After "Wei Xiaoli", the fourth listed company among the new car-making forces will appear.
On 26 January, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) announced that it had accepted applications for listing of Zero-Running Cars, which means that Zero-Running Cars may be listed in Hong Kong. This company, which appeared in the same month of the same year as Ideal Automobile, has a big background, but the road is not smooth. The first car that took three years to build only sold more than a thousand for two consecutive years; the team once thought that no qualifications were needed, and the media test drive also made jokes...
However, the financing capacity of zero-run cars is very strong. It has raised 7 times, except for two undisclosed financing amounts, the remaining five financings are about 11.56 billion yuan. Its investors, in addition to well-known investment institutions and enterprises such as Industrial Securities (601377) and Sequoia Fund, there are also relevant investment platforms of Hefei Municipal Government and Hangzhou Municipal Government.
In 2021, the sales of zero-run cars have turned around, becoming the basis for its sprint to the market. In 2021, its cumulative delivery for the whole year was as high as 43,121 units, an increase of 278.6% year-on-year, and squeezed into the top five in the new car-making forces.
Although sales have gone up, problems have emerged. In May 2020, more than 200 zero-run S01 first car owners collectively defended their rights. Since then, there have been a number of zero-run T03 car owners complaining. And the new sales pillar of zero-run cars, C11, is not good, and it is denounced by car owners...
If the IPO of Zero-Run Car is successful, under the condition of abundant funds, its research and development level and brand building may be greatly improved. However, this is all an afterthought.
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New car-making forces "batch listing"
Among the new car-making forces, there may be another listed company.
According to the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, on January 26, Zhejiang Zero Run Technology Co., Ltd. (an enterprise affiliated to "Zero Run Auto") has received the approval materials for the overseas initial public offering of shares (including ordinary shares, preferred shares and other stocks and derivative forms of stocks). Although the materials do not mention which capital market the zero-run car chooses to list, in the eyes of industry insiders, it is more likely that it will choose to go to Hong Kong for listing. According to media reports, Zero Run Auto has confirmed to the media that it has submitted a listing application, and a full-time department has been responsible for this matter.
As early as 2020, Wu Baojun, co-founder of Zero-Run Car, had mentioned the listing plan. He said that ZeroCar plans to submit IPO documents in the second half of 2021 and will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board at the end of 2021 or early 2022. In addition, he also mentioned that before the IPO, ZeroCar will also carry out a round of financing.
In the middle of the two time points, there has also been news that Zero Run Will abandon the Science and Technology Innovation Board, consider going to Hong Kong for an IPO, raising at least $1 billion, and has made preliminary contacts with consultancies. However, the zero-run car did not affirm the news, but only said that "this news is not the official news of zero-running." ”
It is worth noting that in the enterprise investigation, zero-running cars changed the type of enterprise in April 2021, from "limited liability company (Sino-foreign joint venture)" to "joint-stock limited company (Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan investment, unlisted)".
Now it can be seen that the zero-run car has finally sounded the horn of the listing and taken the next step.
For the new car-making forces, listing is a choice that must be made. Because of the burning rate of car manufacturing, financing and car sales income are currently difficult to support.
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, has bluntly expressed a lack of money. "The development of enterprises needs a lot of money, to say that we are not short of money is false, that is, the (enterprises) that have been listed and raised money, they also have to be re-financed." For enterprises, the more money the better, we hope that Nezha can raise more funds. Daniel Zhang also mentioned that for new car manufacturers who are in the critical period of mass production and delivery, the demand for funds is infinite.
Listing financing has become a way for most new car-making forces to "find money". At present, among the new forces of car manufacturing, Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile, which are ranked in the echelon, have all been listed on the US stock market, of which Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile have successively landed on the Hong Kong stock market to achieve dual listing. Although NIO's listing in Hong Kong stocks has been blocked, there has been news recently that it may be listed in Singapore. In addition, Nezha Automobile, WM Motor, Gaohe Automobile, etc. have all expressed the idea of IPO.
Like zero-run cars, Nezha Automobile and WM Automobile have long targeted the science and technology innovation board. However, in the recent news, it was revealed that these two companies may choose Hong Kong stocks in the future. According to the analysis of securities practitioners, car companies have strict review of A-share listings, which is more difficult than Hong Kong stocks. The Hong Kong stock mechanism is flexible and the preparation time for listing is also shorter, so most of the new car-making forces will choose Hong Kong stocks.
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The "new forces of the waist" struggling to survive
Among the many new domestic car-making forces that have rushed to the listing, if the zero-run car goes well, it may become the fourth listed company.
According to public information, zero-run cars were established in July 2015, almost at the same time as ideal cars, which was also the time when new car-making forces came into being. Unlike other friends, the presence of zero-running cars in the automotive circle is not very high. Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Zero-Run Cars, also admitted that "in the past, we left the impression on the industry that it was too low-key."
Although low-key, the background of the zero-run car should not be underestimated. Before founding Zero Run, Zhu Jiangming also had another identity - one of the founders of 002236, a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. In 2015, Dahua was already the second largest in the world in the security industry. As of press time, the market value of Dahua shares was 57.136 billion yuan.
From security to car manufacturing span is very large, Zhu Jiangming once said the real reason why Dahua shares stepped into the car-making track: "Although Dahua shares have a dream of a market value of 100 billion, and now the global market of the security industry is more than 100 billion, it is impossible to be unique, and the cake of the automotive industry is large enough." ”
When he founded zero-run cars, Zhu Jiangming was close to 50 years old, which was considered to be an advanced age among the founders of the new car-making forces, but it also showed from the side that Dahua shares were determined to build cars.
Relying on Dahua's capital, talents and entrepreneurial experience, zero-run cars initially stood on a high starting line, but the follow-up development was not satisfactory.
Like the ideal car, the first car of zero-run cars, the S01, took more than three years. At the beginning of 2019, S01 was listed, and the price was between about 189,900 and 229,900 yuan, and the price after subsidy was about 109,900 yuan to 149,900 yuan. This price point is in the new energy vehicle, which is considered to be below the medium price point. It is reasonable to win the love of consumers, but sales are very dismal: only more than 1,000 vehicles were delivered that year, and only 1125 vehicles were sold the following year.
The reason why zero-run cars have been criticized is that the team does not know how to build cars. Zhu Jiangming once recalled that at that time, he thought that he could sell it if he made a car that passed the test, and he did not even know that the production and sale of automobiles needed access qualifications. And in the S01 media test drive also made a joke, some test drive media was deducted 12 points by the traffic police, because the test drive car used a fake pro card. Zero-run cars have also been ridiculed for this incident, and some people have boldly predicted that zero-run cars will not live for more than a year.
Although it looks like it is in danger, the zero-run car has not fallen like other new forces, in addition to the help of Dahua shares behind it, external financing blood transfusion is also the main support for its survival.
According to the enterprise investigation, the zero-running car has been financed 7 times. In addition to the two undisclosed financing amounts, the remaining five financings are about 11.56 billion yuan. Among its investors, in addition to well-known investment institutions and enterprises such as Industrial Securities, Sequoia Fund, Shanghai Electric (601727), CICC Capital, and CITIC Construction Investment, there are also relevant investment platforms of Hefei Municipal Government and Hangzhou Municipal Government.
In addition to its financing capabilities, zero-run cars also have impressive places, which are their self-research capabilities. It is reported that zero-run cars are the only enterprises in the new forces with comprehensive self-research and self-manufacturing capabilities, and their business scope covers intelligent electric vehicle design, R&D and manufacturing, intelligent driving, motor electronic control, battery system development and cloud-based vehicle networking solutions.
In 2020, ZeroCar released its second car, the T03, a low-priced car priced at less than $90,000. It was also in this year that zero running began to show signs of turning over. The data shows that in 2020, the sales of zero-run cars were 11,391, of which T03 accounted for more than 10,000.
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Turnaround and the future
The real confidence to let zero run have a listing is in 2021. This year, Zero Run not only raised more than 8.8 billion yuan (4.3 billion B round financing and 4.5 billion Pre-IPO round financing respectively), but also unexpectedly became a "quasi-first-line brand" in the new car-making forces.
According to the official data of zero-running cars, zero-running cars delivered a total of 43,121 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 278.6% year-on-year. Among them, T03 delivered 38463 vehicles, C11 delivered 4021 vehicles, S01 delivered 637 vehicles.
In September 2021, its cumulative annual sales were 27,817 vehicles, which means that it contributed more than one-third of the sales in the fourth quarter. Its official mentioned that the monthly delivery volume in December hit a record high of 7807 units, an increase of 39% month-on-month and 368% year-on-year.
If you rank among the new car-making forces, the delivery volume of zero-run cars can rank in the top five, followed by Xiaopeng Automobile, Weilai Automobile, Ideal Automobile, and Nezha Automobile. However, there is still a gap between zero-run cars and the first few, Nezha car sales exceed its more than 20,000 vehicles, Wei Xiaoli is more than double, of which Xiaopeng and Weilai have almost entered the 100,000 mark. At the same time, although the sales volume of WM Motors is lower than that of zero-run cars, it is also closely pursued by the gap of only a few hundred vehicles.
However, Zhu Jiangming seems to be very confident in the future. As early as 2020, Zhu Jiangming mentioned that it is necessary to enter the TOP3 of the new car-making forces in 2023 and achieve a market share of 10% of domestic new energy vehicles in 2025. In July 2021, Zero-Run Announced the "Opening of the 2.0 Era", at the press conference at that time, Zhu Jiangming had proudly stated: "In the field of automatic driving in three years, surpass Tesla, and sell 800,000 vehicles in 2025." ”
However, reality is not always as good as imagined. Although sales have gone up, the quality of zero-run cars is constantly being questioned. According to media reports, in May 2020, more than 200 zero-run S01 first batch of car owners collectively defended their rights, and listed many quality problems of zero-run S0 in them, involving brake system failure, power system failure, vehicle system failure, control system failure, etc. Since then, a number of zero-run T03 car owners have complained that their L2 level intelligent assisted driving is immature. As early as the test drive meeting of T03, there have been failures in face recognition, L2 intelligent driving assistance, automatic parking and so on.
The new sales pillar of zero-run cars, C11, is also not well received. It is reported that in the case of C11 not fully delivered, zero run "changed". Some car owners said that the motors of the zero-run C11 luxury version and the premium version of the model were changed from water-cooled motors to oil-cooled motors, in addition, the lifetime warranty service was cancelled and changed to an 8-year warranty service. Subsequently, the zero-run car was jointly denounced by the owners, and the brand image was undoubtedly damaged.
On the China Net Auto Quality Complaint Platform, just into 2022, Zero Run Auto received more than 20 complaints, almost all of which complained that its dealers could not pick up the car after receiving the deposit. It is reported that the sales model of zero-run cars is "direct operation + city partner". As of December 1, 2021, the number of zero-run car channels nationwide exceeded 300, of which 200 new supermarkets were added in 2021. Rapid expansion does lead to high sales, but it can also bring drawbacks, and delays in picking up may be one of them.
Some insiders mentioned that perhaps because the self-development standards of zero-run cars are not high enough, and their software and hardware are not mature enough, some quality problems have emerged. In the brand 2.0 strategy of zero-running cars, it is mentioned that 8 models will be launched by 2025, covering the price range of less than 350,000 yuan. However, if the quality is not improved, it may be difficult for consumers to accept its high-end products.
According to the data, in 2021, Tesla's sales in China were 484,130 units, an increase of 235.1% year-on-year. According to Xu, there is still a long way to go.