At the moment of the rapid development of new energy vehicles, the global automobile industry can be said to have encountered unprecedented changes in a hundred years, under the general trend, many new car-making forces have poured in, and after several years of development, it has become a presence that cannot be ignored by any car company, such as ideal, Xiaopeng and Weilai.
After "Wei Xiaoli", there are still some new car-making forces that are not well known to everyone, some of which have fallen behind, and some of which have become the "back wave" in people's mouths.
Whether it is from the perspective of financing volume or market share, Weima, Nezha and Zero Run have become the more leading car companies in the second echelon of new car manufacturing, and many people also regard Weima, Nezha and Zero Run as the "back wave" in the new forces of car manufacturing.
However, this group of "back waves" has recently been plagued by crises, especially zero-run cars.
Backward quality Models are low-end
In 2015, Zero Run Cars was founded. From the beginning, founder and chairman Zhu Jiangming positioned Zero Run as a technology-based enterprise, and in Zhu Jiangming's eyes, Zero Run is also a existence that can sit on an equal footing with Tesla.
When zero-run cars released the zero-run 2.0 strategy in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province in 2021, Zhu Jiangming said confidently, "Zero-run is very confident in automatic driving technology, and it is expected to achieve full-scenario autonomous driving technology in 2024, surpassing Tesla in three years."
However, it is ironic that from the first product S01 to TO3, zero-run products are always a certain distance from technology products, whether it is in quality or intelligence level zero-run cars and Tesla is not comparable, several products are either quality problems emerge in an endless stream, or are A00-class models that do not need to build high car levels, zero-run cars for three years more than Tesla, it sounds more like "touching porcelain".
The first product of the zero-run car is called S01, the shape is weird and intimidating, and some of the functions of the vehicle are benchmarked against Tesla, with intelligent technology as the selling point.
Many car owners said after mentioning the car that S01 could not achieve some of the officially advertised driving assistance functions, many car owners to the official feedback, the official reply was: "The auxiliary driving function said by the owner will be realized through OTA upgrades in the future, but for safety and stability considerations, some functions are still in the testing stage." "For the specific time when the OTA will be upgraded, the official did not give a specific time.
In addition, the quality problem of S01 has always been a major problem, the brake system failure, power system failure, control system failure and other problems are countless, and the owner's rights protection incident is endless.
After the S01, ZeroCar launched the T03, an A00-class model. At that time, the pure electric A00 level market has not yet bloomed as it is today, Hongguang MINI EV dominates the market, and zero running is from the configuration and intelligence aspects, making T03 a low-priceD A00 level high-end intelligent product, which injects face recognition, L2 intelligent driving assistance, automatic parking and other functions. T03's final market performance is also relatively good, and it still accounts for most of the sales of zero running cars.
After T03, zero-running cars have launched C11, C11 has been given high hopes, is a product that sets all the resources of zero-running to create, the vehicle is positioned as a mid-level SUV, which is also the main intelligence, but the problems of the zero-run C11 car are mostly about the problem of intelligent failure, and in 2021, it can sell 5,000 vehicles, and the market performance is not satisfactory.
In addition to quality problems, zero-run cars have recently been besieged by consumers because of the difficulty of delivering cars.
Zero-run car delivery is difficult
Since the end of 2021, zero-running cars have been complained about on a number of complaint platforms, and the main reasons for their complaints are the delay in delivery time and the poor attitude of merchants after-sales service.
Some users complained that they ordered the zero-run C11 luxury version 1 car in October 2021, communicated with the sales, manufacturers and even official customer service before purchasing, and promised them that the vehicle could be delivered within 3 months after booking, and the complainant delivered the deposit based on the commitment of the sales and manufacturer. As a result, after 3 months of waiting time, the vehicle has not been delivered, and the 4S shop has not replied, and after its own inquiry, it is known that the delivery time of the vehicle has been postponed to March 2022.
The complainant believes that the promise made by the sales and manufacturers before is overturned, deceives the consumer, and does not take the initiative to inform the owner of the delayed delivery, which is a deliberate concealment, and the delayed delivery of the vehicle also has an impact on his own life, so he complains.
For a brand, it is a responsibility and obligation to deliver products to users within the promised time. If it is not possible to follow the delivery, the car company or brand should also explain the reason or pick up the car solution, and the zero-run car is silent about such events, which is really unacceptable.
Since the establishment of zero-running cars, it has always been controversial, product quality problems are frequent, even an ordinary test drive activity can become a negative event, zero-running cars can be said to have been living in the cusp of the storm.
IPOs were a lifesaver
For the zero-run car that has been negative for a long time and is always on the cusp of the storm, how to survive in the cracks is its first thinking for a long time, and the first step to survival is to ask for money. Engaging in futures, PPT, playing concepts these routines have become obsolete, and now that there are many new forces in car manufacturing, it is also difficult to obtain large amounts of financing.
In 2021, the big year of the rise of new energy vehicles, in terms of financing, according to the Tianyancha APP, zero-running cars only obtained 9 billion yuan of funds through B round and Pre IPO financing, plus more than 3 billion yuan of previous financing, and the overall financing amount of zero-running cars can exceed 12 billion yuan. In terms of losses, from 2018 to 2020, the net profit loss of zero-running cars was 307 million yuan, 588 million yuan and 1.39 billion yuan, which means that before obtaining the first financing in 2021, the funds of zero-running cars have been basically zero, and in the first quarter of 2021 after obtaining funds, the loss of zero-running cars has directly expanded to 860 million yuan, so the rate of burning money, 9 billion yuan of funds is expected to be fully consumed in 2022.
Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, once said: "Don't want to build a car without 20 billion." Later, Li Bin frankly admitted that "this number is underestimated", and immediately fell into an endless "looking for money" battle, until the NASDAQ listing to ease the pressure. Car building is like burning money, to maintain the development of the enterprise, the current zero-run car can only impact the IPO, becoming the fourth new force after the "Wei Xiaoli" through the IPO to build cars, get more capital inflows, and maintain their own survival.
In 2020, Zero Run Auto has publicly stated that it will submit IPO documents in the second half of 2021 and be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board at the end of 2021 or 2022.
The Sci-Tech Innovation Board does not have strict profit requirements for listed companies, but the failure of WM Automobile to impact the Sci-Tech Innovation Board does let everyone know that the Sci-Tech Innovation Board has high requirements for the scientific and technological content of the declared projects and has limited tolerance for losses, and zero-run cars obviously do not meet the requirements.
In December 2021, Zhu Jiangming, chairman of Zero-Run Automobile, resigned from Dahua Shares, which is considered to be a full preparation for the listing of Zero-Run Vehicles.
On January 26 this year, the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also announced the progress of Zhejiang Zero Run Technology Co., Ltd.'s "Approval of Overseas Initial Public Offering of Shares (Including Ordinary Shares, Preferred Shares and Other Stocks and Derivative Forms of Stocks)", of which the IPO progress of Zero Run Auto has reached the stage of accepting materials. This means that Zero Run Auto is about to officially submit a prospectus.
Zero-run car compared to the same as the after-wave of WM and Nezha automobile, whether in the capital chain, or sales are slightly inferior, if the zero-run IPO is successful, become the fourth listed car-making new force after Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng, then both the flow of capital funds or the amount of exposure will tend to zero run, under the blessing of many aspects, it is not difficult to open a certain gap with WM and Nezha who are struggling to find a listing, but if the zero-run car continues to ignore the product quality, and relies too much on mini car models, Even if the zero-run car is listed, it may not last long.