With the issuance of an open letter to the owner, Li Yinan lost the first battle to build a car.
With the labels of "Huawei prince" and "genius boy", Li Yinan failed to continue his career myth in the field of car manufacturing.
On December 7, 2022, on the eve of delivery, Ziyoujia publicly admitted to car owners that the first mass-produced model, Ziyoujia NV, could not be delivered in the short term, and that 24,376 intended users would be fully refunded within 48 hours.
The delay in obtaining production qualifications eventually brought down the Martian stone. But Li Yinan's failure to build a car is not all a pot of production qualifications. Affected by the epidemic in Shanghai, Mars Stone had no choice but to stop production, new forces lacked supply chain management capabilities and discourse power, Li Yinan lacked experience in car manufacturing, frequently changed the design plan, and blindly caught up with the mass production progress resulting in action deformation.
But there are indications that Li Yinan has not given up building cars, and a number of people close to the Martian stone revealed to everyone that the production qualification of the Martian stone is expected to settle in the second quarter of 2023 at the earliest.
It's just that the window of opportunity is missed, and in this brutal battle for survival, Li Yinan's chips are running out.
Wen | Chang Fangfei
Edited by | Li Huanhuan
Operations | quiet
On the eve of mass production, the supplier was destroyed
When the production line of the Changzhou factory was frequently stopped, Zhang Feng, who was responsible for parts procurement at Mars Stone, knew that his work in Mars Stone Technology (hereinafter referred to as Mars Stone, before the name was changed to Niuchuang Automobile) had entered the countdown.
On October 9, 2022, on the first working day after the official announcement of "Ziyujia NV", the production line of its Changzhou factory was stopped nearly 20 times. The causes of the failure are varied – the robot in the press shop is stuck, or there is a problem with the commissioning of the production line. This stumbling production line seems to hint at the future fate of the Martian Stone company.
Initially, the blueprint for mass production outlined by Mars Stone was that after the renovation of the Changzhou plant, the annual production capacity could reach 180,000-200,000 vehicles. However, the reality is far crueler than ideal, in August and September, the Changzhou plant barely produced nearly 200 new cars, and the production capacity is slowly climbing, and the ideal state is that the Changzhou plant is expected to produce 1,000-1,200 vehicles per month by the end of 2022.
Soon, Zhang Feng found that even the state of producing thousands of vehicles per month could not reach it.
On the evening of October 29, Zhang Feng, who was in charge of purchasing parts, had just ordered 300 smart cockpits for "Ziyujia NV" from suppliers in December, and just a few hours after placing the order, he received an urgent notice from his superiors to cancel the order immediately. This is a taboo in production, which not only seriously affects the rhythm of mass production, but also destroys the basic trust between car companies and suppliers.
Two months ago, the supplier chased Zhang Feng to ask the exact time of the mass production of Ziyujia NV, and now they no longer care about this issue and no longer expect to get this order. At this moment, in Zhang Feng's heart, a bad thought became stronger and stronger - the company was going to be cold.
Subsequently, the production line of the Changzhou factory gradually stopped running. News of mass layoffs is circulating.
In fact, Zhang Feng and every employee of Mars Stone knew the reason why the company temporarily released the supplier's pigeons. Changzhou Mahayana factory OEM production of self-traveler NV compliance problems can not be solved, is always hanging on the top of the Martian stone sword of Damocles, previously, everyone held the idea of "in case the production qualification can still come down", normal promotion of work, perhaps no one expected that on the eve of mass production delivery, the production qualification This time bomb, or exploded.
Mahayana's own production credentials became precarious. In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a document: new energy vehicle companies that have stopped production for more than 24 months must be verified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for reproduction. If a business fails to maintain access conditions, it may be revoked. At the end of March of the same year, Dacheng Automobile announced the suspension of production, and it was also revealed that it owed employees wages for several months. An engineer at Ziyujia's Changzhou production base told everyone that until he left on December 3, 2022, Dacheng Auto's factory had not resumed work.
At the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Commissioned Production of New Energy Vehicles, requiring both the commissioning and the entrusted party of the production of new energy vehicles to have production qualifications. That is to say, both foundries and brands need to have qualifications to achieve mass production of new energy vehicles.
This makes the road to obtaining the production qualification of new energy vehicles more bumpy.
Although Li Yinan, the founder of Mars Stone, stressed that the relationship between Martian Stone and Mahayana Auto is not a simple foundry relationship, but a deep cooperation model similar to that between Huawei and Cialis - "(Mars Stone) empowers Mahayana Automobile in the technical fields of software, intelligence, and three electric power, and jointly improves the level of vehicle and intelligent software." But in fact, in the Changzhou Jintan factory of Mahayana Automobile, Li Yinan and Martian Stone are the real masters - purchasing parts, manufacturing vehicles, and even personnel recruitment and factory operations, all of which are handled by Martian Stone.
This secret that everyone knows in the Martian Stone and Mahayana still makes everyone panic when facing the inspection of the expert group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
Wang Tong, who works on the production line of the Changzhou factory, never thought that his work would also include the emergency replacement of the label at the entrance of the factory.
It was early July 2022, the hottest time in Changzhou. The expert group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will go to the Dacheng Jintan production base to inspect the resumption of work and production of Dacheng Automobile. After receiving the news, Wang Tong and several colleagues removed all the signs and logos with the word "NIUTRON" at the entrance and inside the factory within two days, and replaced them with the logo of "Mahayana Automobile" overnight. In response to the inspection, some Martian Stone employees even urgently changed their employment contracts to Mahayana Motors.
These superficial efforts were quickly easily shattered by the "creditors". Along with Mars Stone, the expert group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was greeted by various creditors who demanded arrears, including suppliers of Mahayana Automobile, dealers and several former employee representatives. That day, Zhang Feng saw them getting out of a bus from a distance in his office, holding a banner that read "Mahayana Pay Money" in his hand.
Zhang Feng did not participate in the research meeting of the expert group, but looking at the colleagues who rushed in, he understood that the situation was not good. The expert group requested a "resume" of the procurement of production lines and production equipment in order to confirm that the purchaser was Dacheng Motor. But obviously, the purchaser of these new production lines and equipment is Mars Stone. "We can't come up with proof, the employees involved can only go in and explain it one by one, but the experts are not fools." The implication is that the review of the expert group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not pass the Martian stone.
The flight inspection of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has been full of twists and turns. In order to stabilize the morale of the military, in early September 2022, the general manager of the Changzhou factory organized a small-scale closed-door meeting of more than ten people. At the meeting, the leaders repeatedly gave reassurance to the core employees attending the meeting, "The probability that the male brother (Li Yinan) can get the qualification in September and October is 99.9%." No one knows where this faith comes from, but it's the answer that everyone is most willing to believe.
Li Yinan really didn't stop running. If you want to obtain a passenger car production qualification, in addition to applying for it, you can also acquire a company with a production qualification. In October 2022, Li Yinan chose to purchase the production qualification of Mahayana, but the negotiations did not go well. Zhang Feng revealed that the two sides have never negotiated the purchase price. The other party asked for 1.3 billion yuan, and was not willing to give in at all. "Because Mahayana is very clear that Ziyujia NV is at the door of mass production, only the qualification is missing." According to enterprise investigation information, the historical debts and claims of Jiangxi Dacheng Automobile Co., Ltd. exceeded 680 million yuan, and the amount of contract default exceeded 620 million yuan. The two add up to exactly 1.3 billion yuan – not that the Mahayana lions are opening their mouths, they need this money. However, this price is far above the bottom line that Martian stone can afford.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has not approved the production qualification for a long time, but only replied "wait a little longer". This will be by the end of 2022. A small probability of "0.01%" ends up on the Martian stone. On December 7, 2022, on the eve of delivery, Ziyoujia sent an open letter to car owners, admitting that the first production model, Ziyoujia NV, could not be delivered in the short term, and that 24,376 intended users would be fully refunded within 48 hours.
▲ NIUTRON self-travel home store. Photo / Visual China
Grab parts, grab time
"If mass production had started in March last year, there would still be a chance." Zhang Feng felt that in addition to the qualification problem, the Martian stone lacked a little luck.
March 31, 2022 was originally the day when Ziyujia NV was launched. Chang Yan was invited to be the warm-up guest at the launch of Ziyoujia NV, and to his surprise, the day before the conference, he was temporarily notified that due to the epidemic, the conference with more than 50 people would be canceled.
For this conference, Mars Stone placed advertisements on multiple channels, set up a grand venue in Beijing, and transferred three brand new self-travel NVs from the Changzhou production base to Beijing. Changyan roughly estimated, "Material expenditure alone may lose millions of yuan; If you count the delay in commercial cooperation and advertising, the loss of this conference will be tens of millions."
Even more deadly than this huge investment is that a series of plans such as new car launches, mass production and delivery have been completely disrupted - the round of epidemic that rebounded in March last year not only forced the cancellation of Ziyujia NV launch, but also seriously affected the mass production process of this new car. This can lead to the Martian stone eventually losing its chance of survival.
Zhang Feng joined the Changzhou factory in May 2022 and is the No. 2 employee of the department. At that time, the factory was in the aftermath of the epidemic, many customized parts could not be supplied normally, and the production line was forced to stop. At that time, Ziyujia NV was still at the end of the most rudimentary ET stage (engineering debugging, design verification). According to normal planning, this phase should be completely completed in March.
There is no way, everyone can only desperately race against time.
The mass production of traditional automobiles needs to go through ET (design debugging), PT (production verification), PP (initial mass production), and SOP (mass production), and this process takes about two years on average. Even the leading new forces, after improving the supply chain, shortened the entire mass production process to 12-15 months, plus pre-development, it took them three or four years to officially launch their first car. The goal of Mars Stone is to complete all the processes within 5-6 months.
Faced with the almost impossible goal, Zhang Feng and Wang Tong expressed understanding, "The Red Sea Market will not give you enough time to solve all problems." Zhang Feng only takes one day off a week and hardly leaves the office before 10 p.m. on weekdays. Later, Zhang Feng recalled that during that time, the entire company was "like a car speeding down the highway, running and changing wheels at the same time."
In addition to grabbing time, you also have to grab accessories.
Affected by the epidemic, parts factories in Shanghai and its surrounding areas have experienced a short shutdown, and after the resumption of production, all car companies hope to promote the project as soon as possible, and "grabbing (parts) production capacity" on the front line has become the most important thing.
However, car companies like Mars Stone that have not yet achieved mass production, due to the relatively small order scale, are customers with lower priority for suppliers, "suppliers must give priority to large car companies such as Tesla, SAIC-GM, and Great Wall Motor." And we are still opening the mold, everything will have to wait."
Therefore, in the battle for parts, Martian stones do not have an advantage.
In order to ensure that the parts can be produced smoothly and sent to the Changzhou factory on time and in quantity, Zhang Feng personally went to the factory of a supplier in Anhui Province to "station". Fortunately, Zhang Feng did not dislike Mars Stone as a "small company", in order to complete the goal, the supplier let the production line run 24 hours a day, workers in three shifts to ensure that each part was delivered on time. Several times, after Zhang Feng and the supplier held a "supply guarantee" meeting, it was already 12 o'clock in the morning, and Zhang Feng had not even eaten dinner. But he is used to the fact that the smaller the business, the more it needs to "scramble".
More often than not, what makes Zhang Feng feel broken is not to win suppliers, but to frequently change the internal design scheme and extremely low component qualification rate.
Li Yinan attaches great importance to mass production, in addition to coming to Changzhou factory every month for a regular president's meeting, as long as he is free, he will visit the factory in person. Almost every time he inspected, Li Yinan would propose new revisions.
Li Yinan has always paid attention to the mechanical properties of automobiles. At one point, he found that the extended-range engine was very noisy during high-rpm experiments. In order to reduce the noise in the car caused by vibration, Li Yinan asked to improve the design of the power system. Even though the entire modeling work had been completed, Li Yinan still asked for a redesign. "It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that the production plan is changed once a day, but there is definitely a change every week." Wang Tong was a little slight, "In my opinion, many changes are unimportant or even unprofessional. ”
The design scheme changes frequently, and the supplier must also change it synchronously, while also taking into account the extreme requirements of Martian stone for the speed of supply. They had to skip the steps of adjusting the mold on the internal production line, producing blanks, etc., and chose to open the mold directly in the mold factory to produce the part. Coupled with the loss during transportation, the qualification rate of parts is extremely low. Zhang Feng remembers that the most exaggerated time, out of 100 parts, only 10 qualified. These huge quantities of substandard parts have become the sunk cost of suppliers. Zhang Feng had to try his best to reassure the supplier and ensure that the supply was normal. "But to be honest, if it were me, for the sake of KPIs, I wouldn't take the list of Martian stones."
Zhao Qi, 29, joined Mars Stone a year ago and had a relationship with Li Yinan. Zhao Qi hopes to apply the successful experience of the previous owner's vehicle-machine linkage to the self-travel home NV. Users can activate the engine through the vehicle system, play music in the car, heat the seats, turn on the high beams and other operations. But Li Yinan immediately rejected the suggestion. "The function of the car terminal does not play a role in the user's car purchase decision. More important is the mechanical quality, including endurance, configuration, and safety factor. In fact, in the era of smart electric vehicles, consumers are paying more and more attention to the intelligent part of the car.
As the founder of Mars Stone, Li Yinan decides the life and death of this new start-up, lacks experience in car building, and interferes too much at the business level, which undoubtedly adds a lot of uncertainty to Martian Stone.
▲ Self-Traveler NV promotional image. Picture / official
"The time and place are favorable, and they do not occupy anything"
The worst came anyway. At the end of November 2022, the entire Changzhou factory was silent without a sound, and there was no news of production qualifications. Martian Stone kicked off a widespread layoff, with employees at the Changzhou plant bearing the brunt.
Wang Tong received an oral notice from HR about the termination of the labor contract agreement, and he can't remember exactly what the other party said at that time. I just remember that the office was very warm, but the hand holding the signing pen felt unusually cold. At almost the same time, Zhang Feng also received an online meeting notice, and HR told him straight to the point that the company was experiencing difficulties and that he was included in the list of layoffs. The total number of layoffs exceeded 1,000.
More difficult to accept than losing a job is the loss of hope. Originally, Zhao Qi was looking forward to witnessing a new car starting from scratch on the Martian Rock. He was eager to participate in the whole process of design, mass production and sales of this car, but now "the progress bar has only reached 30%" and it is over; Wang Tong hopes to accumulate some practical experience through mass production of Youjia NV, but now this dream has also been shattered, "experience without market testing is not experience".
However, Li Yinan did not give up. Although this round of layoffs involves almost all departments of Mars Stone, Li Yinan retains a small number of core teams. R&D, production, and sales also have employees left. Everyone is pinning their hopes on the spring of 2023. Zhang Feng and Wang Tong revealed to each of them that "the production qualification may come down in the second quarter of this year at the earliest."
Looking at the Martian stone in front of him, Zhang Feng always couldn't help but take the ideal car of that year as a reference. When it first entered the car building, Li Auto planned to mass-produce a micro electric car SEV, with a comprehensive cruising range of 80-100 kilometers. However, this small car is a low-speed electric vehicle and cannot enjoy new energy subsidies, and the relevant policies and regulations have not been implemented at that time, and low-speed electric vehicles cannot be on the road in compliance. Soon, Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, dismantled the production line and canceled the mass production plan of the SEV. This detour cost hundreds of millions of dollars and 2 years of precious time. Fortunately, the success of Ideal ONE later helped Ideal complete a key leap. In June 2020, the 10,000th ideal ONE was delivered, setting a record for the fastest delivery of a new model of a new force to exceed 10,000.
However, today is different, and the window to build a car is shorter than expected. According to data from the Passenger Association of China, the domestic retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles in 2022 will be 5.674 million units, a year-on-year increase of 90%; The penetration rate of NEVs reached 27.6%, up 12.6 percentage points from 2021. The expert team of the Passenger Association predicts that the sales of new energy passenger vehicles will reach 8.5 million units in 2023, with a penetration rate of 36%. New energy vehicles are becoming mainstream.
Inspired by such a large environment, the new energy track has gathered many players. Therefore, even if mass production is successful, it may be difficult for Ziyujia NV to cope with unprecedented cruel market competition. Ziyujia NV is positioned as a medium and large SUV with a price of 278,800-318,800 yuan. In the range of 300,000 yuan, it has gathered popular models such as Xpeng G9, Wenjie M7, and Ideal L7. No matter from the perspective of cruising range, intelligent cockpit, and assisted driving, Ziyujia NV has no reason why consumers must buy it.
Zhang Feng knows best the production cost of Ziyujia NV, in such a hand-to-hand competition, the situation of Mars Stone is "the right time and place, and all occupy". In order to obtain a configuration that can reach the "passing line", Martian stones need to pay a very high price. He calculated an account, Ziyoujia NV sold for 300,000 yuan, the manufacturing cost of the whole vehicle has exceeded 200,000, if you add manpower, research and development, marketing and other expenses, "selling one, losing one" is by no means a joke.
To come back to life, Mars Stone may need to abandon the Ziyujia NV and launch a more competitive new model. However, to do this, in addition to production qualifications, a large amount of money is required to continue life.
Originally, Zhang Feng hoped that after working in Mars Stone for a few years, he would use this as a springboard to enter the ceiling of the newly built car Wei Xiaoli and Tesla to work. But experiencing the failure of Mars Stone made him completely give up this idea and instead submit resumes to traditional car companies such as BYD and SAIC-GM. "The variables of new cars are too great, and the best time to enter has passed."
(Except for Tsunewa, at the request of interviewees, the rest of the characters are pseudonyms.) ）
The article is original by Auto, and infringement must be investigated.