When the ideal ONE is difficult to support, for Li Xiang, how long can Xiao Bai's money be earned?

Judging from past cases, the first entrepreneurs in an emerging industry are often difficult to go to the end.

According to the sales data of ideal cars in the first quarter of 2022, ideal cars delivered 31,716 units in the first quarter, an increase of 152.1% year-on-year. Behind the glossy data, there is a series of negative news to pave the way, the rider climbed into the Slope failed to lead to car damage, the chief technology officer who was employed for 1 and a half years left, the failure of foreign investment, the continuous spontaneous combustion, the choice of high-quality capital to leave the market, and was included in the pre-delisting list by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

After 7 years of development, the second model of Ideal Automobile is about to be launched, but the route of still increasing the range cannot solve the lack of competitiveness after the subsidy declines.

The current market is still in the early stage of development, and the tolerance is high, but with the gradual stabilization of the development trend of the opponents, the disadvantages of the ideal car have been obvious, there is no technical reserve in the early stage, and it is difficult to make up for the course in the later stage.

Analysts pointed out that although Li Xiang is an outstanding representative of post-80s entrepreneurs, the opponent facing the ideal car project today is not a wild wilderness when Autohome started.

Fetch doctrine and copy homework

Chronologically, the first of the new car-making forces should pay attention to Xiaopeng first, but the recent spontaneous combustion incident of the ideal car has been controversial, so we should pay attention to the ideal car first.

In addition, the vast majority of new car-making forces that make people think of names are pure electric routes, and only Li wants to choose a product that is considered a transitional stage.

If you have learned about the history of Li Xiang's entrepreneurship, you can know that Li Xiang, who dropped out of middle school, is very good at finding market pain points with his hobbies and time and place.

From liking computer hardware to setting up a bubble network to evaluate digital products, and then from digital evaluation to auto home of car evaluation, Li Xiang's entrepreneurship seems to be cross-border, but it is actually just an attempt to take one step at a time.

Seeing the pain points is not equal to being able to solve, after all, the gap between the website technology and the vehicle manufacturing is huge, and the main means of Li wants to start a business is to take the doctrine, that is, to apply overseas successful experience, combined with the pain points of domestic consumers, to piece together a product that can relatively solve the current demand - the ideal ONE.

In terms of several core components of electric vehicles, the ideal ONE is equipped with a 1.2T three-cylinder DAM12TD extended range engine, which is derived from Changan's Dong'an Power and is only used by ideal cars; the inverter and controller system supporting the engine are jointly developed by Liszt and Delphi; the motor is also provided by United Electronics; the rear "3-in-1" electric drive assembly, the dual electronic control system is provided by Huichuan; the battery and cell technology are provided by the Ningde era.

The ideal ONE chassis design, the industry has already known, a large number of "borrowing" of the 2018 Toyota Highlander.

That is to say, the ideal ONE, in addition to part of the design is its own, in other aspects are made up of related suppliers.

One of the advantages of take-ism and copying is that the success rate of the production is relatively high and it is conducive to promotion, which is why the sales of the ideal ONE are still good so far.

Little white money is really easy to earn

In 2014, Li wanted to start a business with Li Bin and others in Weilai, but in 2015, he founded his own car and home, and launched a two-seat pure electric low-speed car SEV, commonly known as "old man music". Due to mispositioning and lack of production qualifications, SEV was declared a failure in 2018.

In the same year, Chehejia launched the smart electric vehicle brand "Ideal Intelligent Manufacturing", which is today's ideal car.

From the current point of view, the core idea of ideal car positioning is no different from the car home, with the public opinion description of the year Xue Manzi asked Li xiang, how to position the car home to interpret, that is, not for enthusiasts, only make small white money.

Because enthusiasts will be very concerned about a series of problems such as technology, parameters, quality, and control, and high requirements, Xiao Bai may not understand anything, but needs to be guided, told, and even easily brainwashed.

Coupled with the many problems faced by the SEV project at that time, Li Xiang could only bet on the SUV project.

Li wanted to choose the technical route of the extender, from the point of view of the time, the pure electric avant-garde and the fuel conservative faction were scornful of the extended range electric vehicle, but the publicity made the ideal car's intention become unique, for the small white type of consumers, the ideal ONE is a kind of tram, and there is no need to worry about endurance.

The technology of the extender is not too difficult, the method of using oil to solve the mileage anxiety, the same large space as the old Highlander, borrowing the license plate support of new energy vehicles everywhere, the ideal ONE finally tested the water successfully.

The core of the success of the ideal ONE is to be able to get on the new energy green card, and when the policy is no longer supported, the advantages of the ideal ONE will be gone.

Technically, it is a product that all parties exploit, but it well meets the actual needs of some consumers. Since then, Li Xiangdu has regarded himself as the ideal car CEO, and seems to have forgotten that his entrepreneurial project is called "car and home".

Where is the ideal future?

The ideal WAY OF ONE success is not like Volkswagen with decades of technical accumulation and tuning skills, nor is it like Toyota and Honda with decades of research and development and patent support, the essence is a patchwork speculative idea.

Interpreted in a better way, just like when some consumers yearned for Porsche SUVs, but when they were shy, Zotye SR9 turned out, and then more Zotye's "leather ruler" products were introduced to the market, and the results can be imagined.

The ideal ONE is only a more intelligent idea and means, but Xiaobai will always become a veteran, and it is only a matter of time before the reputation of the ideal ONE collapses.

For example, this year, in the dismantling column of a car platform, many quality problems of ideal ONE were exposed one by one, quoting the description of the media: the oil leakage of the 1.2T range extender from Dongan Power is very serious, the entire cylinder periphery is covered with sludge, and even the high-pressure oil rail has oil leakage. Carbon deposits are just as serious, with valves and inlets all carbon deposited. In the body structure, we also found some pony feet and safety hazards in the design...

The ideal ONE's core 1.2T three-cylinder DAM12TD extended-range engine, developed in 2015, has so far only been put on the ideal ONE, that is, the owners of the ideal ONE are all test participants in the reliability of the engine, including from the shaft break incident experienced by the ideal ONE.

As the actual mileage of the first ideal ONE owners began to increase, various quality problems began to appear, including broken shafts, oil spills and spontaneous combustion.

The most critical part of the idea of copying the operation is that others can also adopt it, with the success of the ideal ONE, a large number of followers have poured into this market segment, Dongfeng Lantu, Skyrim ME5, and the upcoming Nezha S extended range version, zero run C11 extended range version, Geely Emgrand extended range version and so on.

When the number of competitor range extender hybrid products begins to increase, the drawbacks of the ideal car without technical accumulation gradually become abrupt. After all, for the opponents who have entered the pure electric field, the extended range electric vehicle does not have much technical difficulty, but it is difficult to enter the pure electric field in a short period of time without the ideal of pure electric technology.

Only the product manager will do that

Unlike traditional automakers and other new carmakers, Li Xiang is one of the few cases of switching from automotive media to automaker status.

A product research and development, manufacturing, marketing, channels and other work are all responsible for by one person, this role is actually the well-known product manager, from the perspective of Li Xiang's entrepreneurial journey, he is closer to the type of product manager positioning.

Li wants to start the story, there are many versions, want to know the reader can search for themselves, we do not do too much here, a simple summary is luck plus personal efforts, Li wants to become a famous entrepreneur after the 80s generation, and is from his own interests and hobbies (bubble network technology product reviews), and then also to find the pain points, to achieve late strikes (turn to the car home of car evaluation).

At present, from the financial report, the ideal car is still ideal: in the fourth quarter of 2021, the total revenue of the ideal was 10.62 billion yuan, an increase of 156.1% year-on-year and 36.6% month-on-month. Net profit was RMB295.5 million, up 174.9% year-on-year, compared to RMB107.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Achieved a net profit of 296 million yuan, compared with 108 million yuan in the same period of 2020. For the whole year, the company achieved a total revenue of 27.01 billion yuan, an increase of 185.6% year-on-year.

At the same time, the operating loss in 2021 was 1.02 billion yuan, an increase of 52% year-on-year, and the net loss was about 322 million yuan, an increase of 111.9% year-on-year. While the data of all parties is growing, the ideal loss is also increasing, especially the financial report shows that the research and development expenses of the ideal automobile in 2021 are 3.29 billion yuan, an increase of 198.8% year-on-year. This means that the annual research and development cost of ideal cars in 2020 is only 1.1 billion yuan.

In February 2021, Ideal Auto released the "2025 Strategy" - to occupy 20% of the domestic electric vehicle market share in 2025, with sales of 1.6 million vehicles, becoming the first intelligent electric vehicle company in China. In February this year, Li Xiang said to the outside world that it will take 10 years to achieve the ideal car to Apple's level, and stressed: "The ideal car strategy is characterized by focus."

On the one hand, there is little investment in research and development, on the other hand, Wang Kai, the most powerful chief technology officer of foreign aid, also suddenly left at the beginning of the year, and his successor is Ma Donghui, chief engineer of Ideal Automobile, who previously served as the director of Sany Heavy Industry Research Institute.

With the current technical route and R& D investment of ideal car, combined with its loss situation and talent reserves, with Apple as the goal, in addition to rubbing the heat of apple, the industry can not see how ideal car can go to apple's industry height.

Analysts pointed out that the auto home project on which Li Xiang's aura relies, the early and medium term is not a success, according to the performance, bubble network and auto home in Li want to dominate, are not the first-class in their respective industries, in the auto home was once forced by the co-founder forced palace, fortunately there is a strong foreign aid investor Xue Manzi to help to stabilize the position, and the final realization of the real leap is Xue Manzi introduced by The returnee CEO Qin Zhi.

On the whole, Li Xiang is an entrepreneur who can find business opportunities, but is not an entrepreneur who ultimately solves the problem, and the success of auto home has the credit of Li Xiang, but the key to the final success lies in others.

Reflected in the project of the ideal car, Li wants to take the doctrine so that the initial income of the ideal car far exceeds the competitors, but the three electric technology is bought, and the ideal car has not formed a system of research and development capabilities, which directly leads to 5 years, can only rely on the ideal ONE model support.

Some commentators pointed out that although investment in research and development has been increased, in a short period of time, for the offensive posture of competing models, the ideal car is basically powerless, and can only rely on the CEO's mouth cannon on social media to fight back.

According to the reviews:

Li wants to face the target consumer will not always be Xiaobai, the current ideal car does not have the ability to rapidly iterate products, when the opponent will occupy the market segments one by one, how much room will be left for the survival of the ideal car?