New car-making forces line up to "drive" into a dead end

Author | She Weihang

Edit | Xing Yun

In this year's new energy track changes, after WM and Skyrim, another new force in car manufacturing may fall.

"Ziyujia is not going to close down, nor is it closing all stores, but just streamlining some teams, giving the boss some time to solve related problems, and strive to hand over the car in the first half of next year." In December 2022, Lu Haochen, vice president of Ziyoujia, told employees at an internal meeting.

But only four months later, Ziyoujia was revealed that the official APP had announced that it had stopped service and could not be accessed normally. In addition, the official website of Ziyujia NIUTRON Auto also shows that the server cannot be found, even the content of the official Weibo has been emptied, and the official WeChat public account - NIUTRON Auto has recently shown that "the account has been voluntarily cancelled and stopped using".

The suspension of online channels seems to indicate that the road of self-travel is likely to stop.

The boss behind Ziyoujia is Li Yinan, a former Huawei genius teenager. This star figure in the technology circle, once regarded as Huawei's heir, has invested in a number of companies after leaving the company, entered the field of smart electric vehicles in 2015 to establish Niudian Technology, and after the success of Niu Electric Vehicle, Li Yinan set his sights on the hot track of new energy vehicles.

New energy vehicles + genius teenagers, this kind of business combination with its own halo was once infinitely optimistic by the capital market, but I did not expect that the self-travelers, who were regarded as potential stocks, would soon "stop". The survival dilemma encountered by Ziyujia is actually only the epitome of the waist and tail car companies in this round of "battle royale". The industry reshuffle is coming, and the batch "death" is underway.

1. Offline stores are closed

In addition to online channels, Ziyoujia's offline channels have also been suspended.

On April 7, "Leopard Change" visited Ziyujia's store in Beijing Phoenix Mall. A white self-friendly car was parked alone on the booth on the first floor of the mall, like an abandoned toy, many people passed by, but no one stopped for it, waiting for it is the fate of exiting the booth and being pulled away.

Opposite the car is Ziyoujia's store, which has only one temporary employee, and compared with the bustle of other stores, this shop in the corner of the mall looks particularly deserted. "I was temporarily brought in to see the store two weeks ago, and every morning it opened and closed in the afternoon, and there were almost no customers coming to the store and no orders." The only employee in the store told "Leopard Change".

"They don't have anyone in the store, they have a car right here, and they don't have many employees." The staff of the store next door told "Leopard Change" that the "desertion" of the self-traveler has been going on for a long time.

Ziyoujia has a total of four stores in Beijing, namely Phoenix Hui, CapitaMall, Qinghe Vientiane Hui, and Beijing Century Jinyuan, of which Qinghe Vientiane Hui and CapitaMall stores have been closed. The staff of Wangjing Kaide Mall told "Leopard Change" that Ziyujia has withdrawn from the mall in December 2022. At present, there are only two stores left, Phoenix Hui and Beijing Century Jinyuan, but these two stores are in a state of "opening stores and not open", although both stores are open and there are also display cars, but they cannot test drive and ride, let alone sell products.

In addition to Beijing, many Ziyoujia stores in other regions have also been exposed to the situation of closing stores and "opening stores are not open", on the one hand, the suspension of APP and official website services, on the other hand, the suspension of many offline stores, a variety of phenomena indicate that the "shutdown" of Ziyoujia is not temporary.

The self-traveler two years ago was not like this.

Li Yinan, known as a genius boy, has always had his own halo in the business field, and even if he eventually leaves Huawei, he is optimistic about many investment institutions. After the listing of Xiaoniu Electric Vehicle on the US stock market, capital became more and more optimistic about Li Yinan's "golden signboard".

Niu Innovation Energy (NIUTRON) was registered and established in 2020, and later renamed Mars Stone Technology, its brand carrier is Ziyoujia, with Li Yinan's "gold-absorbing" effect, Mars Stone obtained a $500 million A round of financing from IDG and other investment institutions at the end of 2021, IDG has invested in NIO, Xpeng Motors, capital has high hopes for Li Yinan, looking forward to him bringing the second "Maverick Electric Vehicle" miracle.

But what I didn't expect was that after only two years, the project went from being popular in the market to falling to the bottom. In fact, since last year, the rout of Ziyujia has shown signs of failure.

"Before the formal layoff, the company did not disclose that it would be dissolved, but we ourselves felt that the atmosphere of the company was not quite right, and even the usually lively WeChat group became rarely spoken in the period before the layoff."

Zhang Yu, a salesperson of Ziyoujia, told "Leopard Change" that since December 2022, Ziyoujia has laid off almost all salespeople, "leaving one or two people in each store, and after the store expires, the materials are processed before leaving." Before that, Ziyoujia's store business was also very general, "there are relatively few car products, many customers are mainly wait-and-see, and there are not many people who place orders."

For the automotive industry, marketing has always been a priority, and the layoffs of sales staff by Ziyujia at that time have already heralded future shutdowns.

2. Crushed by car building qualifications?

"Mars Stone Technology will empower Dacheng Automobile in the fields of software, intelligence, three electric and other technologies, and jointly improve the level of vehicle and intelligent software."

On October 8, 2022, at the launch conference of Ziyujia NV, Li Yinan was full of confidence in the future of Ziyujia Auto. This car is available in three configurations, with a price range of CNY 278,800 to CNY 318,800. In order to quickly seize the market, the conference also announced that deliveries would start at the end of December of that year, greatly shortening the waiting time for customers.

The number of Ziyujia's cars quickly exceeded 20,000 after the release, and when I thought it could be a hit, I didn't expect it to end badly.

In Zhang Ang's view, the failure to deliver successfully is due to the problem of car manufacturing qualifications, which is also the fundamental reason that crushes the company. Zhang Ang told "Leopard Change" that due to difficulties in delivery, Ziyujia not only refunded the scheduled customers, but also gave each person a car model and a 200 yuan Starbucks card.

Why did the "car-building qualification" in Zhang Ang's mouth become a roadblock for self-travelers?

At present, the relevant access supervision of new energy vehicles is becoming stricter, and the production and sales qualifications need to be subject to regulatory approval. In order to solve the problem of "birth permit", Li Yinan originally chose to cooperate with Dacheng Auto through the OEM model. However, due to the tightening of policies, the new regulatory regulations require that both the entrusting party and the OEM need to have the production qualification of new energy vehicles. Li Yinan finally decided to abandon the OEM model and adopt a cooperative car manufacturing model.

Ziyujia is a collaboration between Mars Stone Technology and Mahayana Automobile, with Mars Stone Technology providing technical support and Mahayana Automobile in charge of manufacturing. However, as a car manufacturer, Dacheng Automobile, formerly known as Jiangxi Jiangling Group Light Automobile Co., Ltd., has been suspended for a long time since 2019 due to huge debt problems. According to enterprise investigation data, as of April 13, Dacheng Automobile Group Co., Ltd. has had as many as 381 judicial cases, and has repeatedly become a dishonest enforcer.

According to the 2020 document issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, new energy vehicle companies that have stopped production for more than 24 months need to be verified by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and cannot maintain access conditions. Due to the long shutdown and debt problems, Dacheng Auto did not complete the qualification approval of the competent authority, so it could not regain the qualification.

To complete the delivery plan without the qualification to build a car is simply a fantasy for self-travelers, so Mars Stone Technology and Mahayana Auto have repeatedly negotiated on the debt issue, but in the end there is no substantial progress. At the end of December 2022, Ziyoujia released a "letter to NV users", which mentioned that due to the company's own reasons, NV will not be able to be delivered in the short term, and will fully refund the intention money of 24,376 intended users within 48 hours.

Due to the stranding of the delivery plan, there were subsequent large-scale layoffs.

Zhang Ang told "Leopard Change", "Ziyujia is also actively solving the problem of car building qualifications. In February this year, Ziyoujia's car appeared at Chery Commercial Vehicle headquarters, and in the face of speculation about the upcoming cooperation between the two companies, Ziyoujia insiders also revealed to the media that "they are still negotiating with each other, and have not been decided."

Today's automotive market has changed drastically, and starting over is not an easy task.

3. What is the end of the new forces at the waist and tail?

In addition to the self-travelers, there are also many new forces that are on the verge of bankruptcy.

On April 3, Skyrim Automobile, formerly known as LeEco Automobile, announced that in view of the company's current capital situation and production and sales plans, starting from April 1, 2023, some positions of the company will implement a stoppage policy.

The reason behind the shutdown of Skyrim Auto is mainly due to its poor sales. Statistics from the Passenger Association show that from 2021 to 2022, Tianji Auto achieved sales of 1,778 and 5,321 respectively, and in the first two months of 2023, Tianji Auto only sold 186 vehicles, compared with the head car companies, this sales number is not even a fraction of others.

In order to alleviate the company's capital turnover problem, Skyrim Auto is still actively financing, half a month ago reported a new round of financing of 750 million yuan, but from the current point of view, the situation is not optimistic.

Building a car is extremely expensive. NIO founder Li Bin once said that an electric vehicle company needs at least 20 billion yuan to reach mass production. And many new forces in the middle and tail car manufacturing are difficult to cross this threshold.

In addition to Skyrim Automobile, WM Motor was also exposed to work stoppages and layoffs of wages and wages, on March 29, a stake of WM Motor up to 4.04 billion yuan was also frozen by the court, the data shows that WM Motor has obtained 12 rounds of financing since its establishment, with a total financing of a staggering 35 billion yuan.

Compared with Ziyujia and Skyrim Automobile, WM Motor has both car manufacturing qualifications and a certain market share, and on the one hand, it stumbles on the construction of two production bases in Wenzhou and Huanggang, but the sales volume is insufficient, and the long-term idle production capacity brings a huge financial burden. On the other hand, in the new energy market with very fast update and iteration, WM Motor has no obvious advantages in technology, and the degree of intelligence in power performance and human-computer interaction is far from the requirements of the market, and its products even appear to be a little "old".

Behind this is the lack of technology research and development of WM. According to the prospectus of WM, from 2019 to 2021, WM invested a total of 2.866 billion yuan in R&D. In 2021, "Wei Xiaoli" invested between 3.29 billion and 4.59 billion yuan in R&D. In other words, WM's three-year R&D expenditure is not as good as the one-year investment of "Wei Xiaoli".

At the expert media exchange meeting of the China Electric Vehicle 100 People Association held on February 17, Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said bluntly: "Now there are indeed more new energy vehicle manufacturers, there are more ideas, and there are not many real successes, more than 100 new energy vehicle companies will definitely survive the fittest in the competition, and finally concentrate on a few head enterprises." ”

In 2017, when the new energy track was hot, there were more than 200 new energy vehicle companies in China, many of which had neither technology nor car manufacturing qualifications, and even some relied on PPT to build cars, among which many car companies were in order to "cheat" to make up for and "cheat" financing, and quickly became invisible after getting subsidies and financing.

Nowadays, the speed of industry reshuffle is accelerating, and it is difficult to say that the head players who seize the market with technological and financial advantages have established a moat, and for the middle and tail players who have no advantage, the reality is even more cruel.

In 2023, the price war in the automotive market is surging. Tesla as a price butcher in new energy vehicles makes a number of new domestic car-making forces that "burn money to build cars while selling cars at a loss" very uncomfortable. After Dongfeng Motor fired the first shot of price reduction for fuel vehicles, many car companies have participated in the price reduction tide, and in the face of the price reduction raid of fuel vehicles, new energy vehicle companies are under great pressure. In addition to the impact of the price war, the subsidies for new energy vehicles have been terminated on December 31 last year, which has greatly impacted the market inertia formed by new energy vehicle companies and consumers due to subsidies in the past few years.

"Looking forward to the possibility of getting together again in the future", after the failure of delivery in 2022, Ziyujia expressed its expectation of a comeback in "A Letter to NV Users". However, there is not much time left for the "self-travelers" to break through.