Text/Gold wrong knife
There is a saying in the jianghu that if you come out and mix, sooner or later you will have to pay it back.
Recently, the singularity car on the brink of death is deeply appreciating this sentence.
After being sued by employees for a year and a half for unpaid wages, being applied for compulsory bankruptcy reorganization by suppliers, and shareholders fleeing en masse, Singularity Auto almost collapsed with trust and word of mouth inside and outside.
At its peak, Singularity Auto had more than 1,500 employees alone, but now there are fewer than 50 people, not even a fraction of the past.
Since last year, Shen Haiyin, the founder of Singularity Motors, has also been restricted by the court from high consumption.
There is a saying circulating in the circle, "The only people in the automobile industry who can be called the masters of 'PPT-style car-making' are Jia Yueting's FF and Singularity Cars." ”
The singularity car that calls itself the "Xiaomi apprentice in the automotive industry" is obviously the elder OG, why is it getting worse and worse?
A man who has been in the Internet circle for 15 years, how to say that the car overturned?
The boss of "even dreaming of building a car",
Seven years can't hold out a car
For seven years, not a single car was produced in quantity – a fact that undoubtedly made the Singularity car the most unassuming.
Because since the establishment of Singularity Car, it has always had the posture of "doing big things".
In 2014, Shen Haiyin, who was still working at 360 at the time, was already eager to make a move, and reported the idea of building a car to Zhou Hongyi, hoping to do a car project within 360.
However, the car building was too far away from the main business of 360, and it was quickly rejected by Zhou Hongyi.
"Since you can't do it at 360, just do it yourself." At this time, Shen Haiyin left Qihoo 360 and officially founded Singularity Automobile.
In his own words, building a really good car is his ultimate dream as a man, and now, it is time to realize it.
The company was founded, but few people knew about the brand at the time.
The road to advancement of Singularity Cars is mainly divided into two stages:
The first is the stage of blowing to investors.
If you want to build a car, you must first have money, and there are two fastest ways to get money: one talks about dreams, and the other talks about concepts.
Shen Haiyin said that when he first opened a Tesla, he had a feeling of electric shock, so he announced in a high profile: Singularity Car will use Internet thinking to build a Chinese Tesla.
Shen Haiyin named his car brand Singularity, which is also the dream of science and engineering men.
"The singularity, which is considered in physics to be the beginning of the Big Bang, is the point at which the universe came from nothing."
The singularity car from scratch is Shen Haiyin's idea, "the original car configuration of more than 500,000 yuan, condensed in 200,000-300,000 yuan SUV." ”
The Singularity Car did this disassembly:
A 200,000 singularity car = the configuration of 50 Marriott cars + the intelligent system of a million cars + priceless ingenuity and feelings.
Even how to make money in the future of Singularity Cars, Shen Haiyin has already thought about it.
In addition to doing China's Tesla, Singularity also has to do xiaomi in the automotive industry.
Shen Haiyin almost everywhere compares the success of the smartphone era to the smart car.
"The Xiaomi model is that hardware does not make money, but makes money through software and operating services. The same is true for us, we can currently do hardware without losing money. ”
In his vision, in the past, traditional car companies lost contact with users after selling cars, but new energy vehicles are completely different.
Shen Haiyin said that in the future, there are still many possibilities for the business model of Singularity, and it may be possible to earn money from third parties.
After the first stage of cowhide blowing, the singularity car has been labeled with three "labels": a Lei Jun, a Musk, a car brand that rounds the ultimate dream of a man.
Not a single one was sold, and the "success methodology" was summarized first.
It's really internet.
Logically, from 2015 to the present, Singularity Auto has completed 11 rounds of financing so far. In 2019, the total amount of Singularity Auto financing at that time had exceeded 17 billion.
But at this time, the singularity car that wants money and money, wants to be famous and satisfies everyone's appetite has become the "king of punching faces".
Anhui, which pays for the land,
I didn't expect to become a wronged boss
Next, there is the stage of blowing to the user.
On April 13, 2017, Singularity Auto finally released its first pure electric model, the iS6.
It also vowed to announce that is6 will be mass-produced and delivered within 2018, and strive to achieve small batch production in 2017.
As a unique romance of the polytechnic man, Singularity Auto also specially designed an LED scrolling screen at the rear of the car, so that the driver can also make a mood when driving.
This meaningless design also makes is6 full of strange feelings.
Even the user is directly and ruthlessly spit on the thick auto parts city style, plus affecting the attention of the rear car.
In fact, it is reasonable to say that the release time of the first pure electric model of Singularity Auto is 8 months earlier than the listing of the Weilai ES8, which occupies the "first-mover advantage".
Unexpectedly, although the slogan of Singularity Auto was shouted loudly, in 2017, it directly became "aborted" by "mass production".
Dragged to 2018, "iS6 mass production and listing" still exists in the external voice of Singularity Cars, and Shen Haiyin has also been drawing cakes for everyone.
In the face of a succession of broken promises, Shen Haiyin calmly responded: iS6 will be listed in the Spring Festival of 2019.
The most gripping thing is that the delivery battle of the new car-making forces in 2019 is in full swing, iS6 is still slow to move, and the singularity car is once again in default.
Where did the car go?
The answer is: while other new car-making forces are busy with their second model on the market, Singularity Motors is still looking for factories and foundries all over the world.
Tongling, Anhui, became the first big guy to give the singularity bus platform.
At the press conference of Singularity Automobile, the leaders of Tongling City attended a lot, and behind it was also the investment of real money and silver.
In November 2016, Singularity Auto announced that it had received $600 million in financing and reached a strategic cooperation with the Tongling Municipal Government to move its headquarters south to Tongling and build a factory with an estimated total investment of 8 billion yuan and an annual production capacity of 200,000 vehicles.
It can even be said that when you come to Tongling, the government is willing to give investment, bonuses, loans, and policy support.
The Tongling factory has not yet been completed, and Suzhou and Hunan have also come.
At the end of March 2018, Singularity Motors announced that it plans to invest 15 billion yuan in the next five years to build a global R&D center for Singularity Motors in Suzhou.
In less than half a year, Shen Haiyin appeared in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, announcing that the zhuzhou base of Singularity Automobile had a total investment of 5 billion yuan and was expected to be completed and put into operation in 2020.
The most outrageous thing is that none of these three production bases have been built.
At this time, the singularity car has not yet obtained the qualification of car manufacturing, and can only continue to find an OEM to fight the fire.
Therefore, Singularity Auto hugged baic's thigh and promised users to believe us, and we can also make BAIC oem produce iS6.
As a result, until now, the OEM has not been implemented, and some people have revealed that the main reason is that the funds are not in place.
Now, the mass production and listing of Singularity Automobile is not only a lie, but also a "unsolved case of the century".
After the second half of 2019, no new financing was obtained, and the funds in the "ammunition depot" were almost exhausted.
New energy car manufacturing "black hole",
How much does it cost?
Funding is the biggest challenge of car building.
However, Shen Haiyin thought about how to make money, but he far underestimated how much effort and how much money he would burn before this.
Seeing the success of mass production of Ideal, Xiaopeng and Weilai one by one, the singularity car that started first is still spinning in place, and even came to the brink of bankruptcy.
Some people have counted that the number of companies engaged in new energy now exceeds 500, and there are only a few car companies that can achieve delivery, at least a rough calculation, at least means that 490 new car manufacturers are still in the PPT car manufacturing stage.
Some people do not understand, why would they rather carry the insult of PPT car building, but also rush forward?
It's because this outlet is so tempting.
If nothing else, in order to promote the development of electric vehicles, from 2015 to 2017 in just two years, the total subsidy of the entire new energy automobile industry exceeded 300 billion yuan.
When the crooked wind of the concept was blown the most fiercely, Li Shufu of the Geely Group directly scolded, "The Internet company builds cars all day long and fools the people!" ”
Because unlike the traditional automobile manufacturing industry, the capital of Internet car manufacturing is not mainly based on self-accumulation, but according to the successful experience of the Internet, first create concepts, and then attract social capital.
The money-making methodology advocated by Singularity Cars cannot even be seen by its peers.
Li, the founder of Ideal Car, wants to be more direct, scolding the logic of selling cars without making money, and relying on the software behind to make money is completely nonsense logic.
You sell a car equivalent to selling three or four hundred Xiaomi mobile phones, and in the end you just make money for a Xiaomi mobile phone software, is your brain in the water?
He Xiaopeng of Xiaopeng Motors later admitted that car building is a big pit, 100 times more difficult than Internet entrepreneurship.
"Before watching others make cars, I thought 10 billion was too exaggerated, and I jumped in to know that 20 billion was not enough to spend." Maybe 30 billion to achieve the dream of building a car. ”
No money came in, and crazy money was burned, and the only thing waiting for the singularity car was bitterness.
From 2021 onwards, Singularity will no longer be able to pay salaries or pay suppliers.
There are even many people who are in arrears to nearly 200,000, desperately tearing up with their old owners.
"Two or three years ago, I would recommend Singularity Cars to my friends, and if anyone wanted to go to Singularity to work, I would also highly recommend it. But in the last two years, I won't do it because it feels like it's hurting people. ”
Image source: Wired travel
In recent years, we have been washed by too many capitalists.
It is a huge project, and it is not something that can be done well with a single slap in the head. If you want to survive, you either have money, you have technology, or both.
Under the seductive outlet, niu x companies re-"invented" the car, and the enterprises that played with the ticket could only re-assemble the car.
To this day, that car is like a fine vase, which can only be placed in the experience store of Singularity Car Sanlitun.
Shen Haiyin once said, "When I dream, I think about building a car. ”
But the singularity car that frequently hits the face, neither made a Tesla nor learned millet, but has become a disciple of Jia Yueting, suffocating for the dream.
In the past, there were smart people who said that without subsidies, who dared to do new energy.
Now that the subsidy is gone, what can we rely on to do new energy?