Li Xiang's advance amount: Don't wait for winter, pass the cold first

Superelectric Laboratory

2024-05-17 17:06Posted in Shandong Science and Technology Creators

Redundancy + Lawsuits"

Author: Wang Lei

Edited by Qin Zhangyong

The recent ideal, one head and two big.

A number of media revealed that after the May Day holiday, Ideal carried out a new round of company-wide personnel optimization, with an optimization ratio of up to 18%, and even the scale of some departments was directly cut in half.

In addition, Li Auto also faced the "sandwich" of lawsuits from overseas investors, and Li Auto was brought to court by investors for securities fraud.

Since the launch of MEGA, Ideal has encountered a water reversal: holding internal reflection meetings, lowering sales targets, and officially announcing price reductions for the first time.

The ideal of making a lot of money in 2023, 2024 does not seem to be going well.

01

 More than 5,600 people were laid off

According to the 21st Century Business Herald and other media reports, the overall optimization ratio of the new round of ideal "Guangjin" plan can exceed 18%.

According to the 2023 financial report, the total number of employees of Li Auto has reached 31,600, and the number of employees involved in this round of optimization exceeds 5,600 according to the optimization ratio of 18%.

And on the pulse, there are also many netizens who are certified as employees of Li Auto to confirm the layoffs from the side. "Silent rolling layoffs, just announced tonight." 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. ”

Li Auto has not yet responded to this large-scale layoff.

In fact, this wave of layoffs began as early as March this year.

At the beginning of March, because the sales of MEGA and the new L series did not meet internal expectations, on March 21, Li Auto Li Xiang issued an internal letter to reflect on the company's strategy and execution. At the same time, the organizational structure of a number of departments was adjusted, covering the brand department, product department, business department, strategy department and other departments.

Immediately, the sales forecast was officially lowered from 650,000 to 800,000 to 560,000 to 640,000.

Following the downward revision of sales forecasts, the corresponding staffing has also been reduced. Moreover, Ideal also officially announced the price reduction of the whole series at that time, and the price reduction will also affect the gross profit of the bicycle. For the company's good operating level, the optimization of personnel is a key step, and the layoff plan was determined at that time.

The first to be hit was the front-line sales department, which optimized more than 400 people in the sales and service operations department in this round of layoffs.

After selling more than 30,000 units per month last year, the sales department has expanded rapidly, expanding to nearly 1,000 people from the beginning of 2023, but due to the failure of front-line sales to meet expectations, the current target for layoffs is to optimize more than 400 employees.

In addition, the recruitment department will be reduced from more than 200 people to 40-50 people, the recruitment department expanded to more than 200 people at the end of last year, and the overall department is now less than 50 people, of which only 20-30 people are on the job, and the department has a layoff rate of more than 70%.

In addition, the intelligent driving team has also been reduced to less than 1,000 people, you know, the intelligent driving business was the focus of the ideal internal review "half a year later than the friends of the business", and it was also the focus of the previous recruitment.

After the autumn strategy meeting at the end of September 2023, Li Auto officially released more than 50 intelligent driving recruitment positions at one time, and the number of intelligent driving teams has also expanded from 600 at the beginning of 2023 to nearly 1,000 people.

Today, Li Auto's urban NOA has not made much splash, and there have been layoffs.

After the tragic Waterloo of MEGA, the pure electric product team in Shanghai will also be reduced, and some employees of the team have gone to the headquarters of Li Auto in Shunyi, Beijing, to discuss the follow-up pure electric product planning adjustment.

According to the report of 21st Century Economics, at the end of April, the management approved the final optimization list, and this round of layoff optimization was officially launched in the first week of May, and most of them will end before the end of May, and N+1 compensation will be implemented for optimized employees.

The overall goal of this layoff is to reduce the proportion of social recruitment in the whole company and increase the proportion of school recruitment. Priority will be given to protecting the enrollment of the 2022-2024 class.

According to the 2023 annual report of Ideal Auto, the total salary of Li Auto's employees exceeds 12.1 billion yuan, the average salary exceeds 380,000 yuan, and the layoffs exceed 18%, which can save more than 2.1 billion yuan.

In addition to being caught in the layoff turmoil, Ideal was also involved in a lawsuit suspected of securities fraud.

The day before the layoffs were exposed, a lawyer named Hao Junbo said that he would sue Li Auto and some executives for securities fraud in a U.S. court.

He issued a public call for investors to participate in a free class action lawsuit, which runs from February 26 to March 20, 2024.

The reason given for the lawsuit was that when Li Li launched the MEGA, it exaggerated the market demand for this car, and at the same time overestimated the effectiveness of its own operation strategy, and intended to apply to the court to order the defendant to compensate investors for the losses caused by the decline in the stock price due to its illegal acts.

Between Feb. 26 and March 20, Li Auto's share price fell by about 30%.

Immediately, Li Auto also issued a response, confirming the existence of relevant lawsuits, and saying that the accusation was groundless and would make every effort to protect the interests of the company and shareholders.

02

It's always right to keep out the cold first

Since becoming the most profitable new force in China last year, the ideal of extending the range seems to have fallen into the whirlpool of being coerced by pure electricity.

Looking back at the source, it seems that it all comes from the cold listing of Ideal MEGA. It not only stepped on the brakes on the crazy growth of the ideal, but also impacted the sales, market value and reputation of the ideal car, which can be said to be the biggest crisis of the ideal car in recent years.

Putting aside the controversy over the appearance of MEGA, in the face of the ideal of starting with extended range, consumers did not buy its pure electric products, which made the ideal hot heart be poured with ice water.

Now that there are rounds of layoffs and "doubts" from investors at home and abroad, the ideal year of 2024 presents a picture of high and low.

The dilemma faced by a company is largely inseparable from the people in charge, and ideals are no exception.

Compared with the current low-key, Li Xiang can be said to be a "madman"-like existence, in the circle of new car-making forces, Li Xiang was previously a well-known "mouth cannon king", good at speaking for himself.

Since Li Xiang stepped on the road of making cars, the controversy of extended-range car manufacturing has been continuous, and Li Xiang's personality has always been straightforward, focusing on what to say, scaring people out of the circle, creating a weekly sales list, and users are on the tip of the needle, and the king of Weibo is like to mention the title of Weibo.

As a product manager-type car company boss, Ideal has a long board with strong marketing and efficiency, and Ideal Auto has also benefited from Li Xiang's "out of the circle" to a certain extent, and has achieved a lot of Fengshen performance.

However, as the saying goes, too much is lost, and the straightforward personality is a double-edged sword, which is easy to attract excessive attention from public opinion, and the "cyber violence" encountered by MEGA before its listing is the most appropriate example.

The marketing and traffic play that he has always been good at was counterattacked when MEGA was listed, and MEGA became the number one "hacked" model of the year, and the reputation also collapsed in the whirlpool, earning from traffic, and then being eaten by traffic.

However, Li Xiang is a person with a strong sense of crisis, especially in the company's management and development strategy, even if the company's account has more than 40 billion cash flow at the end of last year, once there is a sign that something is wrong, he will immediately reflect and rectify.

Therefore, after the rapid expansion, Li Xiang immediately chose a comprehensive contraction of the front, cut back on food and clothing, and prepared for risks in advance.

The sales target was lowered because MEGA did not meet the expectations and was too optimistic about the market this year, resulting in a large gap between the original forecast for the market and the current market forecast.

As for why personnel optimization, the reason is simpler, layoffs are the most direct way to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and it is also a more radical and realistic way to adjust at the moment.

Of course, those employees who have been laid off don't have to worry too much, they can directly choose to go to NIO's Ledao.

Anyway, they are all positioned as "families", a perfect closed loop of new car talents.

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