He Xiaopeng's internal review and summary in 2022: Without considering planning and strategy, the faster you run, the faster you die

Header image source | Xpeng Motors official

After experiencing the difficulties and turmoil of 2022, the CEOs of new car companies have also entered a stage of intensive reflection and review.

"If we, including me, do not subvert ourselves, it is absolutely impossible to embrace the next change from Spring and Autumn to Warring States." On January 18, 2023, Xpeng Motors held an annual summary meeting with the theme of "New Journey, New Departure".

He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Xpeng Motors, reviewed Xpeng's five-year entrepreneurial journey from 2018 to 2022, reviewed and reflected on its performance in 2022, and shared the main plans for 2023. Mirae Auto Daily learned about the content of the summary meeting.

In the past year, as the head player of new cars, Xpeng Motors has suffered a lot of crisis.

From the perspective of sales volume, in the first half of 2022, Xpeng Motors won the half-year sales championship of New Forces, with a cumulative delivery volume of 68,983 units, a year-on-year increase of 124%. However, in the second half of the year, sales took a sharp turn for the worse, and sales continued to decline until December when they returned to the 10,000-unit delivery level. This also led to an annual sales target of 250,000 units, and only 120757 units were completed.

However, the current market demand is less than expected, and it is not only Xiaopeng who has not completed its goals. Looking back at the sales report cards of each company in 2022, almost most players in the new car camp have not achieved the expected sales. Even Tesla, which has always been ahead in the field of pure electricity, failed to meet its sales target of 1.5 million vehicles and had to cut prices twice in a month to stimulate sales.

In He Xiaopeng's view, although the data for 2022 is not good, "it is not too bad." He said in the summary meeting, "The facelift of Xpeng G9 and P7 in 2022 has not been able to stop the decline in sales, but in fact, I think G9 and P7 are very successful products, and I believe that it (sales decline) is only for a moment." ”

And He Xiaopeng believes that in 2023 and 2024, Xpeng G9 and Xpeng P7 can make Xpeng Motors return to this track through continuous facelifts and become the TOP2 in the subdivision track.

He also affirmed the foundation laid by Xpeng Motors in the past year.

In terms of deliveries, after delivering the first Xpeng G3 in 2018, Xpeng Motors delivered more than 200,000 units in June 2022. In terms of technology, Xpeng Motors has been developing a new platform cycle from 2020 to 2021, including the E platform for mass production in 2020, and Xpeng Motors will simultaneously develop two new platforms (H platform) in 2023.

"In the next platform cycle, each platform of Xpeng Motors can produce different models, and each platform can meet the needs of different customers." And He Xiaopeng believes that this is a very good foundation laid by Xiaopeng in the past 2021 and 2022.

On the model platform, Xpeng Motors has completed a large number of platform classification and modular development, including full-scenario electronic and electrical architecture, intelligent cockpit, 800-volt high voltage and a series of innovations.

It is worth mentioning that He Xiaopeng also revealed that in terms of production, Xpeng Motors has also completed the construction of a new factory in Guangzhou, and has also achieved all qualification announcements in production.

At the same time, He Xiaopeng also listed three things that the team has done inadequately, including: low stock price, sales volume, and morale; the collapse of customer thinking and customer reputation; Xpeng's organizational ability led to inefficiency in the department (He admitted that all four members of Xpeng's original president office made many mistakes, including his own).

In order to solve the above three problems, which once seriously affected Xpeng Motors, He Xiaopeng carried out drastic internal rectification, including the planning of a clear future strategy (see the medium and long-term strategy below); Higher requirements are put forward for the NPS of word-of-mouth; Cancel the reporting relationship and approval conditions at the level of the president's office, etc.

In fact, since the G9 turmoil, Xpeng Motors has begun a deep organizational restructuring.

Xpeng Motors set up five virtual committee organizations to connect all business lines of the company, improving communication efficiency and decision-making efficiency. Establish three product matrix organizations, around the coordination of various functions such as marketing, customer service, communication, sales, training, sales management, etc., to ensure that the customer and market orientation are the mainstay, and the end-to-end responsibility for the whole business of products (including service products) is closed.

At the end of December, a memorandum within Xpeng Motors showed that the organizational structure adjustment is still continuing, and a new financial platform has been established to improve the refined level of cost and expense control and the compliance ability of the financial system.

He Xiaopeng said that in 2023, he will mainly address strategy and planning, organizational capabilities and values. At present, some committees have been formed and have begun to move forward, and some committees are also preliminary discussions. "In the past five years, Xpeng has been developing a vertical matrix around one product at the same time, and from 2023 to 2027, we are a large product matrix developed around multiple products at the same time, which is a huge change."

Looking at it, as the early batch of new forces collectively entered the period of intensive product upgrading, with the gradual expansion of the company's business and personnel scale, the company's institutional mechanism and other aspects are also facing many challenges. Seeking becomes the common keyword of "Wei Xiaoli", and although the adjustment direction of new car organizations has its own emphasis, most of them point to efficiency and cost.

On December 9, along with a personnel adjustment, Li Xiang, the founder of Li Xiang, announced in an internal letter that the company will shift from a "vertical functional organization" to a "matrix organization" for all-round organizational adjustment. Li Auto has added five new horizontal entity divisions to the original two horizontal entity divisions, Strategy Department and Product Department.

On the first day of 2023, Li Bin, chairman and CEO of NIO, also pointed out the company's development problems in an all-staff letter and sent a signal to make internal adjustments.

Finally, He Xiaopeng also reported to tens of thousands of internal Xpeng Motors employees on Xpeng Motors' medium- and long-term strategy and key work in 2023.

1. In the next five years, the operating profit will turn positive in 2025 (the lowest comprehensive gross profit margin in 2025 will reach 17%, and the annual R&D investment will reach 10 billion), and the sales volume will reach 1.2 million in 2027 (the market share will reach about 30% in fully autonomous vehicles).

2. In the next five years, we will be customer-centric and build product competitiveness.

3. Take full-scenario, low-cost autonomous driving as the standard to form a gripper. (Xpeng's SKUs may have only one to two, which means that high-end cars may only have two-wheel drive versions and four-wheel drive versions, and cheaper cars may only have low and high endurance, and automatic driving has become standard)

4. Expansion of overseas markets. (Two overseas models to be launched in 2023, a third overseas model to be launched in 2024, and overseas models to be launched in 2025 are under discussion)

5. Actively explore software and new business models. (The next five years are fully autonomous driving, and the next five years are the era of unmanned driving, and Xpeng Motors plans to make software contribute more profits.)

In He Xiaopeng's view, in 2023 and 2024, the latecomers to the track and other competitors will still encounter a lot of cost challenges, "In the new five years, you will see, I think that the existing OEMs in the past, and the new OEMs that have not yet come out, a large number of manufacturers will fall like the previous five years." ”

It believes that most of the current price of Xpeng Motors is between 180,000-350,000, and with the return of battery prices, all cars now have the ability to further reduce the cost significantly, "but how to do a good job in the price range of 100,000 to 200,000 to do a solid global job, this is the point where we will continue to think, explore and layout later." ”

Author | Su Peng Wang Yan

Edit | Wang Yan