"Investor Network" Peng Baoxuan
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The new energy vehicle market is hot, and car companies with new car manufacturers are riding the wind. After 8 years of dormancy, United New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Nezha Automobile") has made great progress in the field of new energy vehicles. In March 2022, Nezha Automobile jumped to the second place in the list of new car-making forces, second only to the first-ranked Xiaopeng Automobile (9868. HK）。
Recently, the head of Thai Petroleum's pure electric vehicle business revealed that its pure electric vehicle foundry HORIZON PLUS is negotiating with Nezha Automobile. In fact, Nezha Automobile is one of the few new force car companies that have obtained the "double qualification" of car manufacturing, and behind the increasing delivery volume, it remains to be seen whether Nezha Automobile can go up to another level.
However, Nezha Automobile exposed two spontaneous combustion accidents in March and April 2022, and safety issues are still in doubt. After the peer company Zero Run Auto submitted the prospectus, how far is Nezha Automobile from listing?
Sales jumped to the second place among the new forces
Different from traditional car companies with production bases and production qualifications, NIO (9866. New car companies such as HK) and Xiaopeng Automobile adopted the OEM production model in the early stage, and then obtained passenger car production qualifications through acquisition or establishment of joint ventures.
According to public information, Nezha Automobile was founded in 2014, and in April 2017, it became the 13th national new energy vehicle license enterprise approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, and officially obtained the production qualification of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in May 2018, becoming a vehicle enterprise with dual qualifications.
The so-called double qualification means that the car company obtains the dual production qualification license certificate of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Incomplete statistics, as of now, a total of 11 car companies have obtained dual qualification production, including Nezha Automobile, BAIC New Energy, Yundu New Energy, Chery New Energy and other enterprises.
At the same time, Nezha Automobile completed the completion of the Tongxiang all-ecological smart factory in February 2018 and opened the construction of the second factory in Yichun in June 2019. According to Yingda Securities data, the planned annual production capacity of Nezha Automobile's Tongxiang and Yichun plants is 80,000 and 100,000 vehicles respectively, and the planned annual production capacity of the Nanning plant under construction is 100,000 vehicles.
From the perspective of annual sales, Nezha Automobile delivered 69,700 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 362% year-on-year, ranking fourth among the new forces of new energy vehicle manufacturing. The top three sales are still the first echelon of Xiaopeng Motors, Nio and Ideal Automobile (2015. HK), the sales of Nezha Automobile, Weima Automobile and Zero-run Cars followed closely behind, forming the second echelon of car manufacturing.
In March 2022, Nezha Automobile ranked second in the sales list of new car-making forces with sales of 12,000 units, surpassing the sales figures of 11,000 ideal cars and 9,985 units of Weilai Automobile, but there is still a certain gap with the sales volume of 15,400 units of Xiaopeng Automobile.
Although the sales performance of Nezha Automobile is strong, can it squeeze into the first echelon?
In fact, unlike the "Wei Xiaoli" C-end customers, Nezha Automobile was mainly B-end customers in the early days. However, at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November 2021, Daniel Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Nezha Automobile, bluntly said that the target market is mainly C-end private users, and the specific proportion of the B-end market in September-October 2021 is only about 2% and 3%.
In terms of price, the average price of Weilai is about 320,000 yuan / car - 624,000 yuan / car, the ideal car is about 340,000 yuan / car, and Xiaopeng Automobile is between 170,000 yuan / car - 430,000 yuan / car. In contrast, Nezha Automobile is more inclined to the low-end market, with the unit price of Nezha V being 70,000 yuan to 130,000 yuan, and the unit price of Nezha U being 110,000 yuan to 210,000 yuan.
At the same time as "winning by quantity", the overall revenue of Nezha Automobile is not high. According to 360 (601360. SH) announced that Nezha Automobile achieved revenue of 1.297 billion yuan and 1.631 billion yuan in 2020 and the first half of 2021, and net profit losses of 1.321 billion yuan and 693 million yuan, respectively.
In addition, after entering 2022, Nezha Automobile has raised its price twice. On January 1, some models of Nezha U and Nezha V were raised in price, ranging from 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan per vehicle. On March 18, Nezha Automobile announced the announcement of the official price adjustment, which was affected by many factors such as the rise in the price of upstream raw materials and the tight supply of supply chain, and the whole series of models rose by 3-5,000 yuan / car.
After two consecutive price adjustments, the first electric network reported on April 5 that Nezha Automobile may open a new round of price increases. Regarding the specific price increase plan, the Investor Network contacted Nezha Automobile, but did not get a reply.
Security issues are questionable
While Nezha's car sales are growing, safety accidents occur from time to time. On April 8, the official Weibo of Spicy Car Review said that according to netizens, a Nezha U spontaneously ignited in the garage of a residential community in Guangdong Province, and smoke once filled the entire underground garage.
Not long ago, on March 18, two similarly parked Nezha cars and Chery ants spontaneously combusted, chery new energy responded that the two cars are doing technical identification, and it is not certain which car caught fire first. As of now, Nezha Automobile has still not responded to it.
According to the data of the Beijing Institute of Technology Laboratory, the accidents of new energy vehicles due to battery failure and fire accounted for 33%, the fire caused by chassis collision or traffic accident accounted for 15.4%, the driving or static fire caused by user modification accounted for 12%, and the fire caused by electronic and electrical failure accounted for 11%.
In the battery configuration, the supporting supplier of Nezha Automobile has Ningde Times (300750. SZ), Huading Guolian, Jiewei Power, Honeycomb Energy, etc., and launched the "car-electricity separation" model, that is, when users buy Nezha cars, they can not bear the cost of the battery part, and change to the way of "battery bank" leasing, and the rent will be repaid by mortgage, reducing the user's first car purchase cost.
However, Nezha Car faces complaints of shrinking mileage due to the problem of battery configuration. According to the black cat complaint platform, many car owners said that Nezha car has a false battery standard, which cannot achieve the publicity endurance, false publicity and sales.
Nezha car battery life problem complaint situation
Source: Black Cat Complaint Network
One of the owners believes that the Nezha V long-endurance entertainment upgrade type he purchased uses the 38.5-degree battery of Anhui Zhouzhihang, and Nezha Automobile officially says that the endurance is 401km, but the actual measurement is measured, and the mileage is about 200km-250km. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's calculation of 11.8 degrees of power consumption per 100 kilometers, the theoretical mileage of the 38.5-degree battery is 326km.
Then, the owner said that he learned that the battery of Nezha V was divided into 43 degrees of Huading and 38.5 degrees of Zhouzhihang, and Huading's 43-degree battery could theoretically reach the range claimed by Nezha Automobile. Therefore, the owner suspects that Nezha V uses a 43-degree battery to declare a 401km battery to obtain a national new energy subsidy greater than 400km, and then mixes a 38.5-degree battery to defraud the state subsidy, or there is a situation where the size of the battery is mixed.
In this regard, the "Investor Network" learned from the official customer service staff of Nezha Automobile that the current five models of Nezha V do not have the 38.5-degree battery configuration of Anhui Zhouzhihang, and the mileage of the working conditions is 300km and 400km, and the complaint about the owner has not directly responded.
In addition, in addition to the spontaneous combustion accident, Nezha Automobile also had a traffic accident on March 20, and the Nezha V model involved in the accident crossed the road at high speed, crashed into the road barrier in the middle of the road, and the suspected vehicle was "out of control". After the accident, the A pillar of Nezha's car was significantly bent, and the whole vehicle was almost scrapped.
According to the official website, in addition to the Tide 400 Pro model, the other four models of Nezha V do not have a front monocular camera, a front millimeter wave radar, an ESC body stability system, a TCS anti-slip balance control system, and an EBA/BA electronic brake assist system.
Whether intelligence can break the game
CATL not only provided power batteries to Nezha Automobile, but also participated in the D+ round of financing conducted by Nezha Automobile in November 2021. According to the enterprise investigation, Nezha Automobile has completed 9 financings, the most recent of which was completed in February 2022, with a financing amount of more than 2 billion yuan, and the investors are Shenzhen Venture Capital and CRRC Capital.
Among the many investors, the investment of 360 can be described as of great significance.
According to the annual report disclosed by 360 on April 22, 2021, 360's long-term equity investment increased by 45% year-on-year to 6.76 billion yuan, accounting for 16% of total assets, and the increase was mainly due to investment in Nezha Automobile Project. At the same time, the number of other accounts receivable of 360 increased by 138% year-on-year, which was also caused by the increase in investment funds payable to Nezha Automobile Project.
In October 2021, 360 plans to invest a total of 2.9 billion yuan in Nezha Automobile with its own funds, and the investment will be carried out in two steps. In the first step, 360 accepted the right to increase the capital of Nezha Automobile's shareholders who had not yet paid up their capital and increased the capital of Nezha Automobile by 900 million yuan; in the second step, 360 increased its capital by 2 billion yuan to Nezha Automobile, and the two steps constituted a package transaction.
As of December 31, 2021, 360 has paid 1.9 billion yuan and holds about 14.96% of Nezha Automobile's shareholding.
It is worth mentioning that as a domestic domestic Internet network security leader enterprise, as early as May 2021, 360 reached a strategic cooperation with Nezha Automobile to jointly assist in the development of vehicle networking security, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit and other aspects. However, in July 2021, according to the official WeChat public account of Netinfo Zhejiang, the Nezha Auto APP did not clearly indicate the purpose, method and scope of collection and use of personal information, collected and used personal information without the consent of users, and there were security loopholes that caused personal information leakage.
Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360, once said, "The intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit that Nezha Automobile lacks now, including Internet genes, Internet thinking and the entire on-board safety, will be provided by 360." ”
Subsequently, Nezha Automobile joined hands with Huawei to formally sign a strategic cooperation agreement in August 2021. The agreement shows that the two sides will carry out comprehensive cooperation in the fields of intelligent networking, in-vehicle computing, intelligent driving, digital energy and cloud services.
In March 2022, Nezha Automobile released the full-stack self-developed TA PILOT intelligent driving system, and Huawei also participated. Public information shows that Huawei provides hardware support, and TA PILOT4.0 uses MDC610 chips from Huawei.
After 9 rounds of financing, Nezha Automobile is getting closer and closer to listing. According to the "Late Post" report, Nezha Automobile has now launched a Pre-IPO round with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan, and plans to launch an IPO in Hong Kong within 2022.
Zero-run cars, which are also in the second echelon of the new car-making forces, have taken the lead, and on the evening of March 17, zero-running cars submitted an application for initial listing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. If zero-run cars are successfully listed, they will become the fourth new car-making force to land on Hong Kong stocks.
Nowadays, while Nezha Automobile continues to increase its intelligence, it still needs to be improved in safety issues, and whether it can jump to the first echelon and successfully listed may soon have an answer. (Produced by Thinking Finance)■