Posted 2022-01-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
Overnight, everyone was once again a witness to history. On March 8, when the U.S. stock market blew, Warren Buffett once said, "I've lived to be 89 years old. I've only seen the U.S. stock market blow." Nine days later, I didn't expect the whole world to accompany him to witness three times. Under the influence of epidemic situation, oil price crisis and various adverse factors, the anxiety of all walks of life has spread. Among them, the stress response of the automobile industry is particularly fierce, such as salary reduction, layoff and production halt. The global automobile enterprises have to bite the bullet at this difficult time. And focus on the domestic, because the epidemic is well controlled, the "vitality" of the automobile market seems to be slowly recovering. But such a good trend may be more for those traditional car companies with strong risk resistance. For all new forces in car building, the survival status quo after 2020 is still worrying. In the past month, many new forces have been blasted for "negative" aspects such as delayed payment of 13 salaries, cancellation of year-end bonus, etc. However, as start-ups, we can understand that in this difficult time, they can only survive through such "bad policies". But in contrast, there are still some new forces in a better position. Ideal car is one of them. In fact, as early as the beginning of the year, in the article of "the dream", it was pointed out that just after the delivery, it encountered problems such as product quality, bank loan turmoil, large-scale capital withdrawal of shareholders, etc. all kinds of negative came one after another, and even exceeded the industry public opinion and pressure that friends had just delivered es8 at first. Under such pressure, the ideal car corrected in time in a short period of time. Subsequently, the market's prejudice against it was temporarily reversed through continuous vehicle delivery and sales volume climbing. In recent days, ideal car has shown a series of slightly "alternative" layout, which increasingly highlights its determination to strive for survival in this "knockout", but all kinds of risks are also coming. If you want to ask the biggest role of "catfish" in China, besides invigorating the stillness of China's new energy market, it may be of great significance to pull the price range of mainstream pure tram into 250000-300000 yuan. Therefore, for most domestic new forces, if they want to maintain the high-end product positioning and compete with model 3 directly, how to further "reduce costs" has become an urgent problem to be solved at this stage. On the contrary, the ideal one, which is positioned at medium and large SUVs, has only launched a parameter configuration version since it was launched, with a price of 320000 yuan. Although thanks to its six seat and seven seat layout, the driving mode has certain advantages in space and endurance compared with new energy competitors at the same price, taking Tesla as an example, in the face of the latter's increasingly "price war", the disadvantages of brand cognition gradually appear under the premise that the ideal one is not superior in price. So for it, perhaps the best way to compete with Tesla is to reduce costs and launch a lower price entry-level model. And on March 12, according to the 330 According to the announcement on the application for new vehicles, among the four new products applied by ideal automobile, except for the three models that continue to use power batteries, another ideal one, code lxa6500shevm4, will load the power batteries provided by Xi'an Zhongdi lithium Co., Ltd., which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xi'an Zhongdi lithium battery Co., Ltd., but the specific battery capacity and other relevant parameters have not been published. Once this message is revealed, it can be proved that ideality is achieving continuous cost reduction by replacing power battery suppliers of some models. After joining hands with BYD, the price of the ideal one entry-level model is expected to enter the range of 250000-300000 yuan. At the same time, with the improvement of cost performance ratio again, it seems to have more confidence in the impact of domestic model 3. In addition, within a day after the announcement of the new car catalogue of the Ministry of industry and information technology, ideal car was once again exploded and has sold its power battery business. According to the company's investigation, on March 13, Changzhou chezhiyi Power Technology Co., Ltd. changed its shareholders and legal representative, while the former is the power battery company of ideal automobile. After the change, BAIC Hejia Information Technology Co., Ltd. withdrew from the list of shareholders, and Neolithic Huitong Technology Co., Ltd. replaced the former to become a new shareholder. At the same time, Shen Yanan, the co-founder and President of ideal automobile, no longer serves as the legal representative of Changzhou automobile wing, and Li Ziyi takes over. Just a few days ago, on February 28, ideal automobile just increased the registered capital of Changzhou auto wings from 70 million yuan to about 95 million yuan. In this shareholder change, it can be considered that ideal automobile formally ceded its power battery business to Neolithic. The main reason for getting rid of it may be that the significance of Changzhou's car wings seems to be very small after the two battery giants of Shanghai Ningde era and BYD. According to relevant data, as of June 30, 2019, the total assets and liabilities of ideal automobile are RMB 5.842 billion and RMB 931 million respectively. After that, even though the delivery has been realized since December, the loss is expected to continue. Under the choice, cutting off the "branches and leaves" that are not urgently needed at present and "slimming" the company as a whole have become the only way for an ideal car to cope with the cold winter of the car market. Yesterday, it was revealed that German car companies had cancelled L3 level projects at the end of 2019, and transferred hundreds of employees of the R & D team to L2 level and L4 level automatic driving technology research and development. The main reason behind this is due to the far-reaching relevant laws and regulations and responsibility identification. Shortly after the news was sent, Audi officials denied the news, saying that the company did strengthen the development of L4 level and above automatic driving plate, but had not received the news of canceling L3 level automatic driving project. Although Audi has not completely "sat down" this time, it has given up the research and development of L3 level automatic driving, but according to the performance that it released the fourth generation A8 with L3 level automatic driving technology as early as 2017, and has not released this function so far, it is enough to prove that Audi has encountered an irreversible dilemma. In the future, the discussion and game about whether L3 level automatic driving is necessary is expected to continue. As the head car manufacturer of new forces, the founder of ideal automobile has long said that he would give up the research and development of L3 level automatic driving, and divide automatic driving into two products, i.e. advanced assisted driving (l2.5) and full automatic driving (L4), for synchronous development. At the same time, the L4 level full-automatic driving technology that ideal automobile is developing is different from other vehicle enterprises in the research of carrying people, but slightly "different" specialized in the field of unmanned distribution. On March 10, ideal automobile officially led the investment of new stone a + round financing for the start-up enterprise of unmanned distribution, with a financing scale of nearly 200 million yuan. After the completion of this round of financing, ideal automobile expanded its shareholding ratio and became the second largest shareholder after Neolithic CEO Yu Enyuan. It is reported that this financing is also the highest single financing record in the field of unmanned distribution in China. Moreover, it is reported that this is not the first time that ideal automobile has invested in Neolithic. As early as may 2018, it has joined in the angel wheel investment of Neolithic. Under the two rounds of financing, unmanned distribution has become the "new outlet" of the industry recognized by the ideal automobile. At the same time, affected by the epidemic situation, to a certain extent, it increased the demand for unmanned distribution vehicles in specific scenarios, and also accelerated the formation of the "tuyere". However, it must be admitted that a car company's entry into the field of unmanned distribution, which is not related to its business, will always give people a sense of "not doing business". But behind this, there is the consideration of the ideal car itself. As we all know, the "entry point" for Li Xiang's initial entry into the car manufacturing industry is not actually this medium-sized and large-scale program, but a smaller low-speed electric vehicle sev. However, due to a series of external factors such as regulations and market capacity, Li Xiang has to stop loss in time to transform. The "miscarriage" of the sev project has led to the idleness of its relevant supporting production equipment and battery factories, which is also a big gap for Li Xiang, who is not rich in funds. However, the timely appearance of Yu Enyuan, CEO of Neolithic, made up for the loss of the former to some extent. Since then, the Neolithic all connected to the production line of SEV project, and used the chassis of SEV to carry out the follow-up development of the unmanned distribution vehicle, it can be said that the "burden" on the ideal vehicle was completely removed. Because of this cooperation, it also laid the foundation for ideal automobile to invest in Neolithic tools as early as two years ago. As for the recent re investment, in addition to optimistic about the emerging industry prospects in the field of unmanned distribution, it is also related to the above-mentioned "ceding" Changzhou car wing battery factory to Neolithic. After the leading investment of ideal automobile, the company will increase the shares of corresponding Neolithic, and then buy the battery factory to the latter, so the expenditure and income can basically reach the same level. At the same time, on the basis of not affecting the cash flow of ideal car itself, it's no pleasure to get rid of the "burden" and enter the new technology industry. At the same time, for Neolithic, getting the ready-made production line and battery factory of the ideal sev project also saves the trouble of building infrastructure and supporting supply chain in the early stage, and enables its unmanned distribution vehicle to enter the mass production stage quickly. Just in the past 2019, the total number of Neolithic delivery vehicles is 225, and the new 2020 Neolithic delivery target is 1000, and strive to achieve balance of payments. It is undeniable that the investment route of ideal automobile in the field of unmanned distribution seems to be extremely "alternative", but there is an unspeakable "careful thinking" behind it, which is also the embodiment of ideal automobile stop loss in time. Another evidence that ideal car is slightly different from other new forces is its "alternative" product route. From the low-speed electric vehicle sev, to giving up the pure electricity option, which has been continuously criticized by the industry, to build an ideal one for medium and large SUVs, to the MPV model that was rumoured to be built by spy photos, Li Xiang's decision on products seems not "mainstream". But recently, Li Xiang expressed his opinions on the above rumors through his social platform, which can be said to completely negate the idea of building MPV model. "The physical structure determines that under the same size, sedan must be the most comfortable and MPV must be the largest. There is no MPV in the product plan of an ideal car. The most important advantages of MPV, such as the increase of mileage or pure electricity, a battery on the chassis, the convenience of getting on and off the car and the space in the car, are over. The drag coefficient of MPV is also the endurance killer of electric drive. " As Li Xiang said, the fundamental reason why MPV can't derive mainstream new energy models is due to its inherent physical structure. So we can't help but ask, what is the new product that the ideal car will be put on the market in the next stage? Will we continue to adopt the program adding route or will we completely switch to pure electricity? One problem after another. Compared with the new car planning and gradually rich product lines on sale of other new forces, the ideal car seems to have only one model to fight alone at present. At the same time, the ideal one with extended range drive, because of the involvement of the extended range device, the later use and maintenance costs, as well as vehicle durability and noise and vibration, has become its inherent disadvantage compared with the same level of pure electric competitive products. These "pain points" have become
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