Hello everyone, I am the president of the Electric Vehicle Commune.
"The prince will have a kind of feeling for Xiang Ning?" This is the Qin Dynasty more than 2200 years ago, when China first launched a large-scale peasant uprising, Chen Sheng shouted this sentence indignantly to the suffering peasants, inspiring them to resist oppression.
A few months ago, Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, said the same thing in an interview with the media. Since joining Nezha Automobile in 2018 for 4 years, he has been gritting his teeth and holding his breath.
When Nezha Automobile first entered the "jianghu" of car manufacturing, many people were not optimistic about its future, and its reputation and reputation were far less than that of "Wei Xiaoli".
However, as a solid industrial product, the automobile has always been a "hero of quantity".
Just in the second half of last year, when Xiaopeng and Weilai set a record of breaking the ten thousand new sales of the next month, when they raised a toast to celebrate, Nezha was like a "dark horse", and he unconsciously caught up!
From November last year to January this year, Nezha sold more than 10,000 copies for three consecutive months, changing the first echelon pattern of the new forces from "three-person fighting landlords" to "four-person playing mahjong".
In the blink of an eye, it was March 1st. As the "New Forces Inner Roll Day" held in January, the commune office once again tirelessly discussed, who is the champion of this month's sales? Because of the uncertain factor of the Spring Festival holiday shutdown in February, we struggled for 2 or 3 hours without results.
Later, we simply threw the question to the majority of netizens, and engaged in a guessing sales activity on Weibo, and the 100 yuan JD card that came closest to the correct answer was attached. (If nothing else, the commune will hold a similar prize quiz every month on the 1st of each month, and everyone is welcome to come to the wool.) ）
In the Weibo comment area, most people are still guessing that Xiaopeng will win the championship, after all, there was a big gap between Xiaopeng's sales and the second place in the past few months.
With Nezha's last announcement of the results, the ranking is basically settled. Ideal won the championship with a delivery volume of 8414 vehicles, while Nezha ranked second with a delivery volume of 7117 units.
For Nezha, the sales performance in February is not bad. It can be said that Nezha took advantage of the victory to pursue, and took a small step forward, and he was close to winning the championship.
In recent years, in the boom of new energy car-making, new forces are not uncommon, but victory ultimately belongs to a small number of people, and many brands cannot withstand the baptism of a round of inner rolls and fall.
So, what did Nezha Car, which was not optimistic about it at first, survive to the present and rush to the first array of new forces?
01. Martial Arts Spirit
"Maybe it's not enough to 'cultivate' yourself." This is Daniel Zhang when he first entered Nezha Car, he was faced with the embarrassment of no one, no money, and no resources.
As the upright CEO of Nezha Automobile, he is talking about "repair", which seems to be somewhat contrary to the current era of science and technology. It is said that the Daniel Zhang who "do not do the right thing" do not like to read books on business management and financial co-ordination at all, and like to read martial arts novels the most.
"On the surface, martial arts novels are all fights and kills, but behind them are actually transcendences for themselves." The spiritual core of being uneven, indomitable and full of energy is what he has always pursued. This spirit has always accompanied him, and at the same time, it has also skillfully run through the growth process of Nezha Automobile.
In 2000, the 25-year-old Daniel Zhang became a member of the "North Drift Party", joined Foton Motor, and entered the management within a few years. Since Daniel Zhang led the team, Foton Automobile has quickly entered the fast lane of development, from unknown to 2007 to become the world's second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer after Mercedes-Benz.
In The 10 years of Futian, Daniel Zhang skillfully combined the "courage" in the spirit of martial arts, and created a marketing "martial art" called "coyote combat method": first create a market from the gap, and then extract teeth from the mouth of the tiger (a strong competitor).
At the beginning of 2010, Daniel Zhang joined Chery New Energy and met his close friend on the road of his career, Chery New Energy's technology leader: Fang Yunzhou.
As a national new energy vehicle expert with a technical background, Fang Yunzhou has been deeply engaged in the field of new energy vehicles for many years and is an important promoter of Chery New Energy's successful entry into the national "863" plan.
At that time, the new energy market was far less hot than it is now, and no one even knew what new energy vehicles were, under this unfavorable situation, it was difficult to open up a new market that originally did not exist in new energy, but the two did not shrink back, but fought side by side.
Fang Yunzhou was responsible for refining manufacturing, Daniel Zhang was responsible for "leading soldiers to fight", and pulled out the unique "coyote combat method". The QQ3 electric version was sold 8,000 units a year, and now I think it is already a very good result.
Probably in this process, the two have a deep brotherhood. (Can't find a photo of Fang and Zhang, put another brother Zhou Hongyi.)
In 2014, Fang Yunzhou, who had a dream of entrepreneurship, felt that the time was ripe, and he resolutely chose to leave Chery New Energy, which had been working for 16 years, and went to Tongxiang, Zhejiang Province, to establish Hezhong New Energy. Perhaps it was the departure of his best friend that made Daniel Zhang feel that it was boring to continue to stay in Chery, so he jumped ship to BAIC BJEV.
At this point, the two parted ways.
Later, Daniel Zhang still relied on the tried and tested "coyote combat method" to lead BAIC BJEV to win the 2017 global new energy sales champion.
But on the other hand, the Fang Yunzhou that came out to do it alone was more bitter, and it was necessary to draw PPT to pull investment, spend money to recruit soldiers and buy horses, and also soak in the factory to do technical research...
When Daniel Zhang ushered in the peak of his life, he was caught off guard by receiving the "olive branch" thrown by his best friend Fang Yunzhou - The United People lacked a CEO.
At this time, Daniel Zhang, I think there should be some hesitation. He understands that leaving the "hotbed" of BAIC BJEV and joining The United Group is equivalent to 3 years of hard work for him, and everything will start from scratch.
Perhaps driven by the "righteousness" in the spirit of martial arts, Daniel Zhang finally chose to insert a knife for his brother's two ribs to meet the new unknown challenge.
02. From the Congregation to Nezha
In 2018, two battle-hardened auto industry "veterans" reunited in a startup that was founded less than 4 years ago and was almost a "blank sheet of paper".
At that time, Hezhong Automobile had no marketing system, no product listing, and financing was not easy to finance, and the company only had 500 people from top to bottom, and no one even knew what they were doing.
Facts have proved that Fang Yunzhou's invitation to Daniel Zhang back is a very correct choice, Daniel Zhang has a wealth of brand building skills, which has become the key to breaking through the bottleneck of The United.
"United. The strength of the united people, the pattern is good, the company name can be, but to do the brand is too bland, lack of attractiveness. If we have money, the United Brand can be built, but the problem is that we don't have money. As the delivery of the first model of The United Market approached, Daniel Zhang said in an internal discussion, "If a brand wants to be successful, the name is very important, and it must find an element with a memory point." ”
Although the United People came from a poor background, everyone was full of energy at that time, and the "tenacity" in this martial arts spirit reminded Daniel Zhang of a character in ancient Chinese mythological stories - Nezha.
As a mythical image that has been circulated for more than 2,000 years, Nezha's IP is definitely known to women and children, and his spirit of daring to fight against fate also coincides with the development direction of United Automobile. Therefore, Daniel Zhang decided to set up a new brand under the banner of United, Nezha Automobile.
"Taking Nezha's 'bear child' as a brand image is a bit too dramatic!"
"I can't figure out, what is the connection between Nezha and cars or travel?" If you want to reflect the speed, why not call it a Hot Wheel car? ”
A car has not been handed over to The United Automobile, but the brand name has been changed in advance, and this wave of operations is really a bit "fan" in the eyes of the outside world. Many people have advised Daniel Zhang to change their names, but Daniel Zhang have resolutely refused to change them. Perhaps, Daniel Zhang used the divine skill of "uncertain prophet", and once he knew that Nezha's IP would definitely be on fire.
The fate is such a coincidence, the 2019 movie "Nezha's Devil Boy Descending" exploded overnight, and it refreshed the history of Chinese animation films with a box office of 5 billion yuan.
The response of the Nezha team was extremely rapid, and they directly found the animation team and talked about this cross-border IP cooperation. Nezha N01, which is printed with "Magic Boy Nezha", exploded on the Internet for a time, which made many people know Nezha Car.
Since then, the "famous words" shouted by the magic boy Nezha when facing the judgment of fate in the movie have been directly borrowed by Nezha's car and become a motto.
03. The Poor Have the Poor Way of Living
When it comes to new car-making forces, the impression given is usually that of Wei Xiaoli's intelligent and high-end image. Nowadays, Wei Xiaoli has survived the most difficult moments, and now one by one has begun to "let go of himself", thinking about grabbing as much cake as possible from the BBA.
Although Nezha and Wei Xiaoli are both new forces and their sales are equal, their sinking brand positioning is completely different from Wei Xiaoli, and even seems to be a bit out of place among many new forces.
When the three brothers Li Bin, He Xiaopeng, and Li Xiang were seen by the outside world, they were not around Daniel Zhang or Fang Yunzhou.
Of the three models that have been sold, except for the Nezha U Pro version, which cost more than 100,000 yuan, the price of the rest of the models is below 100,000 yuan. Its main model, Nezha V, has a minimum starting price of only 59,900 yuan before the subsidy has not declined in 2021.
As the saying goes, "the price is the same to buy the big, the size is the same to buy cheap", as a small pure electric SUV, the price of Nezha V is even lower than many mini cars, which is definitely a cross-level blow.
"Nezha cars don't make toys for the rich, only cars that ordinary people can afford." Last June, Daniel Zhang said at the first fan festival.
Of course, there is a reason to cut from the low-end market.
First of all, Nezha Automobile is a traditional car company team, and it is necessary to "fight the bayonet" in the field of intelligence with Wei Xiaoli, who has an Internet background, which is obviously impossible to fight. The customer resources accumulated in the automotive industry chain are more prominent in the cost control of car manufacturing, which is also the advantage of Nezha compared to Wei Xiaoli. Daniel Zhang also said: "One of our strengths is the ultimate lean operation capability. ”
Secondly, compared with Xiaopeng and Weilai from the Internet, Nezha's PPT is obviously not as bright as others, and the ability to attract investors by new concepts is relatively limited, which leads to Nezha's financing process not seems to be very smooth at the beginning.
Li Bin once said a "wise quote": "Don't want to build a good car without 20 billion." "According to the public information of the enterprise investigation, from its establishment to the present, The United Masses have only raised a total of 17.15 billion yuan...
What Li Bin said is actually not unreasonable, and indeed many new force car companies have collapsed because of the break of the capital chain. Since joining the United Congregation, I think that the seemingly confident Daniel Zhang, the heart should also be hanging, and no one knows whether Nezha will become the next to fall.
"We have not been under the halo, rarely paid attention to by others", Daniel Zhang recalled the most difficult days of Nezha, in a few months he like a perpetual motion machine, he met no less than 200 investors in a row, looking for money to give Nezha a car "life extension", but the problem of "lack of money" has still not been fundamentally solved.
In a time of critical survival, Daniel Zhang made a "very risky" decision after discussing with Fang Yunzhou: exchanging equity for money.
As of December 2021, United New Energy has 20 shareholders, large and small, but after merging similar items, it was found that there are two mysterious forces behind United New Energy - Yichun and Nanning, two state-owned assets supervision and administration commissions.
Yichun state-owned assets hold 38.6% of the shares, Nanning State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission holds 18% of the shares, while founder Fang Yunzhou holds only 1.1%, which is very rare among the new forces.
And if the state-owned capital exceeds 50%, even if the state-owned enterprises look at it... Nezha, which is called a new force, is clearly a down-to-earth "state-owned enterprise"!
This basically explains why the United Congregation chose to build new factories in Yichun and Nanning, after all, it was Dad who gave the money.
Fortunately, Yichun and Nanning SASAC did not interfere too much in the development direction of Nezha, and the control was still in the hands of the Nezha team.
It can be said that whether it is deciding to go to the low-end sinking market, or selling it for money, Nezha has "gambled" twice.
Why is the bet right? Because there is not only one Nezha in the traditional car company team in the new force, but also Weima.
WM's positioning is obviously more high-end than Nezha, choosing the price range of 100,000-200,000, playing the label of "the number one strength faction of smart cars", and is also the first brand to build a factory and deliver cars. But unfortunately, the high-end did not do it, but became the middle.
For Weima, if you want to get out of the predicament, what you need most is money. However, the recent frequent explosion of problems such as burning cars and locking electricity has also made Shen Hui's financing road more and more difficult, so he has fallen into a dead cycle. It is worth mentioning that in January, when everyone's sales exceeded 10,000, Weima did not announce sales, and in February, when everyone was affected by the Spring Festival and the supply chain, Weima, which sold more than 3,000 units, slowly announced its results after a few days of delay.
Same starting point, different ending. Nezha's sales exceeded 10,000, and Weima "quit the group chat".
Nezha's temporary success at this stage is inseparable from the accurate analysis of his own advantages and disadvantages and situation, as well as the courage to "sell himself".
04. The countryside surrounds the city
At the end of 2021, when Daniel Zhang was asked how he was doing with Nezha's recent performance, Daniel Zhang said: "From the outside, we can score 80 points, but we define ourselves internally it may be between passing and 70 points." ”
It seems that Daniel Zhang is not satisfied with Nezha's performance: "Our positioning is the mass market, selling two or three times more than others to prove that we are doing well." ”
Thanks to the housekeeping skills of Daniel Zhang "coyote combat method", Nezha should naturally start from the B-end market that is best at it, and the proportion of individual users in 2020 is only 40%.
However, the fate of the decline of BAIC BJEV has been written into the annals of history, the B-end market space is limited, and living by large orders does not guarantee the long-term development of passenger car companies, and the Daniel Zhang of executives from BAIC BJEV naturally understand this. Only by opening up the C-end individual user market can we ensure stable sales and avoid the risk of "eating this meal without eating".
By 2021, the proportion of Nezha's individual users has increased to 82.5%, and Nezha has begun to make changes.
From the current point of view, the sales volume of Nezha's 2-tier and below cities accounts for more than 60%. There is no doubt that Nezha is the best in the new forces to do the sinking market. But always doing the sinking market is equivalent to blocking your own road, which is not conducive to the long-term development of a brand.
"We are preparing to enter the city," Daniel Zhang said, "Wei Xiaoli has a golden key, starting in the central market, we are grassroots, starting from the sinking market." In the north, Guangzhou, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou, the whole battle will begin immediately. "The Nezha S that will be officially unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show is probably the ammunition in their guns."
The encirclement of the cities by the countryside is a set of tactics used by Chairman Mao to lead the Communist Party to fight the world, and at this moment, Nezha is also planning to take this road. Start with the Xiaomi Plus rifle, get supplies in actual combat, expand the team in actual combat, and upgrade research and development, manufacturing and distribution capabilities in actual combat.
At this time, some people will question, a low-end brand, why is it called a high-end brand that has occupied a big city?
Indeed, the most intelligent aspect that can reflect the high-end of electric vehicles, Nezha is not currently outstanding, especially in intelligent driving, some functions can be counted as useful, but it is definitely not easy to use. Daniel Zhang also admitted: "In the past, Nezha had limited resources and did not have the ability to invest in research and development in intelligence, and could only choose to follow and optimize the strategy." ”
But for the weakness of intelligence, Daniel Zhang has always had a sense of crisis: "The transformation of automobile intelligence is a thousand miles a day." If you miss this very narrow time window, you can only wait for others to reduce the dimension of the blow in the coming day, and there is no power to fight back. ”
In recent days, Nezha has released the intelligent driving system "TA PILOT" at an exchange meeting. I thought that this system was made with the support of the 360 team, but what the president did not expect was that this system was actually "full stack self-developed" by the Nezha team.
According to the information released at the press conference, the upcoming Nezha S will be equipped with TA PILOT 4.0 system, the hardware is not ambiguous at all, using Huawei's MDC610 intelligent driving platform, the final force 200TOPS, equipped with 2 solid-state lidar, 2 forward 8M cameras. In terms of functions, it supports functions such as pilot assisted driving and memory parking.
Nezha, who is often complained about being unintelligent, has actually been "doing things" behind his back. The total number of Nezha Intelligent Research Institute has reached 600 people, of which the proportion of master's and doctoral degrees in the 300 intelligent driving team has reached more than 80%.
In the future, Nezha will further increase investment, and by the end of this year, the intelligent research institute team will be expanded to more than 1,000 people, with a total investment of more than 10 billion yuan.
It can be said that Nezha is making painstaking efforts to sharpen the knife for the "countryside encircling the city".
05. Write at the end
"Nezha S extended range version + pure electric version, after 6 months of listing of the two versions, to achieve a monthly sales of 10,000 units." Daniel Zhang representation.
In addition, Nezha has started a Pre-IPO round with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan, and plans to launch an IPO in Hong Kong within this year.
At this time, some people may complain, Nezha drifted, and began to brag.
In response, Daniel Zhang retorted: "Why can't we do it? It was the same in the beginning, most people were questioning us, no one believed us, but we didn't resent the doubts of others because we didn't give up trying. ”
Perhaps, the development path of Nezha, in addition to intelligence, there are various difficulties such as service systems and equity that need to be overcome, but the brand core of "not believing in fate" is the confidence that they dare to gamble, dare to fight, and dare to fight.
For the future, Wei Xiaoli has already pointed his sword at the BBA, but Nezha's goal is still to "live", to which Daniel Zhang said: "Live to 2025, you just get a ticket to a qualifier, and then there are knockout games to play." Our goal is never-ending, either we are defeated or we defeat it. ”