In the past few years, the head companies of the new car-making forces have been listed in groups, and the three Wei Xiaoli have completed the listing of two places.
After the head player landed on the capital market, the second echelon also began to seek to land. Recently, Zero Run Auto submitted an IPO prospectus on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and if it is successfully listed this time, Zero Run Auto will become the fourth new energy automobile enterprise listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after "Wei Xiaoli"
So what is the confidence of zero-running cars to apply for listing before Nezha and Weima? How to tell the story of the listing of zero-run cars?
The growth rate is leading, and another member of the new car-making force will be born?
"I want to start from scratch again and enter the smart car industry, so it's called zero-running cars."
Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Zero Run Car, never shy away from talking about the story of "laymen building cars", before founding Zero Run Cars, Zhu Jiangming did not understand "cars".
In 2019, the first mass-produced model of zero-run cars, the "S1", was launched, and when this model was officially delivered, it was produced by Changjiang Automobile.
The following year, zero-run launched the second model T03, which is priced at only a fraction of the price of "Wei Xiaoli", and finally opened up market sales for zero-running cars.
Since then, with the sign of "the second manufacturer in the world after Tesla to have the complete independent research and development capabilities of intelligent electric vehicles and the mastery of core technologies", the "highlight moment" of continuous revenue has begun.
According to the Company's prospectus, the total revenue of Company Company increased by 439.7% from RMB117.0 million in 2019 to RMB631.3 million in 2020 and further increased by 396.1% to RMB3,132.1 million in 2021. Among them, the sales of automobiles and parts are the main source of profit for zero-running cars, which achieved revenue of 117 million yuan, 616 million yuan and 3.058 billion yuan in the first three years.
Source: Zero Run Car Prospectus
Previously, the 2021 annual financial report released by Weilai and Ideal showed that Weilai's annual revenue in 2021 was 36.14 billion yuan, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year; Ideal achieved revenue of 27.01 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 185.6% year-on-year.
In contrast, the revenue growth rate of zero-running cars is much higher than that of Weilai and ideal in the first echelon, and similarly, in the growth rate of delivery, zero-run is still leading. According to the company's prospectus, in the whole year of 2021, a total of 43,748 electric vehicles were delivered at zero-run, an increase of 443.5% over 2020. In the same period, the year-on-year growth of WEILAI and ideal delivery volume was 109.1% and 172.7%, respectively.
In 2021, zero-running cars are the fastest growing of China's leading emerging electric vehicle companies in terms of deliveries. From the perspective of models, the T03 model has become the "top pillar" of the existing zero-run models. According to publicly available data, by the end of 2021, T03's cumulative sales volume was 46,000 units, accounting for 85% of the total zero-run car sales share.
In September 2021, the third car C11 with zero running was officially listed, positioned as a "cross-level fully equipped pure electric SUV", unlike S01 and T03, C11 achieved mass production for the first time equipped with zero-run self-developed intelligent driving chip "Lingxin 01", and the global self-development commercialization of zero-run was further advanced.
Self-research is just needed by car companies, and the "Wei Xiaoli" Internet car manufacturing, Weima, Nezha founders are born in traditional car companies. Zero running from security cross-border car building, "self-research" is more faith.
However, car companies develop their own money, which is also recognized in the industry.
How difficult is it to conquer the self-developed Sea of Stars in the whole region?
"Zero Run treats smart electric vehicles like an electronic product." This is a sentence mentioned by Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Zero Run. Electronic products, the emphasis is on intelligence, and products to be smart, there is less investment.
In the context of high growth, it seems to be expected that zero run "run" to the capital market, but we can find that such an "electronic product" with continuous sales is undoubtedly still in continuous investment.
According to the zero-run auto prospectus, in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the net loss of zero-run car reached 901 million yuan, 1.1 billion yuan and 2.845 billion yuan respectively, and the adjusted net loss was 810 million yuan, 935 million yuan and 2.629 billion yuan, respectively.
If you look at the profits, the current state of zero running is still stuck in the loss of money. Since 2019, the gross margin of zero-run cars has been continuously negative, which means that the company is selling completely below cost.
Car manufacturing is a money-consuming industry, and it is also common for new car-making enterprises to lose money.
Tesla sold more than a million vehicles before achieving full-year profitability for the first time in 2020. The data shows that from 2018 to 2020, THE NET LOSSes of NIO were 9.638 billion yuan, 11.295 billion yuan and 5.304 billion yuan, respectively; from 2018 to 2020, the net losses of Xiaopeng Automobile were 1.399 billion yuan, 3.692 billion yuan and 2.732 billion yuan, respectively.
Referring to the development history of head car companies, perhaps for zero-run cars, the current loss will continue for a long time. How to maintain the stable operation of the company during the "loss" period may also be one of the reasons why zero-run cars want to IPO.
In an interview, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Motors, mentioned that the next stage of industry competition has entered the "Warring States Era", and each company needs to reserve more "grain and grass".
According to the enterprise investigation, at present, zero-running cars have carried out 7 rounds of financing, and the disclosed financing amount has exceeded 11 billion yuan. Its most recent round of funding was a Pre-IPO round of financing with a financing amount of 4.5 billion yuan.
According to the data disclosed by zero-running cars, most of these "grains and grasses" are invested in research and development and sales.
According to the company's prospectus, zero-run vehicles spent $358.3 million, $289.2 million and $740.0 million on research and development in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively. Sales expenses were CNY 131.15 million, CNY 154.92 million and CNY 427.86 million, respectively.
Even so, there is still a gap between the R&D expenditure of zero-run and the new forces of first-line car manufacturing. From the perspective of R&D investment, in 2020, Xiaopeng Automobile's R&D investment reached 1.726 billion yuan, and Weilai invested 2.488 billion yuan; BYD and GAC were 8.556 billion yuan and 5.125 billion yuan respectively in the same period.
"2020 Listed Car Companies R&D Investment Ranking"
Xiaopeng, who has always shown people with technical labels, claims that it is only the full-stack self-research of intelligent software, and the zero-run car wants to achieve the global self-development of core technologies such as intelligent driving + intelligent cockpit + three-electric system, but from the current investment scale, the zero-run car wants to achieve this goal, and may need more funds and time.
In 2025, we will achieve annual sales of 800,000 vehicles, and the "slogan" of zero running is not good
In order to tell the story of "self-production and self-research", Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Zero Run, also set a goal early.
Specifically, it can be summarized as "surpassing Tesla in 3 years", "launching 8 new cars in 4 years", and "selling 800,000 vehicles in 2025". Each of these three goals is not a simple thing, and even for a zero-run car, it is still a bit difficult.
Leaving aside the goal of surpassing Tesla and pushing 8 cars in 4 years, the goal of selling 800,000 vehicles in 2025 is more like a loud slogan shouted by zero-run cars.
According to the data, in 2021, the total delivery of zero runs throughout the year was 43,121 units, an increase of 278.6% year-on-year, if it is calculated by 800,000 vehicles in 2025, it means that the compound annual growth rate is more than 100%, and at least doubled every year.
As its benchmark car company Tesla, global sales have reached 936,000 units in 2021, but confidence in the annualized growth rate is only maintained at least 50%, compared to the annual growth rate of zero-run cars to double every year may be more difficult to achieve.
From another point of view, without comparison with Tesla, the current sales level of zero-run cars is also insufficient compared with head car companies such as Wei Xiaoli.
In the first two months of 2022, the delivery volume of zero-run ranked fifth among the new domestic car-making forces. Taking February as an example, although the delivery volume of major car companies fell a lot month-on-month due to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday, the delivery volume of Zero Run in February was only half of the fourth place.
Therefore, whether compared with Tesla abroad or compared with domestic leading forces, it is unlikely that zero-run cars will achieve the goal of "800,000 vehicles".
Of course, the sales gap is only part of the barrier to achieving the goal, and for now, the "sprint" road of zero-run cars is still difficult.
First of all, it is undeniable that the new energy automobile industry is now a blue ocean, but with more and more players entering the track, the market competition is becoming more and more fierce.
According to the data of enterprise investigation, 180,000 new energy vehicle-related enterprises will be added in 2021, an increase of 111.63% year-on-year. Jinlianchuang data shows that the sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 are only 13.4% of the sales of traditional cars, and the domestic market is mainly occupied by traditional fuel vehicles.
Although zero-run cars are said to be in the second echelon, in the face of a huge number of new energy vehicle companies, the competitive pressure can be imagined.
Second, under the influence of comprehensive factors such as the epidemic and geopolitics, global commodity prices have continued to rise.
The price of aluminum, magnesium, lithium, chips and other important raw materials for automobile production continues to be high, and the cost of vehicles and parts continues to be under pressure, and some vehicle companies have officially announced price increases since February, and the price increases of car companies will undoubtedly spread to the demand side. Like the current dilemma faced by "Wei Xiaoli", zero-run cars continue to face supply chain problems.
On the whole, whether in its own conditions or in the external environment, there is still a long distance between the zero-running car and his "2.0 strategy", based on this, logging into the capital market may be a good way out at present.
epilogue
Buffett famously said, "Life is like a snowball, the most important thing is to find very wet snow and a long slope", and this is also true for businesses. For new energy car companies like zero-run cars, the current track is a long "slope", so how to find and create thick snow may be something that car companies should focus on.
Of course, the process of rolling a "snowball" will not be smooth, and in 2022, the cost of upstream raw materials is still high, and the trend of compressing corporate profits will continue. Especially for the second echelon car companies living in the shadow of Tesla, Wei Xiaoli, etc., it is more necessary to find the most suitable ecological niche for themselves.