NIO, can't hold it anymore?
Another critical moment.
1
shrink
NIO is once again in the spotlight.
In the past two days, a netizen who claimed to be an employee of NIO posted an article titled "Where is NIO's Conscience" on social platforms.
The author said that he has worked in Weilai for 5.5 years, nearly 40 years old, old and young, often volunteering to work overtime and stay up all night, without overtime pay and never complaining. But when he came to work early in the morning, he was suddenly told that he was on the layoff list, without any warning, "as if he had been suddenly hit by a meteorite". There are also several materials in the article-
1. Almost 80% of NIO employees have explicitly or implicitly stated that they must buy NIO cars if they want to keep their jobs. The author himself took out a loan to buy the NIO ET5 and pushed dozens of cars to his relatives and friends.
2. There are many quality problems with NIO. According to the author, there are many quality problems in NIO cars, such as various abnormal noises, sunroofs, air conditioning, and central control, and NIO employee owners do not receive timely communication and treatment when they encounter quality problems in their cars, and cannot be guaranteed.
To sum up, an employee who has worked in NIO for 5.5 years bought 2 NIO cars and recommended his relatives and friends to buy NIO cars, but in the end he was laid off by NIO. Burdened with a loan of more than 10,000 yuan and encountering middle-aged unemployment, the author feels hopeless in life.
Behind this small essay that caused a sensation on the whole network, there was a rumor of layoffs that had already appeared in NIO.
On November 3, Li Bin, the founder of NIO, released an internal all-staff letter of "Organizational Optimization and Two-Year Priorities", which directly mentioned -
According to the organizational and business optimization plan formulated by the company, the company will reduce the number of positions by about 10%, and the specific adjustment will be completed in November.
According to the data, NIO will have 30,000 employees in the first half of 2023. According to this data, it means that NIO will lay off nearly 3,000 employees this time, which is expected to save 1.1 billion yuan in employee expenses.
It is worth mentioning that at the end of 2022, Li Bin issued an internal speech, "As long as you can pay wages, you can easily not do layoffs".
Stretch the time a little longer, and NIO's "cost reduction and efficiency increase" has actually started a long time ago.
In June 2023, NIO issued an announcement saying-
From June 12, 2023, the starting price of all new NIO models will be reduced by CNY 30,000.
At the same time, NIO made it clear that the free battery swap service will no longer be used as a standard car right, and new users can flexibly choose to charge at home or pay at the charging and swapping station, and NIO will launch a flexible charging and swapping service package thereafter.
For a long time, NIO has been a brand with a higher price among the new car-making forces, with an average price of more than 400,000 yuan. Now, after the price reduction, the price of NIO's vehicle has entered the threshold of 300,000 yuan for the first time, and the guide price of the entry-level product ET5 is 298,000 yuan. If you choose the battery leasing plan, the price of the car will further drop to 228,000 yuan.
This came as a surprise. You must know that before this, Li Bin, the boss of Weilai, and Qin Lihong, the co-founder of Weilai, have repeatedly said to the public that "Weilai will never reduce prices" and "will not participate in price wars".
Behind the frequent "slaps in the face", what has NIO experienced?
2
Lack of money
The answer to this question can be found in the financial report.
A few months ago, the second-quarter financial report data released by Weilai Automobile showed that the operating income of Weilai Automobile in the second quarter was 8.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 14.8%, and a decrease of nearly 20% from the first quarter of this year, which was less than market expectations. In terms of profit, NIO's net loss in the second quarter was 6.056 billion yuan, an increase of 119.6% year-on-year and 27.8% quarter-on-quarter.
In the first half of the year, NIO sold 54,600 vehicles, with a revenue of 16.4 billion yuan and a net loss of 10.8 billion yuan.
If calculated according to the net loss/sales volume, this means that for every car sold in the first half of 2023, NIO will lose nearly 200,000!
Also according to this algorithm, for every car sold in the first half of 2023, the ideal can earn 20,000 yuan, and Xpeng will also lose 120,000, but not as much as NIO.
A little longer, this is already the 20th consecutive quarter of losses after NIO went public. According to media statistics, from 2018 to the first half of 2023, NIO's net profit attributable to the parent company has accumulated losses in the past five and a half years-
76.4 billion yuan.
Weilai's car, if it is 400,000 yuan/unit, the money lost over the years can buy 191,000 Weilai!
According to the financial situation of Weilai, "Brocade" has done a limit deduction, according to different calculation methods, the time that Weilai can hold is -
5.93 years, 1.3 years, 3.3 years.
In other words, if the operating conditions remain unchanged and the debt structure and equity structure do not change, NIO will be able to survive for another 6 years under the most optimistic scenario.
In addition, according to the previous combing of Caijing Eleven, the total amount of funds in the hands of NIO will drop from about 55.43 billion yuan in 2021 to 45.5 billion yuan in 2022. During the same period, NIO's short-term debt and long-term liabilities, excluding the absolute amount of accounts payable after accounts receivable, increased from RMB34.22 billion in 2021 to RMB51.44 billion in 2022.
▲Source: Start PowerOn
This means that NIO's on-hand funds are no longer able to cover supplier arrears and bank debts.
NIO, which is short of money, is inevitably moving towards a contraction cycle.
3
shuffle
So, where did NIO lose all its money?
Judging from the financial report, first, R&D is very expensive. In 2022, for example, NIO's R&D expenses increased from 4.6 billion yuan in 2021 to 10.8 billion yuan, an increase of 136%.
Second, there are also a lot of marketing expenses. Also in 2022, NIO's selling, general and administrative expenses increased by 53% from 6.9 billion to 10.5 billion. Among the three "Wei Xiaoli", NIO has invested the most in R&D, but it also has the most sales expenses.
The third is NIO's big bet on battery swap stations. The Beijing News has reported that the cost of NIO's first-generation battery swap station is about 2.5 million to 3 million yuan, and the cost of the second-generation battery swap station is about 1.5 million yuan (excluding batteries).
According to Li Bin's previous statement, the total number of NIO battery swap stations is currently 1,484, and some media estimate that the total investment cost is about 3 billion yuan. More importantly, Li Bin has announced that the construction target of battery swap stations in 2023 will be increased from the original 400 to 1,000, and more than 2,300 battery swap stations will be built by the end of the year.
According to the cost of the second-generation battery swap station of 1.5 million yuan, NIO will invest 204 million yuan per month in the battery swap station, which is not counting the operating costs.
I don't make a lot of money, but I don't spend a lot of money.
More importantly, the pattern of new energy vehicles has changed. A few years ago, NIO was the big brother of a new car-making force in the limelight. Before going public in 2018, NIO raised more than $2 billion, and its investors included top institutions such as Tencent, JD.com, and Hillhouse.
After its listing, NIO's market capitalization once exceeded $100 billion. But today, its U.S. stock market capitalization is only about $13 billion, down 87% from its high.
Among similar companies, NIO shares have fallen about 25% over the past 12 months, Li Auto has risen more than 115%, and Xpeng has also risen about 120%.
This trend is also reflected in sales volumes. According to the data, in the past October, Ideal delivered a total of 40,400 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 302.1%, Xpeng delivered a total of 20,000 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 292%, and Leapmotor delivered a total of 18,200 new cars, a year-on-year increase of 159.06%.
In contrast, NIO delivered 16,100 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 59.84%, ranking fourth with a slight loneliness.
▲ Source: Car One Circle
Looking at the first 10 months of 2023, NIO has delivered a total of 126,000 vehicles, Xpeng Motors has sold 101,000 vehicles, and Li Auto has delivered 284,600 vehicles.
The big brother of the new forces of the year is now gradually falling behind. It can't be said that NIO is running slowly, it can only be said that its peers are running too fast.
Today, the new energy vehicle industry is becoming more and more volatile. At the front of the team, BYD and Tesla are already far ahead. In the rear, there are also a number of newer forces, as well as traditional car companies that are speeding up.
Judging from the new car sales list in October, the delivery volume of new energy brands incubated by traditional car companies such as Aion, Zeekr, Smart, VOYAH, Zhiji, AVATAR, and Feifan has increased significantly. And some brands that can't keep up with the team, such as WM Motor, Aiways, etc., can only go to the brink of bankruptcy.
The stronger the stronger, the acceleration of elimination will be the main tone of the future. In the face of such a reality, the only thing that players can rely on is their own "hematopoietic" hard power - sell more cars and make more money.
Objectively speaking, as the big brother of the first generation of new forces, NIO has many advantages. In the high-end pure electric vehicle market of more than 300,000 yuan, NIO's market share is still leading; in the past five years, NIO has invested more than 30 billion yuan in R&D, with profound technical accumulation;
But time waits for no one, and NIO's actions have to be a little faster. It's still the same sentence -
Although there must be an ideal, there is also a combination of one thing, which is called "reality".