Image source @ Visual China
Text | Talking about AI, the author | Zheng drove
The price increase storm of the new forces is still spreading.
After the ideal and Xiaopeng successively announced price increases, Weilai finally could not hold back, and on April 10, Weilai announced the price increase of some models through the official APP. Among them, the starting price of each version of the "old three" 866 models was raised by 10,000 yuan, while the ET7 and ET5 still maintained the original price.
If the price increase in the automobile industry is caused by the force majeure of non-market behavior, then more news from the beginning of the year seems to let us see the many other hidden worries they are facing at present.
First of all, in addition to the price increase, the doubts about the wave of layoffs of new forces have also spread on the Internet since this year, at the same time, the ideal and Weilai have also encountered the pressure of the departure of the old coach this year, Weilai is controlled by the supply chain, and it announced the news that the production of the whole vehicle has been suspended on the ninth of this month.
Layoffs, departures, price increases, and suspension of production. In the face of a series of information, the new forces seem to have stepped out of the comfort zone of the past to a certain extent since the beginning of 2022.
So at such a point in time, this article will try to connect these fragments of information, and further look at where the new forces will sail in the future in the face of many uncertainties.
01 Under the tide of layoffs on the Internet: the face and the face of the new forces
Recently, on a workplace social platform, some netizens posted that "the ideal layoff plan has been written into the OKR of Li Xiang Q2 quarter, involving products and enterprise systems and other departments, and it is expected to lay off about 15%." ”
Although Ideal Motors has denied this claim, the other two companies appear to have put the layoff plan on the agenda.
In August last year, Li Bin, the founder of Weilai Automobile, issued an internal letter announcing that the company would lay off about 1,200 employees by the end of September. Supporting departments such as human resources, legal affairs, and finance have become the hardest hit areas.
At the beginning of this year, it was revealed that Xiaopeng will have a 20% layoff plan this year, and the main target of its layoffs may be focused on the employees who opened up the land for Xiaopeng in the early days.
Regarding the rumors of layoffs of Xiaopeng Motors, we have not received a response from Xiaopeng Motors, so we will not comment on the authenticity.
Although layoffs are more of a superficial piece of news for the company, we still want to talk about the wave of layoffs, the inevitable accidents in this specific stage of development of this new force.
Put the conclusion first, in tanqing said AI, the new forces have developed so far, especially for the new forces that have been in the head, to summarize with a seemingly inhumane conclusion, that is, many employees in many positions have become cost-effective existence.
Looking back at the development history of Wei Xiaoli in the past few years, Tan Qing said that AI believes that their talent recruitment mainly has three cyclical dimensions.
In the pioneering period from 0 to 1, speed is the first key word. In order to achieve this goal, the recruitment of people in this period will often be more than the industry salary in addition to the equity, so as to attract more experienced talents in the industry to join.
In the development period from 1 to 10, expansion is the first keyword. In order to adapt to the continuous upgrading and iteration and even broadening of business lines from 1 to 10, this period often involves more talents than from 0 to 1, or even several times. Therefore, compared with 0 to 1, although the dividend is diluted, it may still be relatively higher than the industry average treatment.
In the stability period from 10 to 100, integration is the first key word, and the way of recruiting talent changes subtly. On the one hand, in terms of enterprise demand, under the unavoidable radical speed and expansion, the stalls are too large, the number of personnel is too large, and the overall input and output are more and more blurred, which is an inevitable side effect.
On the other hand, on the talent supply side, the company's fame has begun during this period, so pure financial returns are no longer the only weapon to absorb talents.
With Wei Xiaoli wearing the halo now, in fact, it has entered or is about to enter the third period to a certain extent, and we can indeed see the various signs of the need for so-called "personnel optimization".
For example, some time ago, an employee of a new force car company revealed that colleagues who joined around 2016 had options in their hands, and after the company was listed in recent years, the same group of employees instantly came out with at least three multi-millionaires and one billionaire.
Or like many middle and high-level people in the Previous Ningde Era, they quickly became rich, and there were reports that according to the observation of people close to the top level of the Ningde Era, "Some senior managers have bought Porsches to play, and the stock speculation is ten million (yuan) level in and out, what else does he have in mind to work?" ”
It is true that there will always be a group of people who rise from the pursuit of personal value to social value after financial freedom, and are still keen to chase ideals and will not be satisfied with the status quo, but at the same time, we cannot deny that financial freedom will greatly dissipate the fighting spirit of many former employees, which is obviously not a good thing for the new strength of pursuing efficiency.
Further, Tan Qing said that AI believes that within an enterprise, it can be roughly divided into three types of positions, namely conventional output, creation and resource positions.
Creative and resource-based positions actually have to ponder new growth points and new strategies every day, just like Weilai bet on power exchanges, even car insurance, Xiaopeng's flying car project, etc. If you want to operate, what you need behind it is actually a large number of regular staff to execute.
But are these projects bound to be successful and become a new growth curve for enterprises? The answer may not even be certain to the top brass.
This means that if ten new subdivisions are expanded in the early stage, one becomes, and the remaining nine may be cut. Then after the business is cut, if creative and resource-based talents can continue to exert residual heat, the larger regular post personnel are likely to become victims of the strategic contraction period.
Therefore, for Wei Xiaoli, many employees in the two periods from 0 to 10 are likely to not only enjoy unexpected financial returns to today, but also under the continuous expansion and contraction of strategy and business, the number of positions will naturally change.
Then from the perspective of morally seemingly ruthless, but from the perspective of heavy profits and light separation of business interests, "let them graduate" is obviously a good solution for these regular employees whose cost performance is already very low.
Therefore, along this line of thinking, although it is not a good thing on the face, the layoffs do seem to be more like a sign that the new forces of the head are entering a more mature stage of development, rather than beginning to decline.
02 Veteran Departures: Crisis and Opportunity for Creativity and Resources
In February this year, Ideal Auto issued an official announcement that Wang Kai, CTO of Ideal Auto, left his job for personal reasons, which is also the highest level of personnel changes within Ideal Company since its inception.
Recently, there is relevant news on the Internet that Zhang Jianyong, an autonomous driving veteran who has spent 7 years in Weilai, will also leave his job in the near future.
It is not difficult to find that for the new forces, if "letting employees graduate" is a routine operation that needs to be carried out in a specific period of time, then the "active request for graduation" of the old coach in the creative and resource-based positions does not seem to be a cost-effective thing for the company.
Just like the scale of nearly 400 people in the team governed by Weilai Zhang Jianyong, or Wang Kai is ideally responsible for a series of intelligent work including electrical and electronic architecture, intelligent cockpit, automatic driving, platform development and Li OS real-time operating system. After the veteran left, the work he used to do brought a lot of integration pressure to the company.
However, for Weilai, it is reported that on the eve of Zhang Jianyong's departure, Li Bin personally presided over the staff meeting of the department, thanked Zhang Jianyong for his efforts in Weilai, and for his plan to start a business in the chip field after leaving, Li Bin also clearly expressed his investment intention. It seems that this may turn the danger of losing the veteran into a future opportunity.
Specifically, insufficient production capacity, if it points to the order growth rate is too much than expected, is actually a sweet annoyance, but if this annoyance points to the fragility of the supply chain, the sweetness is likely to become bitter.
From the previous chip famine to today's supply chain cost increase, it is not difficult to find that the new forces represented by Wei Xiaoli seem to have always been like a weather vane for changes in the supply chain of electric vehicles. Especially Weilai, in the face of last year's chip shortage and this year's supply chain crisis, it is the only one in Wei Xiaoli who has made a helpless decision to stop production.
This seems to mean that Weilai has lost Zhang Jianyong, a veteran, but there is also some intention of Sai Weng losing his horse. Zhang Jianyong's entry into the chip industry, under the blessing of the "ambiguous" relationship between Weilai's old owners, may further reduce the risk of Weilai's future supply chain.
However, at present, Zhang Jianyong wants to leave his job to enter the chip field, and there is only this one news, Tan Qing said that AI has not found any further substantive action news, and therefore, whether it is the loss of the veteran, or the "loss of the horse", for Weilai, it still needs time to test.
But what we can be sure of is that the supply chain is indeed becoming a problem that makes the new forces more and more headache.
03 Price increases and production stoppages: the end of the new power in the supply chain?
Regarding this wave of price increases, in fact, in addition to Wei Xiaoli, Tesla, the originator of electric vehicles with "cost pricing", has long been a weather vane. Even BYD, which stands up with the "everything made by itself" persona, as an old player who is stronger than the new forces in the supply chain, has also begun to choose to increase prices under the helplessness of soaring raw material costs.
We cannot deny that this round of cost increases is actually a force majeure factor, and it has long been not the result of market behavior, after all, today's car price increases have become news that is difficult to call news.
But Tan Qing said that AI believes that in the case of a non-optimistic supply chain cost environment, there will still be two ways to create competitiveness:
First, the positioning of products with higher gross profits can often help enterprises to last longer, and can exchange profits for sales within a certain period of time, thereby urgently delaying some established strategies. The second is to occupy the initiative in the upstream of the industrial chain as much as possible, and it will have a more prominent competitiveness in the face of this "natural disaster", which is fundamental.
Regarding the first point, Weilai is a good example, and the high gross profit product matrix gives Weilai the capital that can "last for a while", which is actually a good competitiveness embodiment.
Because at this stage, it is a relatively special period for Weilai, which coincides with the gradual delivery of ET7. Using this premise to invest a lot of painstaking models to seize the new market is the established strategy of Weilai, so in the special period of tight supply chain costs, the high gross profit of the entire product matrix is to preserve the chip that ET7 can hold on to longer in price competitiveness.
But on a macro level, this advantage is only like a few sandbags in front of the flood, and if the flood is too long, it seems to be better than nothing.
Let's look at the second point that is more fundamental, which is more intuitively reflected in the lack of core in the entire automobile industry last year.
Let's look at Wei Xiaoli first, just like last year, Weilai Jianghuai Factory was forced to stop production for five days due to lack of cores, or the ideal and Xiaopeng's reduced delivery and reloading. Looking at the entire electric vehicle market, although the lack of core exists, it does not seem to cause as much anxiety as the new forces to independent or traditional car companies such as BYD and Volkswagen.
Tan Qing said that AI believes that such a difference is actually largely due to how much initiative the downstream OEMs in the industrial chain can occupy in the upstream.
We often say that the Internet thinking of the new forces, the forward-looking of products, etc. are to a certain extent a dimensionality reduction blow to traditional car companies, but we cannot deny that the flexibility and pressure resistance of the supply chain do constitute the core advantages of traditional car companies.
For the new forces that debuted not long ago, on the one hand, their control of the existing supply chain in the market will be relatively weaker, although Weilai and other OEMs are constantly investing in chip and battery-related enterprises in the upstream of the industrial chain, Tianyancha APP shows that in the field of power batteries, WEILAI Capital has invested in Sunwoda auto batteries, Weilan new energy and other products.
Image source @ Tianyancha
However, such upstream friendly forces will undoubtedly take some time to develop.
On the other hand, the cooperation between traditional OEMs and existing supply chain enterprises in the market has been carried out for many years, and in the face of deeper cooperation and greater shipments, the bargaining and taking ability of traditional OEMs in special periods will naturally be better.
We may wish to observe further, just like today's secondary market will not be optimistic about the Ningde era, but began to be optimistic about the voice of BYD, in fact, to a certain extent, we have seen the moat advantages gradually shown by BYD under the difference in the industry position of the two companies.
Although the Ningde era is still a brother of power batteries, as a supply chain enterprise, the battery business is difficult to become its differentiated competitiveness, and BYD as an oem, even if it is also making a fuss about the battery, but the opponent is different, it can gradually establish a differentiated advantage in the camp of the main engine factory.
Therefore, in the face of the disadvantage of differentiation, it is not difficult for us to imagine how helpless weilai's choice of stopping production from last year to this year, or the choice of Xiaopeng and ideal delivery first and then reloading will be.
With the gradual entry of new energy vehicles into the deep water area, I believe that from last year's lack of core tide to this year's macro supply chain tightness, it has taught you important lessons to the new forces.
That is, no one can ignore the differentiated competitiveness of the supply chain, which will also be one of the most important moats for new energy vehicles in the future.