulated when the ideal car started: born mature.
In fact, "born to mature" is not the ideal official slogan, is a self-media test drive after the ideal ONE comments (after the media an employee into the ideal), may be the official feels quite appropriate, it will acquiesce. So that later, after the news of spontaneous combustion and disconnection of the ideal ONE, other media used to use "born and mature" to ridicule the ideal.
And Wen Wei's remarks, condensed into one sentence, are nothing more than: born and mature.
Zhu Yuanzhang was a monk in his early years, and after he ascended the throne, he was very concerned about the words such as monks, monks, and even light, and killed many people for this. Zhao Kuangyin ascended the throne because of the Chen Qiao mutiny, so he also formulated a national policy of emphasizing literature and light force, preferring to accumulate weakness for three hundred years and strictly guard against internal changes.
Li wondered whether Wen Wei was angry like the two Taizu because he had committed the crime of "copying homework", but it was not known. Anyway, more than an hour after he finished, he sent a long microblog of more than 3,000 words, "The Importance of Rhythm Control for Entrepreneurship", and put it to the top. Looking at the title, he knows that he wants to use the importance of "rhythm" to criticize Wen Wei's "born and mature" theory again.
If people achieve certain results, they are right to say anything.
But did the ideal come exactly at the pace that Lee wanted to say? For example, corrective measures are taken to alleviate the risk of "broken shafts", then hardware upgrades are announced, and finally recalls and apologizes. For example, after a number of accidents caused by the abuse of assisted driving, the "rest assured, there is me" propaganda was also used on the website. Lee wants to admit that there are design flaws afterwards, so what kind of rhythm is this?
Wen Wei's counterattack also has a certain truth: Feng Sihan originally criticized the extender with the attitude of a teacher, and as a result, the ideal ONE sales went all the way up and hit the critic's face. Now that Li Xiang has also become a teacher to criticize the latecomers, is he also living into the way he once hated?
On January 18, Wen Wei posted on Weibo again, thanking Li Xiang for his attention and inviting the other party to attend the first product launch. So far, Li Xiang has not made a formal response.
Car gathering summary
In the automotive world, public critics are risky.
For example, in July 2021, Su Zhen, director of Huawei's intelligent driving product department, said in an interview that Tesla's accident rate in recent years is still quite high, and the type of accident is very similar, saying that the ugly point is "killing". 20 days later, an internal document showed that Su was removed from his ministerial post for making inappropriate remarks. In January 2022, Su Zhen has left Huawei.
Obviously, the influence of the group car is far less than Tesla, and Li wants to scold the other party for having no shame; and Wen Wei is first surprised and then thanked, and then backhanded a marketing.
Both sides are masters of dealing with public opinion, and the rhythm is in place.
It's just that the profit of the tongue and the use of marketing are win-win? Whether the ideal can complete 1-10 under the support of a single category and edge technology is still unknown. A media poll showed that 47% of people would not consider a group car, and the rate of buying was 19%. You'd say 19% is pretty good, but know what the distance is from online voting to paying for it.
Wen Wei said that the probability of winning the car is more than 50%. Che Jujun felt that 5% was good, and that 50% was more appropriate for the ideal car.
Yesterday's pity broke the cold, and now the purple python is long, and the random baking you party sings me on the stage.