At the 2022 China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, He Xiaopeng was particularly "talkative" than in previous sessions, and his iconic beep was even higher whenever he spoke to the excitement.
Because, in the past 2021, the results achieved by Xiaopeng Automobile are indeed good. Xiaopeng Automobile's annual delivery of 98,000 vehicles has completely changed the head pattern of new energy vehicle companies, "I am very happy that Xiaopeng can become the first among the new car-making forces, and we have also entered the sixth and seventh places in the entire EV car-making enterprises in China." ”
At the forum, He Xiaopeng also emphasized that with the upgrading of the XPILOT intelligent driving assistance system, "it will truly subvert the travel status quo of the entire automotive industry", and he also "confidently believes that Xiaopeng Motors is 2-3 years ahead of most companies in this field." ”
In the blueprint laid out by He Xiaopeng, Xiaopeng Automobile will also enter a new era of "man-machine co-driving" in 2023, which means that at the technical level, the current intelligent assisted driving will cross the level to the category of automatic driving; in 2026, Xiaopeng Automobile will also be likely to transition to unmanned driving, and He Xiaopeng even publicly called for relevant policies and regulations to "prepare for the arrival of this era in advance".
As for the upcoming urban NGP, He Xiaopeng also did not shy away from expressing the idea that "Tesla's FSD is not as good as Xiaopeng XPILOT". In fact, the real sense of automatic driving, whether in the technical path or related regulations are not really clear. Therefore, in the eyes of many people, He Xiaopeng's above-mentioned speech is suspected of "making a big fuss".
Of course, this is not the first time that He Xiaopeng has played the role of "Emperor of Prophecy" on the Forum of the Hundred People's Association.
In 2018, He Xiaopeng, who had just entered Xiaopeng Automobile full-time, stood on the podium of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum for the first time. At that time, He Xiaopeng was still like a young teenager who did not understand the world in front of the big guys in the automotive industry. In such a scene, He Xiaopeng made his first "prophecy" at the Hundred People's Meeting.
At that time, China's new energy vehicle market had just completed the process from scratch, and the entire market was full of the hustle and bustle of capital chaos, mixed and chaotic.
Miao Wei, then minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, commented on the new energy vehicle market at that time, "With the continuous improvement of the penetration rate and ownership rate of the new energy vehicle market, the industrial development has entered a new stage. However, some problems of unbalanced and insufficient development have gradually become prominent, such as the policy system still needs to be continued to improve, and the core technology needs further breakthroughs. ”
Based on this, He Xiaopeng put forward his three-point prediction, he believes that the integration of intelligent interconnection technology and automobile manufacturing will become the key point of the next popular track; new car manufacturers must have software + hardware integration to solve Fangnan if they want to succeed; they cannot use policy subsidies as a source of profit.
Talent and technology research and development was the first essence of Xiaopeng Automobile at that time. At that time, Xiaopeng Automobile had not yet delivered a new car, and the entire company had less than 1,000 people, but the members of the R& D team had exceeded 70%. He Xiaopeng also set a goal of breaking through 5,000 people in the next two years, while still maintaining the proportion of R&D personnel at more than 50%.
In 2019, I don't know what the reason is, He Xiaopeng did not publicly appear on the podium of the Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, but was replaced by He Tao, co-founder of Xiaopeng Motors.
Prior to that, Xiaopeng Automobile had just begun to deliver the first new car, the Xiaopeng G3, in December 2018, and the incompleteness of the product level and the lack of experience of the user operator were destined to be obstacles that Xiaopeng Automobile could not get around. Therefore, the quality control issue that He Tao discussed at the 100-person meeting is also one of the anxiety points of He Xiaopeng himself.
Xiaopeng Automobile is ready to solve the quality control problem from both hardware and software aspects. Based on He Xiaopeng's comprehensive judgment on the strength of software and hardware in 2018 and the prediction of talent demand, the Haima factory at that time had an automation rate of 85%, and the entire R&D team had expanded to 3,000 people.
It is under such a premise that Xiaopeng Automobile was able to complete the delivery of new cars relatively smoothly in 2019, and completed the report card of 15,000 units in the first complete delivery year. Even though that number has risen 10-fold today, Xiaopeng is still able to maintain high-quality delivery quality.
In 2020, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the National Development and Reform Commission issued the Notice on Improving the Financial Subsidy Policy for the Promotion and Application of New Energy Vehicles, which officially stipulates that from 2020, the subsidies for new energy vehicles will decline by 10%, 20% and 30% on the basis of the previous year.
With the official commissioning of Tesla's Shanghai factory, the entire new energy vehicle market has shifted from being only driven by policies in the past to being driven by policies + markets in both directions. A large number of car companies that rely on policy subsidies to survive have been stranded on the "shoal" of profits, and companies with real technology in software and hardware have also emerged. It was at this time that the three-strong pattern of "Wei Xiaoli" took shape.
According to He Xiaopeng, 92% of the models delivered by Xiaopeng Automobile in 2019 have bought with automatic driving and intelligent networking, and the degree of new cars in intelligence has begun to become one of the top three reasons for consumers to buy cars. So far, the 3-point prediction proposed by He Xiaopeng at the 100-person meeting two years ago has been verified in the new energy vehicle market in 2020.
Of course, He Xiaopeng did not stop his prediction at the 2020 Hundred People's Meeting. He Xiaopeng believes that the difficulties experienced by Xiaopeng Automobile and even the entire new energy automobile industry in 2019 are not repeated; enterprises must rely on intelligent cars to truly become strong; relying on intelligent driving assistance systems, Xiaopeng owners can let go at a considerable part of the time.
To this end, Xiaopeng Automobile is still smashing real money and silver in technology research and development. According to its 2020 financial report, Xiaopeng Automobile's R&D investment reached 1.726 billion yuan, accounting for 29.53% of the annual revenue, far higher than Weilai's 15.3% and the ideal 11.85%.
In 2021, the entire new energy market ushered in a big outbreak. According to relevant statistics, the sales volume of China's new energy vehicle market exceeded 3 million for the first time, an increase of 170%, and the market penetration rate exceeded 10% for the first time. Xiaopeng Automobile also finally raised its eyebrows in this year, with monthly sales exceeding 10,000 vehicles in many months, and reaching the top of the new car-making force with a total of 98,000 vehicles in the whole year.
Xiaopeng Automobile finally relied on its superior quality in intelligence and became the "strong" in He Xiaopeng's mouth.
However, the global COVID-19 epidemic is still in the aftermath, and the wave of lack of core has become the main factor restricting the development of the new energy vehicle market. According to He Xiaopeng, in order to compete for chips from suppliers, he even often plays "flying" to drink. The most critical thing is that in 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile has also ushered in several opponents with super competitiveness.
In March last year, Xiaomi Technology founder Lei Jun announced that he was willing to bet on "all the reputation accumulated so far in his career" to build a car; Huawei also cooperated with a number of automakers last year, and the Polar Fox Alpha S, The Circle M5, and Avita 11 all represent huawei's highest level in smart car solutions.
He Xiaopeng also said in his guest CCTV "Dialogue Challenger" column that Xiaopeng Automobile is likely to be greatly impacted in the "new car 2.0 era" where these new forces are rising.
In 2022, Xiaopeng Automobile has made rapid progress in intelligent driver assistance systems. The penetration rate of Xiaopeng on the intelligent auxiliary driving system XPILOT3.0 has exceeded 96.2%, and the penetration rate of high-speed NGP per 100 kilometers has reached 96.2%, which means that 62 kilometers of 100 kilometers are driven by NGP.
He Xiaopeng's "prediction" on autonomous driving in 2020 has also been realized. In addition, Xiaopeng Automobile is also actively laying out the hardware support and software services of XPILOT4.0, with a view to realizing the era of "man-machine co-driving" and "unmanned driving" in 2023 and 2026 respectively.
He Xiaopeng's accurate prediction of the development of the new energy vehicle market stems from his rich experience accumulated in the mobile Internet era in the past. The superpower that makes every "prediction" become a reality is He Xiaopeng's courage to bear pressure and the incomparably decisive execution after he understands the general trend.
"Make it, it's the best answer!" He Xiaopeng said this when he was a guest on the "Dialogue Challenger" column at the end of last year. Compared with the mysterious feeling created by the "Prophetic Emperor", He Xiaopeng is obviously more willing to take the crown of "doer".