When the news of Tesla's layoffs at its Shanghai factory has not yet dispersed, another new energy leader company has also been involved in a new round of layoffs rumors, and is also facing the "pinch" of lawsuits from overseas investors.
Li Auto, following the rumors of layoffs in April, many news channels pointed out that it will lay off employees, and there are even rumors that the R&D department will lay off 40% of its staff and 70% of its human resources will be laid off. Although the online news is not entirely credible, just as the rumors of layoffs in early April were debunked, there was finally a real structural adjustment.
The shadow of layoffs and lawsuits once again looms over Li Auto. No matter how exaggerated the "40% reduction in R&D workforce" is, the target of 800,000 units to 640,000 units is also under great pressure; Regardless of whether the thighs are "walking or not", the litigation lawyers of overseas investors are already running, and the 2024 of Li Auto is not ideal.
As the most outstanding product manager-type automobile company, the ideal marketing longboard and efficiency strengths are destined to succeed in the past few years, but it also corresponds to the hard power of technology research and development that is not comparable to Huawei, Tesla, and Weilai.
With the joining of the Ideal L6 new force, Ideal began to rise in sales again, and in some months and weekly sales, it was gradually able to regain its popularity. The so-called class action lawsuit of investors is more like an angry backlash after the failure of capital to pursue profits.
It's just that whether it is the 800,000 units set last year or the 640,000 sales target after the reduction, according to industry practice, they have gradually drifted away.
The 2024 of Li Auto is not ideal, after all, the tone of 2024 in the automotive industry is not ideal.
"Layoff Rashomon"
"Now the public relations department of Li Auto is busy deleting posts again." The insider laughed, "There are many descriptions that are indeed exaggerated, but the pressure is indeed huge." ”
On social media, following the "Tesla Shanghai factory layoffs", there is news pointing to Li Auto's "layoffs". For example, "all offers will stop after the Qingming Festival on April 4", "BOSS Zhipin has not been online for several months on HR".
One of the most radical descriptions is: Ideal Beijing's R&D department has laid off 40% of its staff, while the human resources department has laid off 70% of its staff, and Song Ziwei, who was previously poached, is also accused of leaving.
"As far as I know, Song Ziwei is still in the product sequence, and I'm afraid that the official will refute the rumors soon, or release the official report of the corresponding people participating in the event," the aforementioned person believes that some of the information in the rumors is exaggerated, "and some rumors have been deformed, saying that the entire ideal research and development will be cut by 40%, how is it possible?" ”
However, there are indeed personnel leaving the R&D port in Beijing, "Beijing Chehejia R&D port is indeed laying off employees, and friends from the R&D port have been arranged to leave in mid-May, and even a few people from the legal department have left." The ideal is still good, and I will give compensation. ”
In line with the principle of seeking truth and pragmatism, there is no contradiction between "substantiating ideal layoffs" and "refuting exaggerated ideal layoffs".
"It is impossible to lay off 40% of the overall R&D workforce, and the ideal R&D was close to 7,000 people last year, and it is big news for international giants to lay off nearly 3,000 people."
According to the ideal layout: the headquarters is located in Beijing, the self-owned production base is located in Changzhou, Jiangsu, and the R&D center is located in Shanghai. The R&D personnel are more in Shanghai.
As of December 31, 2023, Li Auto had a total of 31,591 employees, of which 6,726 were R&D personnel, accounting for 21.29% of the total number of employees. XPeng has a total of 13,550 employees, of which 5,401 are R&D personnel, accounting for 39.86%; NIO has a total of 32,820 employees, of which 11,222 are in product and software development and 2,231 are in charge of manufacturing, accounting for 40.99% of the total.
In the total number of R&D employees, Shanghai Li Auto Technology Co., Ltd. will account for more than half of the R&D personnel based on the number of insured people in 2023 and the number of insured employees in branches will be 2,360 and 4,720 in branches. Therefore, "40% of the layoffs in Beijing's R&D department" are estimated to involve less than 1,000 people.
However, the news brought by another person is not good: "In fact, the ideal Guangjin plan will not only be the Beijing company. In Shanghai, Yu Tian already has employees who are returning computers to IT, and they are regular employees, not temporary workers. There are technicians in Changzhou who will not be allowed to travel next week, waiting for an appointment. ”
Therefore, the ideal layoff is currently in the bud, and it will take time to answer what the final situation will be.
The legend of Li Auto's layoffs had already emerged a month ago in early April: "All new offers are tentatively approved, and there will be a small number of shares above 17 posts, but they may be linked to performance and other evaluation grades, and low performance cannot be cashed out; The total budget has been reduced by more than 30%, the personnel structure is arranged according to the annual sales of 800,000 vehicles, the personnel is relatively redundant, and the next step will be to lay off employees."
After the official refutation of the rumors, there was a follow-up to the adjustment of the internal organizational structure, and the CEO office of Li Auto was the focus, which was changed from the original department covering the brand department, product department, commercial department, strategy department, and supply department to the "product and strategy group", which will also set up a "product line" department and a "quality operation" department. The change will result in a weakened supply chain and commercial sales function and a stronger focus on products and strategy.
Compared with the sensational digital games of unknown self-media, some statements will seem more reasonable and reliable, "The MEGA team has shrunk and turned to brand incubation and small team operations." ”
In fact, compared with other car companies, if Li Auto does only lay off a small number of employees, it has been a success. "Judging from the current range, the ideal is not ashamed," after all, Tesla and Japanese joint ventures have reported significant layoffs at a similar time.
MEGA's troubles aren't over yet
The layoffs in the midst of "rumors" and "rumors" are not the only trouble for Li Auto at present. At the same time, the WeChat public account named "International Lawyer" posted an article "Li Auto's Global Investor Class Action (and All U.S. Stock Class Actions Currently Collected)".
The author, who signed the firm "Hao Junbo & Associates," said: "Li Auto Inc (NASDAQ: LI) has recently been subjected to a class action lawsuit by investors in a securities fraud case. In the current lawsuit, investors allege that the company and some of its executives violated securities laws by making false statements during the litigation in this case, and investors are harmed. The investor applied to the court to order the defendant to compensate the investor for the losses caused by the fall in the stock price due to his illegal acts. ”
The logical chain of prosecution is very simple, and this year's number one "hacked" model, MEGA, is the fuse:
When Ideal released MEGA, it was overconfident, thus exaggerating the end market demand and its own operational capabilities, and giving unrealistic sales target expectations;
· MEGA suffered setbacks and lowered its sales forecast for the first quarter of 2024;
There may be a material negative impact on the financial or stock price;
The ideal is alleged to be materially false and misleading.
Regarding this lawsuit, public opinion is currently concentrated in two directions.
One is that some investors are proud when they make money, and they turn their faces when they lose money, and they should admit defeat when they invest, and "overconfidence" cannot be equal to fraud; The second is that although the lawsuit is suspected of "stirring up trouble", it is also an indisputable fact that Ideal is overconfident and over-relies on radical communication, and MEGA belongs to the embodiment of Li Auto and Li Xiang's own arrogance and defeat, and marketing is greater than the background of R&D, and the related negative impact has not yet ended.
If we review the reasons for MEGA's defeat in an afterthought, "being hacked as a coffin car" is the appearance, and if we ask "why MEGA was hacked" and "why ideals and MEGA can be hacked", then the deep-seated root cause has two dimensions.
First of all, in the dimension of order volume/sales, the biggest reason is that MEGA positioning itself is not a popular market segment, and its own competitiveness is not the strongest.
MEGA has several labels: pure electric, 500,000 yuan, MPV, all of which are not conducive to sales.
In turn, the previously very successful ideal L9 and other models are labeled: range extender, 30-450,000 yuan, SUV.
Pure electric vehicles are inherently more difficult to increase than the range extension of the L series and One before Ideal; MPVs are more difficult to increase than sedans and SUVs; The high-end market of 500,000 yuan is more difficult to increase than the previous ideal continuous success of the 30-450,000 yuan market, and 500,000 yuan is a very prominent psychological threshold.
And the MEGA product power is not as unbeatable as the ideal boasted in the foreshadowing communication.
In terms of the starting price of 559,800 yuan of MEGA, it has reached the high-end price of Buick Century, but the biggest advantage of MEGA compared with the century, acceleration performance, handling performance, and intelligent driving performance, is not the dimension that high-end MPV customers value, and the latter pays more attention to traditional items such as appearance, atmosphere, and comfort.
· The MEGA uses R18 tires, which leads to an imbalance in the proportions of the appearance, and the image of the "small-footed" car is not suitable for high-end MPVs;
Ideal for the screen, MEGA's central control screen size is 15.7 inches and 3K resolution, which is not as good as the century of 520,000 yuan, the latter is 30 inches and 6K;
The second-row seats are adjusted by 3 gears, while the Century has 6 gears, and the third-row seats have only 1 gear, while the Century has 2 gears;
In terms of intelligent cockpit, of course, the ideal is more capable of playing than Buick, but Century only needs to support Carplay mobile phone mapping to complete many operations simply, while MEGA does not have mobile phone interconnection mapping.
In terms of the most critical functions of the home such as seats and screens, which were originally prominent, MEGA is a weak project that loses points compared to the century.
Secondly, in the dimension of public opinion and word-of-mouth, the biggest factor in the ideal MEGA turmoil is the backlash of traffic, and Li Xiang and Ideal were too radical and arrogant before.
The root of "recruiting black", on the one hand, is that MEGA's style is indeed too deviant and grotesque, and on the other hand, it is still in extreme marketing and traffic play, which has cut off the ideal back road early - whether it is in terms of popularity or room for speech.
In the end, the word-of-mouth of the MEGA collapsed in the whirlpool, directly affecting the sales of 3,229 units in March, which also fell by two-thirds month-on-month to 1,145 units in April.
Running out of ideal momentum?
If Li Auto is the most proud new car-making force in 2023, then 2024 will be the new car-making force with the largest psychological gap.
In 2023, Li Auto has achieved several miracles:
With a high price of 450,000 yuan, the ideal L9 can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000 units, which is also the glory of Chinese brands in a certain sense;
-Delivered 50,353 new vehicles in December, becoming the first new power brand to break 50,000 units per month.
- Annual sales of 376,030 units, up 182.2% year-on-year, leading the new forces, with cumulative deliveries of more than 600,000 units by the end of 2023, ranking first among the new forces;
The average price of a single bicycle once surpassed that of NIO, which is considered a more high-end vehicle;
The annual profit was 11.7 billion yuan, and the cash was 91.3 billion yuan, which was the envy of many new energy vehicle companies.
This is also why when the "2024 sales target of 800,000 units" first came out, many people believed that the ideal could create miracles again.
However, 2024 MEGA kicked off a sharp turn in the momentum of the ideal. It is precisely because MEGA tried its best to piece together only 3,000 units in March, which was far less than the previous expectation of 8,000 units, and dragged down the reputation and popularity of the entire ideal brand, so on March 21, Ideal admitted that it lowered its quarterly sales forecast from 10-103,000 units to 76,000-78,000 units, resulting in a sharp drop in both US and Hong Kong stocks of Ideal Auto.
In the end, Li Auto delivered 80,400 vehicles in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of 52.9%. In fact, it exceeded the lowered expected value, showing that the ideal has returned to low-key and pragmatic intentions after the radical and high-profile image was frustrated.
However, from the perspective of annual sales, Li Auto may still have twists and turns in the future. The full-year sales target has been lowered to 640,000 units from the previous staggering 800,000 units. However, based on recent sales forecasts, this figure may not be able to be achieved.
On the one hand, since the first quarter, it has been suppressed by Wenjie/Hongmeng Zhixing for a long time, and has lost the sales crown of new forces for many months, which is not conducive to word-of-mouth and popularity.
On the other hand, Li Auto delivered 25,787 units in April, bringing its cumulative sales in the first four months to 106,189 units. If 640,000 units are to be achieved for the whole year, nearly 540,000 units will need to be completed in the remaining eight months, with a monthly average of about 67,500 units, which is 170% higher than the current monthly average of 25,000 units.
So, can the Ideal L6 and M series help Ideal achieve this goal?
In April, the Li L6 also delivered 2,381 units, and the order volume exceeded 41,000 units during the 18-day first sales period from April 18 to May 5. In the first two weeks of May, Ideal won the sales championship of the new forces, with 5,300 units in the first week exceeding 4,800 units in the Wenjie and 8,000 units exceeding the Wenjie by 06,000 units in the second week. It is not difficult to see that the ideal L6 is indeed making efforts.
Refined to the weekly sales of the model, the ideal L6 delivered 2,800 units in the second week, which has exceeded the L7, but it is still not as good as the 03,700 units of the M9. Therefore, the ideal L6 can achieve monthly sales of more than 10,000 units and a net increase of 5,000 units to the brand under the condition that the positioning grade overlaps with the L7.
Ideal M series pure electric vehicles, it is not easy to double the ideal monthly sales, not only because Ideal is not good at pure electric models, but also because the M series design language is inherited from MEGA, sales expectations are difficult to be optimistic, more importantly, it is expected that the ideal M9 will be launched around the end of the year, and there is almost no obvious sales gain in 2024.
If the ideal L6 plus the M series brings an average monthly increase of 5,000 units to Ideal, then the monthly average of 30,000 units in the next 8 months, a cumulative total of 240,000 units, plus 106,000 units in the first four months, a total of 346,000 units, is not as good as 376,000 units in 2023.
In the most ideal state, the M series was launched earlier, and the L6 performed better, perhaps ideally in 2024, it can hit the 400,000 mark. As for why the full-year target was lowered to 640,000 units, which is known to be impossible, rather than a more feasible figure, it may be based on stock prices and investor factors.
From being high-spirited and in the limelight, to now being riddled with layoffs, landslides, and litigation troubles, the momentum of Li Auto has been reversed, not only because of the huge pressure on the market, but also because of its own arrogance and subjective reasons for judging the laws of the industry.
It's just that the laws of the industry exist like iron, no matter what kind of business genius you are, going against the law can only become a temporary success, but it is difficult to become a century-old ideal.