Lei Jun is like a "big catfish" in building cars, forcing more and more car company owners to come to the front of the stage from behind the scenes and cheer hard for their own brands.
Wei Jianjun, chairman of the Great Wall, not only updated his Weibo account for 13 years, but also started a live broadcast to encourage everyone to speak freely: "In addition to the regulations of listed companies, everything else can be spoken." Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery, gave a speech on the platform everywhere, faced the camera during the Beijing Auto Show, and said embarrassedly: "My old leader criticized me, you are in your 60s, and you still came out to show your face." ”
Geely Chairman Li Shufu, as a recognized "car maniac", has not been in a hurry to come out to grab traffic, but the actions behind it have been as vigorous as ever, promoting a "rapid" listing.
On May 10, ZEEKR was listed on the U.S. stock market and became the fastest IPO new energy vehicle company with a duration of 3 years. A week after listing, the current market capitalization is US$6.437 billion (about 46.5 billion yuan).
This is the 9th listed company under Li Shufu, and it is also an extremely special one. ZEEKR enjoys the full support of Geely, representing Geely in the new energy era, with a highly recognizable appearance and ultimate control power, which is the biggest label on its body, and has attracted a lot of fans in the market.
Behind the development of ZEEKR, there is Li Shufu's ambition for the high-end market.
The high-end ambitions of the "car madman".
Li Shufu's heart has always hidden a high-end dream.
As early as the beginning of the car, Li Shufu was thinking about Volvo until 2017, when he officially announced the acquisition plan, and finally "hugged the beauty" in 2010, shocking the four with a "snake swallowing elephant" acquisition.
Later, Li Shufu also bought the British luxury car brand Lotus, and built the electric brand Polestar with Volvo. Both Lotus and Polestar are competing at the premium end of the market, with 1,566, 576 and 6,970 units sold in 2021 and 2023, respectively. Another premium brand, Polestar, will deliver 55,000 vehicles worldwide in 2023.
Now, Li Shufu has a "sister-in-law" who has been personally cultivated and is responsible for the new energy transformation.
In February 2021, Li Shufu announced the development plan, not only entering hybrid vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, but also betting on pure electric smart vehicles.
Today, ZEEKR has achieved a "rapid" IPO, which is inseparable from the pouring of resources within the group, from the allocation of founders to R&D resources, distribution channels, and energy replenishment facilities, Geely has almost given "the most love" to ZEEKR. ZEEKR disclosed in the prospectus: "We rely on and profit from Geely Group's technology, research and development, vehicle production and delivery, procurement capabilities, as well as its financial support and market position. ”
△Geely brand family Source: Geely Automobile's official website
Judging from the current layout, Li Shufu believes in "having more children to fight". Geely Automobile, Polestar, Volvo, Lotus, Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Geometry and Galaxy have enabled Geely to cover a full range of models in the automotive industry, from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles, from low-end to high-end luxury.
Among them, Geely Geometry focuses on the new energy market below 150,000 yuan, Galaxy lays out the market in the price range of 150,000 yuan to 25 yuan, and Zeekr focuses on the market of more than 250,000 yuan, which is an important bargaining chip for Geely to impact the high-end and new energy transformation.
From the perspective of development experience, the industry is very optimistic about the prospects of ZEEKR. Since its establishment, ZEEKR has completed a Pre-A round of financing of 500 million US dollars and a A round of financing of 750 million US dollars, and the lineup of investors behind it is very luxurious, including Intel Capital, CATL, Mobileye and other industry investors, as well as Bilibili, Hongshang Group, Boyu Investment and other well-known enterprises and institutions.
Among them, CATL provides the latest research and development of Kirin batteries and Shenxing batteries for ZEEKR automobiles. Mobileye is a provider of intelligent assisted driving solutions, and has a deep cooperation with ZEEKR Automobile.
An Conghui mentioned that Geely Holding Group wants to become a Volkswagen Group in the era of new energy vehicles, and Zeekr wants to be a "BBA in the pure electric era".
From the perspective of the industry environment, such a goal is not a pipe dream. The penetration rate of new energy in the Chinese market exceeded 50% in April this year, and the popularization process is obvious, and new energy vehicles are increasingly becoming the primary consideration when buying a car. At the same time, a brand that grows on a perfect supply chain can better avoid people's worries. Compared with other start-ups, ZEEKR has a clear lead in strength.
There is a long way to go, and there is still a long way to go.
The hard days of the "second generation of cars".
The IPO is both an achievement of the previous stage and a starting line for a new stage.
An Conghui said: "The ZEEKR products that everyone sees are not purely created by the ZEEKR team in three years, but are based on Geely's long-term accumulation and investment in the field of car manufacturing for more than 30 years, and rely on the system to get to where it is today." ”
Geely has devoted unprecedented efforts to provide all-round resource support to ZEEKR in terms of technology, capital, supply chain, channels, etc. For example, Geely's total loans to ZEEKR exceeded 10 billion yuan.
Even with Geely's full help, it is not easy for the young Zeekr to achieve profitability.
From 2021 to 2023, the net losses of ZEEKR will be 4.514 billion yuan, 7.655 billion yuan and 8.264 billion yuan respectively, and the cumulative loss in the past three years will be as high as 20.433 billion yuan. The main reason is the gradual increase in R&D expenses and the high cost of building and laying the foundation of channels.
Geely will not have unlimited blood transfusions, and Zeekr will always have to run fast independently. There is still room for maneuver in financial hardship, but in the current market competition environment, the opponent will not give Zeekr time to develop slowly.
At present, in addition to ZEEKR 001, there are three models on sale - ZEEKR 009, ZEEKR 007 and ZEEKR X, which are pure electric hunting, high-end pure electric MPV, pure electric mid-size sedan, and compact pure electric SUV.
ZEEKR 001 is the main sales force. When it was launched in April 2021, the market had not yet begun a surging wave of price cuts, and the average price of ZEEKR 001 reached 300,000 yuan, and the monthly sales exceeded 10,000 units, becoming a high-profile new force model at that time.
Under its leadership, the sales performance of ZEEKR has risen rapidly. In 2023, 119,000 units will be delivered, a year-on-year increase of 65%, and from January to April this year, nearly 50,000 units will be delivered, a year-on-year increase of 111%. However, at this rate, there is still a lot of pressure to reach the sales target of 230,000 units in 2024. This requires ZEEKR to speed up the pace of new models on the market, An Conghui said that three new products will be launched this year.
ZEEKR has been very effective in "feeding" Geely Group. In 2023, Geely has achieved its annual sales target of 1.65 million units. At the same time, Geely's new energy vehicle sales accounted for 28.7%, which is a lot of progress.
But at present, ZEEKR 009 and ZEEKR X can not take over the baton of ZEEKR 001 as the main sales force, the former is priced quite high, the latter is inaccurate, only ZEEKR 007 is in the sprint period has a lot of potential.
However, the market competition environment in the range of 200,000-300,000 yuan, which ZEEKR is currently focusing on, is becoming more and more crowded. According to the data disclosed by Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, in 2023, the retail sales of passenger cars in the price range of 200,000-300,000 yuan in the Chinese market will account for 15.9%, and the price range of 300,000-400,000 yuan will account for 11%.
ZEEKR 007 is in the new energy car market with many competing products, such as Xiaomi SU7, Zhijie S7, Zhiji L6, BYD Han EV, Tesla Model 3 and other models, all of which are full of product power.
The Xiaomi SU7 released at the end of March is the biggest opponent of ZEEKR 007, with similar models, overlapping pricing, and-for-tat marketing, and a war of words on the Internet. Regardless of volume or sales, Xiaomi SU7 has a huge advantage, breaking through 100,000 locked orders in a month and a half.
After the independent IPO, ZEEKR will sooner or later need to be self-financed, and increasing sales is the most important goal.
There is still a make-up lesson in the second half
A consensus in the new energy vehicle industry is that electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half.
In the first half, Geely gave Zeekr a platform to take off in terms of electrification.
Geely's transfer of two of its battery module (Ningbo Weirui) and intelligent technology services (CEVT) companies to Zeekr helped it form three business segments and generate significant revenues, which played a key role in the early stage of development. For example, in 2021, ZEEKR began to deliver its first model, ZEEKR 001, and the revenue of automobiles that year only accounted for 23.7% of the company's total revenue, and the revenue of the two companies accounted for 76.3%.
And now what about the second half?
The popularity of ZEEKR in the market may be due to the unique "toad" design, or the ultimate control power, but not necessarily the level of intelligence.
In 2021, Mobileye's parent company at the time invested in ZEEKR's Pre-A round of financing, and then began to bind ZEEKR in intelligent driving, and the first two models of ZEEKR, 001 and 009, were equipped with Mobileye's solutions.
However, it belongs to the category of low-cost assisted driving systems, and it is not superior in the ability of large computing power intelligent driving chips, and only provides the overall solution to car companies, and cannot allow car companies to modify the algorithm or participate in the development, which was once complained that it is a "black box".
This ideal has long been explored. In September 2020, Ideal announced that it had reached a strategic cooperation with NVIDIA and Desay SV and gave up the use of Mobileye chips. Wang Kai, who was the CTO of Ideal at the time, revealed that the main reason was that "Mobileye's system was mature enough but not open enough", and NVIDIA's openness and scalability were very important to car companies.
ZEEKR 001, the "pillar" of ZEEKR, is equipped with Mobileye's SuperVision intelligent assisted driving solution, driven by two Q5H chips, with a total computing power of only 48Tops, and is also equipped with 12 high-definition cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars, 1 millimeter-wave radar and 1 lidar. However, the solution still has problems such as limited coverage and lagging progress in functional research and development. When the sales recommended the car, they also focused on depicting the handling experience, and the intelligent driving function was mentioned in a word.
△Schematic diagram of NZP high-speed autonomous navigation assistance Source: ZEEKR official website
ZEEKR is consciously making up for its shortcomings. Previously, ZEEKR hired industry elites such as Chen Qi and Jiang Jun, former heads of Huawei's autonomous driving department, to be responsible for ZEEKR's self-developed intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit departments. Moreover, it is disclosed in the prospectus that ZEEKR is expected to raise funds for the development of "more advanced electric vehicle technology", accounting for 45% of the investment.
Follow-up models have also been equipped with NVIDIA Orin chips, such as ZEEKR 007 in cooperation with NVIDIA, and the use of self-developed vast intelligent driving system, which can cover all scenarios of intelligent parking, high-speed and urban intelligent driving.
However, intelligence not only requires capital and hardware, but also the actual experience is a systematic project that needs long-term optimization, in which the time and energy invested are indispensable.
In order to embrace the second half of intelligence, Li Shufu previously landed some deployments - the acquisition of Meizu and the establishment of ECARX, an automotive operating system and chip company. But these actions have not yet been supported to Extreme Krypton.
Friends have long been running ahead. With the product strength of intelligent assisted driving, Huawei Hongmeng Zhixing has made a wide range of allies in the industry and has become a "golden signboard". Xiaopeng, Weilai and other car companies have also blossomed and borne fruit in intelligent driving technology, in contrast, the delayed Krypton still needs to run fast.
epilogue
Geely wants to become the public in the new energy era, and Zeekr is a "chess piece" in the core position.
can not be harsh on the development of only three years of Krypton, transformed into an all-round "hexagonal warrior". However, market competition is cruel, and only by making up classes in time and strengthening shortcomings can we ensure that we are not eliminated. Now that the listing can solve the "urgent need" of ZEEKR's cash flow, and with the big tree of Geely to rely on, ZEEKR does not have to think about survival.
But the high-end road is long, and in an environment surrounded by strong enemies, Geely has paved the way, and it is still up to itself to run fast after all. The market is looking forward to whether the highly personalized ZEEKR can embark on a unique development path.