"Ten years from now, I hope to be able to do the same level as Apple." Lee wanted to say.
Text | Zuo Maoxuan
On February 25, Ideal Auto released its fourth quarter and full-year financial report for 2021: it achieved revenue of 27.01 billion yuan and a net loss of 321.5 million yuan for the full year of 2021. Among them, the total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021 was 10.62 billion yuan, and the net profit was 295.5 million yuan, an increase of 174.9% year-on-year.
This is the second time that the ideal car has achieved a single quarter profit after its launch. In the short term, Ideal Auto is the first new car-making force that is expected to get rid of losses, and has also achieved single-quarter profitability.
But the outside world prefers to see more possibilities in the ideal car.
"Compared with other new car-making forces, where is the competitiveness of the ideal car?" "Is focusing on home user groups enough for the long-term development of the company?" At the conference call after the announcement of the earnings report, investors paid more attention to the long-term development plan and path of the ideal car in the future.
Ideal Auto CEO Lee wants to position himself as a "product manager." Judging from the market performance of ideal ONE in the past two years, as the single model with the highest sales volume among the new forces, this is a product that meets the expectations of the ideal car, and Li Xiang can indeed be regarded as a qualified "product manager".
But Li Xiang also knows very well that in the field of smart electric vehicles, the ideal car actually has a lot of things to do. "We've just finished validating from 0 to 1, from product to application to technology and system layer, and we have so much work to do that we're worth doing for the next five or ten years." On February 25, Li wanted to say at the earnings report.
As a serial entrepreneur, Li Xiang has previously expressed his desire to build Ideal Auto into a company of 100 billion US dollars. Now, the ambition remains the same.
"Ten years from now, I hope to be able to do the same level as Apple." This is the strategic determination and core of the ideal car to deepen its cultivation in the field of intelligent electric vehicles and go down step by step. Lee wanted to say.
Technology and supply are short-boards
At present, the pattern of new domestic car-making forces is initially determined, and the differences between the first three companies are gradually clear, Weilai focuses on brand and user services, Xiaopeng focuses on software and automatic driving, and the ideal car is focused on family cars.
"As of 2021, I think the ideal car has completed the verification from 0 to 1, the explicit embodiment of our ability to build products for home users, the implicit ability is the efficiency of the entire company." Whether it is our sales at this level, or the proportion of sales and management costs of enterprises, we can see our advantages. Lee wanted to say.
In fact, the cost control and operational efficiency of the ideal car are indeed superior to those of the competition.
From the perspective of volume, at present, the overall sales scale gap between Ideal, Weilai and Xiaopeng is not large, but there is only one model of Ideal Auto on sale, with a higher bicycle market share and higher cost efficiency of product development.
In the first three quarters of 2021, the ideal gross margin was 20.6%. Weilai and Xiaopeng were 19.5% and 12.5%, respectively. In the first three quarters, Ideal delivered 55,270 vehicles and operating expenses of 4.476 billion yuan, that is to say, the cost of each user sold and served was 81,000 yuan, while Weilai and Xiaopeng were 108,200 yuan and 94,200 yuan in the same period.
High efficiency allows Ideal to achieve profitability and a more stable cash flow. In the fourth quarter of 2021, the total revenue was 10.62 billion yuan and the net profit was 295.5 million yuan, an increase of 174.9% year-on-year.
In the stage from 0 to 1, high efficiency is the main advantage of the ideal car, but for the automotive industry, high efficiency can not become the most important moat for a company in the market competition.
Facing the next stage from 1 to 10, Li wants to think that the ideal car should continue its advantages and make up for the shortcomings.
The first is to continue to do a good job in the products of the home user group, providing more products in each price range (such as 200,000 to 500,000 yuan); second, continue to adhere to high efficiency, continue to vigorously invest in research and development, based on the same high level, to ensure that the company achieves outstanding operating conditions.
Technology and supply are still the biggest shortcomings of the ideal car at present.
"Since last year, we have opened a full self-research on intelligent driving, and we have also established a strong team in voice AI technology, from domain controllers to the next generation of electronic telecommunications architecture, we have built a very good self-research team." On the other hand, in terms of supply capacity, it is also necessary to make up for it, and due to the growth of the entire market in the next step, more investment should be made in the supply and manufacturing system. Lee wanted to say.
However, recently, the departure of CTO Wang Kai has had an impact on the pursuit of ideal cars in the software field. It is understood that Wang Kai's work will be handed over to Ma Donghui, co-founder and chief engineer of Ideal Automobile. After this structural adjustment, Ma Donghui will be fully responsible for the research and development of the ideal car, such as vehicle, power, cockpit, intelligent driving, computing power platform, electronic and electrical architecture, and LiOS. However, Ideal officials said that Wang Kai left for personal reasons and he will continue to serve as a senior consultant for Ideal Auto until December 31, 2022, to ensure a smooth transition.
Within a year and a half of entering the ideal car, Wang Kai was one of the core forces that led the research and development of autonomous driving within the ideal, responsible for building the company's ADAS team and developing the navigation assisted driving system NOA.
Although the noA of the ideal car was postponed, compared with the paid software of Weilai Xiaopeng and the free standard driving assisted driving system, it received a good response in the market, further enhancing the competitiveness of the ideal car. According to Li Xiang, the number of noa navigation assisted driving activation and use vehicles has exceeded 70,000 units, more than the sum of other brands of navigation assisted driving in the Chinese market.
However, the software is free, which also means that ideals will lose the benefits that subscription fees can bring compared to competitors. Software charging is seen as a huge profit pool in the future of the smart automotive industry, and if it insists on being free, the ideal car may lose the profit imagination space in this field.
Li's persistence, investors' anxiety
As a heavy asset industry, whether it can achieve scale effect is crucial for a car company. Previously, Weilai, which is positioned in the high-end market, has decided to enter the mass consumer market through a sub-brand. The market in which the ideal car is located is more segmented – family cars.
Focusing on a specific customer segment allows you to focus your limited resources more, but you may also be limited.
Lee wants to have his own persistence.
"We will continue to focus on the home user market. This segment is positive, where we can achieve a better experience for our users and maintain a healthy gross margin, and we will continue to cultivate it. Lee wanted to say.
According to him, at present, in the market of more than 200,000 home users, ideal cars account for 2.5% of the market share (data is based on the entire passenger car market), and there is still a lot of space.
"It takes 20 to 25 percent to complete from 1 to 10 percent." Lee wanted to say.
Ideal Car's next few products are focused on family cars. The new model X0 is scheduled to be released in the second quarter of this year, delivered in the third quarter, and launched in 2023 with two ultra-fast charging pure models with high-voltage platforms.
In fact, as a large extended-range electric SUV, the X01 and the ideal ONE are different in model size, but there is also a certain user overlap. Moreover, X01 will do price exploration under the family positioning, entering the luxury field of more than 400,000 yuan, and it is difficult to become a hit like the ideal ONE.
However, Li wants to have high expectations for X01.
"For the X01 model, on the one hand, we can meet the needs of users that cannot be achieved in the ideal ONE model, on the other hand, we will create some new needs, which are not realized by all the new energy models on the market today." The concept of closely following the needs of users will be interpreted in X01. Lee wanted to say.
As for the next pure electric models, Li xiang also said that it is necessary to make products that significantly exceed the needs of users and inject more new elements into the industry. The three core elements are a battery with a higher charging rate, an 850-volt voltage platform system, a self-developed 400-kilowatt charging pile, and a charging station operated by itself.
Entering 2021, with the development of market scale, the new forces of head car manufacturing have entered a new stage of development, begun to expand their business scope, and plan their own intelligent ecosystem. Investors hear the new story of the new car. Not long ago, there was news that Weilai would start to build mobile phones after Geely.
Lee wanted to make it clear that he would not build mobile phones.
He said that in the field of intelligent electric vehicles, there are many things that need to be insisted on in the next five or ten years, and products, applications, technologies and systems must be thorough.
"The car is a space, we're in this space, and there's a lot of work to do, rather than going into other spaces right now. We can put our energy into many technologies, applications, and capabilities that may not perform well in these spaces, so that they are more controllable and more mature in the car space, which includes the ecology of content, the ecology of hardware, and so on. Lee wanted to say.