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In January this year, there was such a passage from the "Dialogue • Challenger" column of CCTV Financial Channel:
Human beings have made a mistake, should not use the engine to drive ordinary cars, the engine should drive airplanes, ships, if humans used motors, chemical batteries to drive cars, it would have been electrified today.
The person who said this was Ding Lei. Not the one who founded NetEase and still likes to raise pigs.
It is Ding Lei, former general manager of SAIC-GM, former co-founder and global vice chairman of LeTV SuperCar, and current chairman and CEO of Huaren Express, who single-handedly pushed the price of domestic cars to the 800,000 mark.
This passage quickly sparked a wide discussion, and people with a little knowledge of automobile history pointed out Ding Lei's fallacy: electric vehicles appeared earlier than fuel vehicles, not the other way around.
In 1834, the American Thomas Davenport built the first electric vehicle driven by a DC motor. Due to technical limitations at that time, the car had a short cruising range, with a maximum speed of only 6km/h, and the battery was disposable, and it could not be recharged after the power was used.
In 1881, the Frenchman Gustav Truff built a pure electric car powered by lead-acid batteries, with a maximum speed of 15 km/h and a cruising range of 16 km.
The birth of the fuel car was not until 1885, 51 years later, when the German Carl Benz arrived late.
This means that the birth of electric vehicles is 51 years earlier than that of fuel vehicles. Ding Lei, who has a master's degree in solid state physics at Fudan University and was the general manager of SAIC-GM, cannot be unaware of such a rudimentary and superficial history, and his performance is more like knowingly asking questions.
In this way, Ding Lei and the Gaohe automobile he founded by him were "red" in a strange way.
The interpretation of Ding Lei also began to be very popular: human prophets, car-making maniacs, strategic maniacs, daydreamers, and even the second "Jia Yueting" theory also began to become popular.
When it comes to Gaohe Automobile, the consumer's impression is not clear, and the advanced shape of science fiction, the variety of ways to open the door, the high price, and the unclear relationship with Jia Yueting FF91 are several core keywords.
As the first mass-produced model of Gaohe Automobile, the HiPhi X launched in September 2020 has a starting price of 680,000 yuan and a top price of 800,000 yuan, which is the highest price of all the models of domestic car manufacturing forces. At this price, you can buy two Weilai, in the mercedes-Benz, BMW and other traditional luxury car price system, is also a solid luxury car.
After the launch of HiPhi X, Gaohe Automobile rose to fame, jumping from a lonely new company to the ceiling of domestic trams. Ding Lei also advertised himself as "the first technology luxury brand in the new world" on various occasions.
Boastful words such as "Apple of the automotive world" and "the next Tesla" began to go online. In the press release, the paragraph that Gaohe Automobile is best at using is that you can feel it: "Starting from the concept of cosmic space-time, we will create a new world luxury intelligent car brand that runs through time and space, faces the future, and carries the definition of co-creation with users." ”
"Ding Lei, the founder and chairman of Gaohe Automobile, took inspiration from Einstein to 'travel through time and space' with his thoughts, injecting the immortal digital soul into the machine, creating a real digital life form, shocking design and 'machine' awakening human-computer interaction, bringing future science fiction products to reality in 20 years."
A detail that can be used for reference is that after Gaohe Automobile opens batch delivery in mid-May 2021, it will release a "high-end" sales form every month, and its definite words cannot be described as rich, "more than 500,000 luxury brand electric vehicles" and other words tailored for Gaohe Automobile.
But in fact, according to Gaohe Automobile's own published data, the company's cumulative sales volume in 2021 was 4237 vehicles, which was the sales champion of luxury brand electric vehicles of more than 500,000 yuan in the second half of 2021.
Has there ever been a car company in history that survived on hundreds of units sold every month?
The answer is: Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari and other ultra-luxury brands with deep historical heritage.
But for a new car-making company, the annual achievement of more than 4,000 units is far from quenching the thirst of the near, nor can it bring profits to the company. Compared with car manufacturing, Gaohe Automobile's intention in the capital market is more obvious.
In the Chinese auto market, electric vehicles are sold to 800,000 ranges, except for Gaohe Automobile, which is only a promising car that has passed through the clouds.
Although the two brands are not directly related, the two have a common concept for car building: stacking configuration.
In order to sell high prices, brainless rough pile hardware. For example, HiPhi X comes standard with a six-door electric combination NT spread door, digital custom lighting, adaptive air suspension, and front triple screen. The second car, the HiPhi Z, is even crazier, surrounded by isd light clusters, AGS active grilles, air suspension tails, interior scenario-based mode simulations, and multi-axle displacement vehicle-mounted digital robot HiPhi Bot.
But embarrassingly, the exterior styling of the HiPhi X is highly similar to Jia Yueting's FF91 model. The so-called super-era configuration, after delivery only half a year ago, encountered users complained about "obsolescence": lidar can not be upgraded, computing power and chips are outdated, B-pillar has no camera, the car machine system is monotonous and outdated, and the map display screen and voice control are often stuck.
Even the six NT spread wing doors that frequently appear in the major advertising screens also appear at moments when they cannot pass the pass, are not strict, and do not listen to the command.
Gaohe's second flagship model, the HiPhi Z, was released on November 6, 2021, and this new model that "came out of the movie" debuted in "Machine Awakening 2041". According to Gaohe, more than 95% of the mass production content of the HiPhi Z has been locked and will be officially released and pre-ordered at the Beijing Auto Show in April 2022.
Gaohe Auto proudly said: HiPhi Z brings the future of 20 years to today.
However, how the trend of automobile consumption in 20 years is defined, and what is the portrait of automobile consumers, cannot be determined.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, believes that hiPhi X is not in line with the current high-end demand for young gold collar electric vehicles.
Gaohe Automobile is positioned as a high-end and high-priced, but in practice, it is far less affordable than brands such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal.
For Gaohe Automobile or any new car-making force, funds are the most valuable resource. Li Bin has publicly stated that "there is no 20 billion don't want to build a car."
But Gaohe Automobile never seems to be short of money, spending four years to start delivering, the price of the ceiling in exchange for the sales of the basement, Ding Lei has said many times: "Huaren Express is not short of money, the company has original capital from the United States, as well as government investment, there is no plan to start social private placement for the time being, and there will be no A, B, C, D rounds of investment." ”
In fact, Bloomberg reported that China's "most expensive" electric vehicle brand, Huaren Express, is considering listing in Hong Kong as early as 2022, intends to raise no more than $500 million, and is working with UBS and Morgan Stanley on IPO matters.
On January 17 this year, Huaren Express announced the signing of a cooperation agreement with Qingdao City to set up a China headquarters in Qingdao and establish Gaohe Automobile Sales and Service Corporation. Huaren Express said that it will build a "world-class R & D technology center for the world", and Qingdao will give full support to the company's further development.
In November 2021, Huaren Express reached a strategic cooperation with Bank of Communications Shanghai Branch, and Bank of Communications Shanghai Branch provided comprehensive credit support of RMB 5 billion.
Now it seems that The Chinese Express, which is not bad at money, has also begun to pave the way for financing and improve its own hematopoietic ability.
For the prospects of Gaohe Automobile, Ding Lei once calculated such an account: "The number of more than 500,000 auto products in the Chinese market is about 1.2 million units, and if 30% of them are converted to electric, it is close to 400,000 units." If 10% of users buy HiPhi X, the monthly sales will be more than 2,000 units. ”
If you want to become the next Tesla, the possibility of Gaohe Automobile is very low, because this is not Ding Lei's wish, and becoming the next LeTV is not Ding Lei's wish, after all, he wants to bring the car 20 years later to today.