Li Auto is on the hot search again, this time because of layoffs.
On May 16, a number of media reported that after the May Day holiday, Ideal carried out a new round of company-wide personnel optimization, and the overall optimization ratio exceeded 18%. By the end of 2023, the ideal number of employees will be close to 31,600. Based on this calculation, the ideal number of layoffs in this round exceeds 5,600.
01
Is the cause of lower-than-expected sales?
As one of the best living new car-making forces, Li Auto's large-scale layoffs are unexpected.
According to the data, Li Auto will achieve revenue of 123.85 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 173.5%. This means that Li Auto has become the first profitable new car-making force in China, the third new energy car company to achieve profitability after Tesla and BYD, and the first new power car company in China with annual revenue exceeding 100 billion yuan.
Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Automobile, once said: more than 200,000 new energy vehicles, the top three car companies will eat 70% of the market sales, and also set a "small goal" for the ideal: by 2030, eat 35% of the more than 200,000 family user market, the scale will exceed one trillion yuan.
Under the good development trend, Ideal expects to sell 800,000 units in 2024, and the team size is also expanding according to the expectation of 800,000 units. However, in the past four months of this year, Ideal has sold a total of 106,200 vehicles, and it has a hunch that the target is too high, and at the end of March, it lowered its sales forecast from 800,000 units to 560,000~640,000 units.
Li Auto has not yet responded to the layoffs. However, according to the analysis of many industry insiders, the layoffs of Li Auto may be related to the sales volume falling short of expectations.
It is reported that in this optimization, employees in the recruitment department, sales and service operations and intelligent driving departments will be greatly affected. The sales service operation department is mainly responsible for second-hand cars, network expansion, network planning and other services that match sales, this department has expanded to nearly 1,000 people at the beginning of this year, but due to the sales volume did not meet expectations, this optimization exceeded 400 people; The recruitment department will also be reduced from more than 200 people to 40~50 people; The intelligent driving team, which expanded by nearly 50% last year, may be reduced to less than 1,000 people.
According to a number of media reports, this round of personnel adjustments began in the first week of May and will end by the end of May. According to a person familiar with the matter, the efficiency of the layoff action is very high, and N+1 compensation is implemented for optimized employees; Several of the employees he came into contact with were "told to leave the same day on the same day." Some media picked up the company's information on social platforms as the remarks of Li Auto employee netizens, "The list was submitted the night before, HR was talked about in the morning, people left in the afternoon, and Feishu was closed in the evening", which seems to confirm the layoffs from the side.
02
Just expanded and cut, what happened to the intelligent driving team?
Since last year, Li Auto has been singing all the way, but after the launch of the first pure electric model MEGA this year, its market trend is not very optimistic.
Ideal's original sales expectation for the MEGA was to be "the No. 1 model in terms of sales of more than 500,000 units, regardless of energy form or body form." However, according to public information, the sales volume of the MEGA in April was 1,145 units. While the sales did not meet expectations, MEGA also caused a storm of public opinion.
Having just escaped from the whirlpool of public opinion at MEGA, Ideal has fallen into the quagmire of investor class action lawsuits. Recently, Li Auto was brought to court by investors in a class action lawsuit in the United States. Hao Junbo, a U.S. stock rights lawyer, said in an article that investors accused Li Auto and some executives of making false statements and violating securities laws and regulations. The investor applied to the court to order the defendant to compensate for the losses caused to the investor by the fall in the stock price caused by its illegal acts.
Although Li Auto responded that the accusations were groundless, it would do its best to protect the interests of the company and shareholders. However, it has more or less an impact on the ideal brand image, and it will inevitably affect sales. According to the current sales momentum, Ideal is still far ahead of the new car-making forces, but it is not without pressure to achieve annual sales of 560,000~640,000 units. This means that in the next eight months, Li Auto will achieve monthly sales of more than 56,000 units, while its average sales in the first four months of this year are about 26,000 units.
According to Ding Bin, a lawyer car critic, the annual sales target of Li Auto has been lowered, and the matching personnel have also been reduced in almost equal proportions. The reduction of the sales target will inevitably reduce the number of sales personnel, and the reduction in the number of employees will not require so much HR, but what are the considerations for the reduction of the intelligent driving team?
Either the basic work of its intelligent driving research and development has been completed, and only maintenance work remains, "the building is built, and naturally there is no need for so many workers"; Either Li Auto is reducing its investment in intelligent driving, but Li Auto also emphasized at the end of last year that it will take intelligent driving leadership as its core strategic goal.
03
Roll out the expectations, the new car-making forces are still too young?
It can be seen from this personnel adjustment that Li Auto is very decisive in responding to the adjustment speed of the market. Industry insiders pointed out that because there may be large-scale layoffs, it is not possible to draw the conclusion that the ideal development has been blocked.
Chen Wei, general manager of Cathay Pacific Souche (Tianjin) Financial Leasing Co., Ltd., believes that the ideal layoff may also be one of the measures taken to reduce costs and improve efficiency, and companies may need to make internal adjustments to remain competitive in the context of rising raw material costs and supply chain challenges.
Ding Bin also pointed out that while the ideal large-scale layoffs are being made, they may also be recruiting at the same time, with the aim of optimizing and adjusting the talent structure, so that enterprises can maintain the best combat effectiveness in the cruel competition. On the recruitment platform BOSS Zhipin, the reporter of "China Automotive News" found that Ideal is still recruiting 2,000 jobs externally, involving technology, products, sales, operations, marketing, supply chain and other directions.
In any case, as a star enterprise, the layoffs have attracted much attention from the outside world. Wang Hao, founder of Coppola Automotive Consulting Services (Qingdao) Co., Ltd., analyzed that from the recent situation of the new energy vehicle market, although the production and sales volume and penetration rate are rising, and the new energy market is on the rise, it has also ushered in a "big test" of hard power and comprehensive management capabilities for car companies. All new car-making forces are no longer facing the problem of "how to develop", but the problem of "life and death", even if the ideal of winning the first place is no exception.
In just a few months, there has been almost a big reversal from sales to public opinion, exposing that this young car company is not accurate in judging the market and users, and the models developed with huge R&D expenses have not been accepted by the market. In this context, the return to 'light operation' may be the motivation for them to make this choice. Wang Hao said.
Wang Heng, general manager of Abdul Latif Jameel China, who has been deeply involved in the automotive industry for many years, judged that not only the new forces of car manufacturing, including fuel car companies, such a severe market test has just begun.
Text: Hao Wenli Editor: Huang Xia Layout: Wang Kun
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