Weilai has a "future", the ideal also has an "ideal", and the "future" of the future seems to be clear.
A few days ago, the official public account of Qiantu Automobile said that Beijing Great Wall Huaguan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Great Wall Huaguan") signed a formal merger agreement with SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. Great Wall Huaguan is expected to complete the restructuring and merger listing at the end of December 2022, when Qiantu Automobile will go to an overseas IPO as an important asset component of Great Wall Huaguan, with a pre-investment valuation of US$1.25 billion.
Perhaps because it has been silent for too long, compared with a series of focus news such as the "qualifying race" of new forces sales in April, Tesla's new factory in Shanghai, and the overall listing auction of Sailin, the future restructuring and listing statement has not attracted much attention in the industry and media circles.
After all, in the context of accelerated differentiation of the track, market traffic and consumer attention will unnaturally tend to the industry's predecessors. In this regard, similar to the future, there are also brands such as Aichi and Tianji, although the entry time is not late, but subject to objective factors such as funds, technology, product layout, etc., it has not been able to find a position of its own in the increasingly fierce track, so that the outside world frequently issues questions of closure and bankruptcy.
As one of the earliest new car companies in China, Great Wall Huaguan established Qiandi Automobile in February 2015. In fact, from the perspective of development nodes, the pace of Future Automobile is not slow, as early as 2016, it obtained the new energy vehicle production qualification of the National Development and Reform Commission, and in 2018, it obtained the new energy vehicle production qualification of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, becoming one of the few new power brands with dual production qualifications in the same period.
Its first model, the K50, is positioned as a high-performance electric sports car, independently designed and manufactured by Qiantu Automobile, and was officially listed in August 2018, with a unified price of 686,800 yuan after subsidies, which was the most expensive product of the new domestic car-making forces at that time.
However, in addition to the K50's extremely pully supercar appearance, the return product itself does not have many highlights. Whether it is a zero-hundred-hundred acceleration time of 4.6 seconds or a comprehensive CRUID of only 380km, it is "not in line with the name" of the positioning of the 700,000-level electric supercar. According to relevant statistics, the cumulative sales of the future K50 in one and a half years on the market are only 131 vehicles.
Coupled with the plight of the parent company Great Wall Huaguan in 2016-2018, which lost 98 million yuan, 226 million yuan and 606 million yuan respectively, it also compressed the future development space of Future Automobile. In November 2020, Qiantu Automobile was also exposed to the break of the capital chain, its first store in Sanlitun has been withdrawn, and the delivery center located in Jingang Automobile Park has long been wrong, and "there is no future for the future" has once become a hot topic in the industry.
Although Future Auto has never announced its own death, but years of continuous losses and poor sales performance have made its market position increasingly marginal and forgetful, this time with The Signing of Mountain Crest, everything seems to be back on track.
Officials also said that this is an important milestone in the internationalization strategy of Great Wall Huaguan, and will leverage the capital market to stably and quickly apply the long-term accumulated innovative technology to new models, bringing users an intelligent, personalized and differentiated new car experience.
After all, in today's track arms race and the industry's serious situation, in addition to the design, technology and intelligence, the differentiated route is particularly important, and manufacturers even work the opening method and programmable headlights.
For example, hiPhi X, which is also positioned as a high-end and intersects with the future K50 in terms of price, has built its own market moat with innovative technologies and differentiated experiences such as the sci-fi supercar SUV shape, NT spread door, PML programmable smart headlight + ISD intelligent interactive lamp, and has built its own market moat, and with the result of 1364 vehicles, it has become the champion of more than 500,000 luxury electric vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2022.
For K50, what is missing is not the form of appeal, but how to create unique difference selling points in intelligent interaction and technology experience to truly attract high-end passenger flow. Obviously, about the brand tone, about mavericks, about design ingenuity, the long-lost future of the K50 still has a lot to think about, leaving it with a window of time, but there is not much room for trial and error.
Falling back to the listing level, some insiders have analyzed that although the SPAC listing method adopted by Great Wall Huaguan has the advantages of fast time, less cost, high success rate and simple process than the traditional IPO, this listing method also has certain risks and lacks follow-up development planning and development momentum.
For example, Faraday Future (FF) also achieved listing in this way, however, its stock price has fallen by more than 80% so far, and the total market value has fallen from $4.535 billion to $464 million.
In addition, SPAC promoters are usually able to buy stakes in SPAC on more favorable terms than investors in an IPO or open market, which also means they can benefit more from the merger and have an incentive to facilitate a deal that is unfavorable to the average investor. Since March 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stepped up its regulation of SPAC.
Whether the "future" of great wall Huaguan is only for the "money way" still needs to wait and see, the good side is that compared with those brands that have been "dumb for a long time", if you pay close attention to the dynamics of the future car in the past year, you will find that it has been trying to give itself a chance to "re-live".
For example, in the 2022 development plan, it is mentioned that Future Auto will develop and apply new materials, new energy and new intelligence in the future. At the same time, its new model, the Future K20, will be officially listed in 2022 and laid out in overseas markets. In addition, through cooperation with Suzhou Canadian Solar Power Technology Co., Ltd., The Future plans to mass-produce the world's first solar photovoltaic vehicle in 2022.
Just as Byton burned out 8.4 billion yuan and still failed to achieve mass production, Sai Lin exhausted 5.9 billion and finally escaped the failure of the auction, there are many car companies that frequently encounter obstacles in the new power track, coupled with the entry of new brands such as self-tourer, box, light orange, etc., in addition to the competition of force value and wisdom value, the more important skills in the new energy arena are patience and accumulation.
Perhaps the future believes that even if the track is crowded, it still leaves a place for it.