This article is the 448th original work of deep diving atom
From the release of the brand to the official unveiling of the first model, Li Yinan only took more than two months.
On December 15, 2021, Niu Innovative Energy Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Li Yinan, former executive vice president of Huawei and founder of Xiaoniu Electric, launched a brand: "NIUTRON" in English and "Self-Traveling Home" in English and Chinese" and announced that the first product, Self-Traveling NV, will be produced on a small scale in March 2022, listed in the first half of the year and accepted reservations, and started delivery in September of the same year.
At the end of February this year, the first engineering prototype car was exposed from the exterior and interior design of the Youjia NV, intending to show the outside world that it was prepared.
△NIUTRON
In the official description, since the Youjia NV began to set up the project as early as 2018, to now, the product has accumulated three rounds of engineering trial production, R & D test mileage of more than one million kilometers, the first round of winter and summer tests has been completed, and the second round of winter testing is currently being carried out. However, there are still many doubts about it from the outside world, although the car-making cycle has been pre-built for three years, as if this time is quite long. But if you think about it deeply, you will find out how much time can be spent in the middle of this time to develop the product?
Compared with Baidu, Xiaomi and other second-round car builders, Li Yinan's way of playing without common sense is fast, but how to effect should be drawn with a big question mark. Combined with all the information analysis, behind the development of the NV of the self-tourer should be the choice of "building blocks" to build, which is the same as Weilai, the ideal of the early stage, but now the competition of new energy has entered the 2.0 stage of competing in the strength of the self-developed intelligent platform and the scale of the self-built factory.
In the face of the performance of less than 10 new car-making forces active in the automobile market last year, and the performance of about 5 car companies with single-month sales of just exceeding 10,000, I can't help but ask Ziyoujia Auto: Are you really ready?
01 Why you have to go from two rounds to four rounds
Before we talk about self-wandering, we must first talk about Li Yinan.
Born in Changsha in 1970, Li Yinan attended the junior class of Huazhong Institute of Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology) at the age of 15, and entered Huawei at the age of 23. At the age of 25, he was promoted to chief engineer, and at the age of 27, he became the executive vice president of Huawei, and was once considered ren Zhengfei's "successor".
Li Yinan, 30, left Huawei to start the Harbor Network. In 2006, Huawei finally acquired Harbor, and Li Yinan returned as vice president.
At the age of 38, Li Yinan left Huawei again to become the chief technology officer of Baidu; at the age of 41, he became a partner of GSR Venture Capital; at the age of 45, he became the founder of Maverick Electric, making the brand a dark horse in the market under the pressure of Aima, Yadi and other celebrities, and successfully landed on nasdaq four years later.
However, Li Yinan's second venture was also not smooth. A few days after the release of The first new car of Maverick Electric, Li Yinan was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for suspected insider trading in the first instance.
In addition to this embarrassing thing, Maverick Electric was initially given high hopes by the capital market, and was once known as "two-wheel Tesla". In the two-wheeled electric vehicle market at that time, everyone competed in price and endurance, And Maverick Electric began to reduce dimensions with Internet genes, and with the "intelligent" high-end label, Maverick Electric broke through from a number of electric vehicle brands, and successfully landed on the NASDAQ in only three years. However, in fact, the technical moat of Maverick electric "intelligence" is actually not deep.
△ Maverick listing ceremony
After slowing down, Yadi and Emma have launched their own intelligent products, directly benchmarking the calf electric, coupled with the imitation of the calf's No. 9 electric, and also launched a complete set of intelligent control systems. The maverick's intelligent labels are increasingly untested.
Moreover, intelligent labels have not been converted into sales advantages. In the first half of 2021, Maverick Electric sold more than 400,000 units, while Yadi Electric two-wheelers sold a total of 6.54 million units, and Emma's sales in the first half of the year are expected to be more than 4 million units. Maverick Electric is only one-tenth of its sales.
The intelligent color has faded, the sales volume is difficult to break through, and the Maverick Electric is gradually cold in the capital market. From the high of $53.38 per share on February 16 this year to the close of U.S. stocks on March 7, the closing price was $8.68, and the total market value fell by nearly 80%.
According to past experience, the more this time, the more new stories are needed to stimulate the capital market. From this point of view, four-wheeled electric vehicles, which have more technology and logic in common with two-wheeled electric vehicles, can easily become Li Yinan's most priority choice. However, what are the odds of Li Yinan winning?
02 Four-wheel electric vehicle, the odds are geometric
Compared with the traditional car companies " worried about falling behind ", the new car-making forces show the "bravery" of going forward and following. After Byton, Sailin, Future, Ranger, and LeEco have folded one after another, new entrants are still in an endless stream. There is no shortage of runners on this track. The first batch of Wei Xiaoli has entered the "battle of market scale", Baidu and Xiaomi car projects have been promoted step by step, and the new energy brands of traditional manufacturers have also entered the market.
However, compared with Baidu's accumulation in automatic driving, Xiaomi's advantages in supply chain and resource integration, Li Yinan's self-travel home can not see any "home base" that can be taken for the time being. What's more, this round of entrants, the family base is quite rich, Xiaomi's early investment is 10 billion, Li Yinan's side, the current market value of Maverick Electric is 662 million US dollars, about 4.2 billion yuan, and the founder Li Yinan's personal value is about 1 billion US dollars, this number is not low, but it is a cup of water for car building.
In terms of technology, Ziyoujia said that it now has a core R & D team of more than 1,000 people, all from mainstream first-line automobile companies at home and abroad, with an average working experience of more than 10 years. But two to four wheels is not simply a matter of adding two wheels. The capital in Li Yinan's hands is only the production and research and development of batteries, the layout of electronic control systems and vehicle management systems, etc., and these cannot be directly applied to new energy vehicles.
△NIUTRON plant
If you refer to the evaluation of the Maverick two-wheeled electric vehicle, the lack of technology may be even greater. The characteristics of The Maverick electric vehicle circulating on the Internet are super first-class price, first-class concept, second-rate design, third-rate configuration, fourth-rate quality, five-rate quality control, and non-flowing after-sales service. Although the evaluation may not be fair, it at least reflects that the product power of Maverick Electric is flawed in the reputation of consumers.
The core of the new round of car manufacturing, automatic driving and intelligent car machine, since the tour home in this engineering trial car debut did not mention too much. Previously, Li Yinan said in an interview that automatic driving is a revolutionary technology, but it also takes a long time to evolve, and it must be based on improving user experience and absolute safety.
According to follow-up reports from a number of media, Ziyoujia belongs to the more conservative level of intelligent car companies in the industry in terms of auxiliary driving functions.
This means that since the listing of youjia NV, the vast majority of players facing the camp of new car-making forces have lost the opportunity in this area, and for consumers who now have higher travel quality pursuits, they will give priority to those products that can better meet their own needs at any time. At this point in time, the level of intelligence often represents the level of product strength.
For the matter of car building, Li Yinan admitted that if there is no strong "supply chain" in China, there will be no self-traveler. Because of this, the NV, the first model of Youjia, does not have the same revolutionary advantages as the Mavericks entering the two-wheeled electric vehicle from the present, but is only a car company born under the strong supply chain system of the mainland.
When more and more car companies work hard in the field of intelligence, can the "fast" of self-travelers take the lead? Li Yinan's own words should be the best answer: they are undoubtedly the latest to build a car, but time will tell everyone the only correct answer.