整理 | 刘芬 编辑 | 蒋诗舟
News of the week (April 1 - April 7)
The central bank has set up a re-loan for scientific and technological innovation and technological transformation, with a quota of 500 billion yuan and an interest rate of 1.75%
Auto loan policy adjustment, buying a car is expected to have "zero down payment"
Musk denied that Tesla was abandoning low-cost cars and announced the launch of Robotaxi on August 8
Evergrande Automobile announced that Newton Group's strategic investment has been terminated
GAC Aion and Didi have established a joint venture to mass-produce the first batch of robotaxis in 2025
ZEEKR was revealed to have restarted its IPO in the United States
Musk's AI company may raise $3 billion
Sprint to "AIGC First Stock", "Mobvoi" passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Car companies seize the new outlet of AI large models
The car business was cut and Apple will lay off more than 600 employees
Regulatory developments
The central bank has set up a re-loan for scientific and technological innovation and technological transformation, with a quota of 500 billion yuan and an interest rate of 1.75%
According to the official website of the central bank, the People's Bank of China has set up scientific and technological innovation and technological transformation re-loans to encourage and guide financial institutions to increase financial support for technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, technological transformation and equipment renewal projects in key areas. The reloan amount for scientific and technological innovation and technological transformation is 500 billion yuan, with an interest rate of 1.75% and a term of 1 year, which can be extended twice and each time for a period of 1 year. The recipients include 21 financial institutions, including China Development Bank, policy banks, state-owned commercial banks, Postal Savings Bank of China, and joint-stock commercial banks.
Auto loan policy adjustment, buying a car is expected to have "zero down payment"
On April 3, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the State Administration of Financial Supervision (SAMR) issued a notice that under the premise of compliance with laws and regulations and controllable risks, financial institutions can independently determine the maximum disbursement ratio of loans for self-use traditional power vehicles and self-use new energy vehicles according to the borrower's credit status and repayment ability, and can issue loans in full according to the purchase price of the car, with a maximum disbursement ratio of 70% for commercial traditional powered vehicles, 75% for commercial new energy vehicles, and 70% for second-hand cars.
This means that in the future, the maximum disbursement ratio of self-use car loans can be increased to "100%", and the loan to buy a car can achieve "zero down payment". On the same day, Tesla China suddenly announced that it would launch a "zero interest" installment purchase policy for up to 5 years for the first time. Dongfeng Honda, Guangqi Honda, FAW Toyota, Dongfeng Nissan and other car companies have responded and launched subsidy policies such as zero down payment and zero interest for trade-in.
Company Spotlight
【Smart Cars】
Musk denied that Tesla was abandoning low-cost cars and announced the launch of Robotaxi on August 8
On April 5, Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied on social media that Tesla was abandoning low-cost cars and said that he would release a Robotaxi on August 8. It is reported that Tesla is about to launch Robotaxi, and the biggest confidence may come from the major progress of fully autonomous driving FSD. A few days ago, Tesla changed the name of FSD from the test version of "FSD Beta" to "FSD Supervised", which foreign media believe means that FSD has ended public testing and entered the link of large-scale commercialization.
Previously, Musk has repeatedly said that Robotaxi means a lot to Tesla, hoping to provide consumers with the lowest cost per mile of transportation through Robotaxi and FSD full self-driving, and the cost of riding Robotaxi will eventually be lower than that of subsidized buses or subways. In April 2022, Musk also introduced the progress of Robotaxi, saying that he did not pursue too fast progress, and there may be product activities released next year, with the goal of achieving mass production in 2024.
Evergrande Automobile announced that Newton Group's strategic investment has been terminated
On the evening of April 5, according to the announcement of Evergrande Automobile, Newton Group's strategic investment was terminated, and the company's previously proposed transaction and the revision of the terms of the debt-to-equity swap have not made any further progress. Looking back at the previous announcement, Newton Group originally planned to implement a strategic investment of about 500 million US dollars in Evergrande Automobile and provide 600 million yuan of transitional funds. In addition, Evergrande Group, Xu Jiayin and other creditors originally planned to offset the HK$20.895 billion debt owed by Evergrande Automobile by subscribing for new shares of Evergrande Automobile. According to Evergrande Automobile's previous disclosure, all the funds from this war investment will be used for Evergrande Automobile's Tianjin plant to ensure the normal production of Hengchi 5 and the successive mass production of Hengchi 6 and 7. In addition, Newton Group will also assist Evergrande Automobile to explore overseas markets and export 30,000-50,000 Hengchi vehicles to the Middle East every year.
According to the 2023 financial report disclosed by Evergrande Automobile, the revenue in 2023 will be 1.34 billion yuan, and the net loss will be 11.995 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 56.64%. As of the end of last year, Evergrande Automobile's total assets were 34.851 billion yuan, total liabilities were 72.543 billion yuan, and cash and cash equivalents were 129 million yuan. The unpaid debts due were about 9.447 billion yuan, the overdue commercial bills were about 3.401 billion yuan, and the cumulative amount of the subject matter of the pending litigation cases was about 13.608 billion yuan. Evergrande Automobile said in its financial report that due to financial reasons, the group has recently arranged for some personnel to take a holiday, and the Tianjin plant has suspended production. The Group will go all out to attract strategic investors and actively raise funds to sustain the Group's survival and future development plans.
GAC Aion and Didi have established a joint venture to mass-produce the first batch of robotaxis in 2025
On April 7, GAC Aion and Didi Autonomous Driving announced that their joint venture, Guangzhou Andi Technology Co., Ltd., has been approved for an industrial and commercial license. Based on GAC Aion's pure electric exclusive vehicle platform and vehicle electrical architecture, the two companies will integrate Didi Autonomous Driving's unique L4 autonomous driving technology solutions for mobility services to jointly build L4 driverless production vehicles.
It is reported that the newly established joint venture will focus on the development and production of driverless cars, of which GAC Aion and Didi Autonomous Driving each hold 50% of the shares, the chairman of the board of directors is Zhang Xiong, deputy general manager of GAC Aion, and the general manager is Meng Xing, chief operating officer of Didi Autonomous Driving. According to the announcement of the two parties, the first Robotaxi (self-driving taxi) jointly built has completed the product definition, and the design and styling are being jointly reviewed, and the first batch of L4 models is planned to be mass-produced in 2025.
ZEEKR was revealed to have restarted its IPO in the United States
Recent news shows that ZEEKR has relaunched its US IPO plan, which may raise up to $500 million. In this regard, ZEEKR did not comment, but also did not deny it. The company has filed with the SEC and is preparing for it, the people said. On November 30 last year, Zeekr suspended its IPO plan due to weak market sentiment and mismatched valuation expectations. At the time, it planned to raise $1 billion in an IPO and hoped to get a $18 billion valuation. According to the financial report data, ZEEKR's revenue in 2023 will be 51.636 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%, and the net loss will be 1.135 billion yuan, lower than the loss of 2.039 billion yuan in the same period last year. In addition, ZEEKR will deliver 119,000 vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 65%.
【AI+ Application】
Musk's AI company may raise $3 billion
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI is in talks with investors about financing. The funding round reached $3 billion, which will bring xAI's valuation to $18 billion. According to the report, investors considering participating in xAI's financing include venture capital firm Gigafund and investor Steve Jurvetson. Gigafund was co-founded in July 2017 by Stephen Oskoui and Luke Nosek, who co-founded PayPal. Jurvetson is a co-founder of another venture capital firm, Future Ventures.
Sprint to "AIGC First Stock", "Mobvoi" passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
On the evening of April 2, the official website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange showed that China's large model company "Mobvoi" passed the hearing of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and is expected to complete the IPO listing of Hong Kong stocks as soon as this month, becoming the "first share of AIGC". It is understood that Mobvoi, founded in 2012, is an artificial intelligence company with generative AI and voice interaction technology as the core, focusing on providing AI Copilot solutions such as AIGC solutions, AI enterprise solutions, smart devices and accessories, and launched the AI large language model "Sequence Monkey" in April 2023.
From 2021 to 2023, Mobvoi will achieve revenue of 398 million yuan, 500 million yuan and 507 million yuan respectively, and the comprehensive gross profit margin will reach 37.5%, 67.2% and 64.3% respectively. The company turned losses into profits in 2022, with adjusted profits of -73.44 million yuan, 109 million yuan, and 17.54 million yuan from 2021 to 2023, respectively. In the same period, the revenue from AIGC solutions was 6.822 million yuan, 39.857 million yuan and 118 million yuan respectively, with a compound growth rate of more than 300% from 2021 to 2023. At present, Mobvoi has completed multiple rounds of financing, and its shareholders include Sequoia Capital, Goertek, Zhen Fund, SIG Haina Asia, Google, etc. As of the listing, the company's founder and CEO Li Zhifei and persons acting in concert jointly held 32.74% of the total issued share capital of Mobvoi.
Car companies seize the new outlet of AI large models
According to China Business Daily, at present, many brands of automobiles such as Jiyue, Xiaomi, Zhiji, and NIO have gradually applied AI large models to their own car products. Up to now, the pace of integration of AI large models with technical modules such as intelligent cockpits and autonomous driving has accelerated.
Guotai Junan's analysis believes that the large model technology gives the cockpit more accurate and fluent speech recognition function, richer knowledge reserve and semantic understanding ability, and anthropomorphic interaction to make voice interaction more natural. Many car companies have started from the perspective of in-vehicle voice assistants to promote the application of large models in the cockpit. According to the analysis of the relevant research report of Orient Securities, in the modular autonomous driving system of intelligent cars, AI algorithms are the core of the root governance layer and the decision-making level. The development of AI large-scale model technology allows autonomous driving technology to remove the dependence on high-precision maps by improving perception capabilities.
Talent trends
The car business was cut and Apple will lay off more than 600 employees
According to a recent report by CCTV Finance, Apple plans to lay off more than 600 employees in California. It is understood that the positions to be eliminated this time are related to Apple's previous car manufacturing project that was abandoned by the news. This is also the first large-scale layoff at Apple in recent years. According to documents received by the California Department of Employment Development, Apple confirmed that it will permanently lay off 614 employees at eight locations in the Santa Clara, California, area. The retrenched employees were notified on March 28, and the layoff decision will take effect from May 27.
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