"New Forces Of Car Making" Life And Death: A Few Listed And Most Leaving

On the evening of July 30, Beijing time, ideal automobile, a new force of Internet car making, officially landed on NASDAQ. Ideal automobile became the second new force of Chinese car making listed on American stock market after Weilai automobile.

Different from Weilai's IPO two years ago, the stock price of ideal automobile rose 43% on the first trading day, with a market value of nearly 14 billion US dollars, which was almost the same as that of Weilai. In a short period of two years, Tesla's automobile manufacturing industry has made great changes in its auto market, which is higher than the expected financial performance of the outside world.

In addition to ideal cars, there are many new Chinese car makers preparing for IPO. Weima, Xiaopeng, Nezha and other enterprises that have entered the delivery stage have expressed their ideas of listing on different occasions. Among them, it is reported that Xiaopeng automobile will be listed in the US stock market in the second half of the year, while Weima automobile and Hezhong automobile plan to land on the science and technology innovation board.

After going through PPT, mass production and delivery, the new force of head car manufacturing is moving towards IPO stage collectively, and IPO seems to be becoming a means to test the success or failure of a new car manufacturing force.

However, ice is with fire. In 2020, the new forces of car making have entered the crossroads of life and death. At the same time, many new car making forces such as Bojun, sailin and byton have exploded, drifting on the edge of life and death. There is no time left for a large number of enterprises to launch new cars.

"Either outstanding, or out", behind the feast of capital, leaving a chicken feather. The successful listing of new forces does not mean that they can embrace their ideals and see the future.

"Wei Lai just crossed the line of life and death. The probability of success is still only 51%. " On July 24, Li Bin, chairman and CEO of Weilai automobile, said in an interview with the reporter of 21st century economic report.

A capital "game"

With the wave of new energy vehicles and the original stimulation of Tesla, a new car making movement with high enthusiasm has been launched in China since 2014. However, car making, from the beginning, is suitable for the capital master "game".

However, the investment cycle of the automobile industry is very complex, and it needs a lot of capital investment. Even after 15 years of losses, Tesla finally made a profit.

The huge risk of Internet car building lies in the fact that capital will evaluate which new car making force has more investment value and profit possibility. Once the new forces of car making lose the trust of capital, the capital chain will break and be eliminated by the capital market.

Zhang Wei, chairman of cornerstone capital, once published an article in 2019, saying that none of China's hundreds of new automobile manufacturing forces is worth investing in. He said that the only unified feature of the new forces of car making, such as Weilai, Weima and Xiaopeng, was "burning money" in response to the declining subsidies. However, if the money is not controlled, investors will be further away, and the final result may be chicken feathers.

"And a few years of enthusiasm for making cars are beginning to wane. Different investors have different judgments, but on the whole, they either stay on the sidelines for a period of time, and if they want to continue to invest in them, they will only invest in the top few. But the head of several valuation has been up, now additional investment profit space is not big, there will be concerns An investor, who did not want to be named, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter.

To a certain extent, the capital market will not give them the chance to try and wrong for all the new forces of car making.

In particular, we are in a big change window for the automobile industry? It's like shooting a target in the distance. You have only one shot. You will know what the result will be three years later, but you can't go back to shoot a second shot Li Bin said.

After that, many people have underestimated the difficulty of making cars in the market.

Li Bin frankly said that Weilai had made mistakes in decision-making or needed to review. Some of them were lack of experience and some of them were lack of knowledge. However, this is a process that he must go through as a CEO and founder. He has to pay the cost and cost of his own learning.

Li Xiang also paid a huge price for his wrong decision-making.

According to the original idea of the ideal car, the first car it plans to launch in 2018 is a small pure electric sev. However, in China, low-speed electric vehicles belong to the policy blind area. Li Xiang did not wait for the expected policy implementation. At the end of 2018, the sev plan finally died.

Subsequently, Li Xiang shifted his focus to the development of the ideal one for extended range electric vehicles. At that time, Li Xiang, who had just switched the track, was under great pressure. While competitors are pushing their products to the market, the ideal rhythm is obviously slow.

The judgment of the capital market to the new power has become increasingly cautious, Li Xiang began to look around for new investors. It was not until Wang Zhituan and Wang Zhituan met the financing story of Wang Zhituan that they were able to continue.

However, for most of the new forces making cars, it is difficult for anyone to get a second chance like Li Xiang. This is due to Li Xiang's personal contacts over the years, his successful entrepreneurial ability, and his excellent storytelling skills. Through the slogan of "electric vehicles without mileage anxiety", he took a unique technical route of increasing the range, which was supported by Wang Xing.

Starting from the automobile vertical platform -- e-Car, Li Bin, as an early entrepreneur in the automotive Internet industry, has accumulated a large number of resources and contacts in the fields of Internet, automobile, investment and media. From the perspective of capital, Weilai is also one of the most powerful enterprises in financing.

Looking back on the financing before the IPO of Weilai, in addition to six original shareholders such as Li Bin, Liu qiangdong, Li Xiang, Tencent, hillhood capital and Shunwei, Weilai also obtained investment from dozens of well-known institutions such as Temasek, baidu capital, Sequoia, Houpu, Lenovo Group, Huaping, TPG, GIC, IDG, pleasant capital, Baillie Gifford, and Lone Pine.

The new force of car making, can really do it must need a very strong ability to integrate resources, need sufficient capital to fight. For the new force of car making, there is a threshold of "20 billion" in the industry. No matter Li Bin, or he Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng automobile and Shen Hui, chairman of Weima automobile, all think that it is difficult to succeed without 20 billion yuan.

From the point of view of "power", it is necessary to stay in the market in order to maintain its foothold in the market. Bojun, sailin, beiteng and other enterprises are in trouble directly because of the lack of funds. Most of the new forces of car making will be able to raise funds in the primary market, but they will not be able to support the mass production of products.

Head to IPO

In a certain sense, the listing of Weilai automobile provides a yardstick for the capital market to evaluate the new forces of China's car making.

Although the aftereffect of the Ruixing incident has not been eliminated, which has some impact on the listing of China capital stock, but the huge domestic demand market in China, the ever expanding electric vehicle market base of Tesla and Weilai and other enterprises have made the market see the commercial prospect of the new force of automobile manufacturing.

In addition, affected by the epidemic situation, China's automobile market has declined as a whole, and new forces are generally facing greater operational pressure, and financing in the primary market has become more difficult. At present, it is a good time for the new forces of car making to go public.

"The new forces of car making must rush to the market, which is a capital game. The capital that enters new force of car making has cash requirement, do not appear on the market cannot come out. " Cao he, a senior securities analyst in the automobile industry, said in an interview with the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

It is not only a means to attract new capital to the listed companies, but also a means to realize the commitment of other investors. If enterprises can not take this opportunity to achieve their own "hematopoietic" ability, they will be eliminated one after another.

However, neither the U.S. stock market nor the science and technology innovation board can accommodate such a large number of new Chinese car making forces. It is generally believed in the industry that only three or five of the new forces of car making can survive in the end, and even fewer will be able to succeed in the end.

Why do they rush to be listed? Because if you don't go public, there will be no chance. Who goes public first will live first. " Cao he said.

However, listing is a double-edged sword. After becoming a listed company, the disclosure of financial data will also enable capital to judge business prospects more clearly.

Two years ago, the glorious moment when Weilai became the first new automobile manufacturing force to be listed on the market seemed to be the beginning of the "nightmare" of Weilai and Li Bin.

Weilai's huge losses, as well as its large investment in marketing and service, are still far from reaching the break even point. At the same time, Weilai automobile also appeared spontaneous combustion and personnel unrest and other events, Weilai's stock price once fell to $1.

"Our biggest and most difficult time was in June, July and August last year. At that time, there were a lot of things, such as battery recall, stock price decline, team also had a lot of ideological turbulence, internal and external troubles. However, in September and October, I knew that we should not die. Although the stock price in September was the lowest, our orders began to pick up. In that case, there are many users who have bought our cars, which means that the users have not given up on us. " Li Bin told the 21st century economic reporter.

However, at that time, the rise in user orders still could not solve the problem of Weilai's lack of money. Li Bin again began to "look for money" everywhere. He not only contacted Yizhuang state investment and Zhejiang Huzhou municipal government's investment fund, but also had contact with SAIC, great wall and other traditional automobile enterprises.

"It's our job to change money. If we find it, we'll live. If we can't find it, we'll die." Li Bin said frankly.

Finally, after Weilai China settled in Hefei in April this year, Weilai automobile obtained 7 billion yuan financing from Hefei Municipal Government of Anhui Province, and soon obtained 10.4 billion yuan comprehensive credit from six banks on July 10. The financial pressure of Weilai automobile has been relieved.

From Weilai's experience, we can see that the new force of car making does not mean once and for all, and the development of the new force is facing multiple problems.

On the other hand, whether Weilai China settled in Hefei or Xiaopeng Zhaoqing factory was put into operation, deepening cooperation with local governments in the past two years is a universal choice for new forces of car manufacturing.

In fact, in China's traditional automobile manufacturing industry, each automobile enterprise cooperates with different local governments to obtain policy support and reduce their own risks. Such a rule can be continued in the new force industry of car making.

"For the new forces of car making, capital is the factor, product is the factor, and talent is the element. The government has all these elements, so the cooperation and interaction between enterprises and the government is very important. There must be an agreement in the cooperation. If the agreement is clear, the cooperation will be smooth. As enterprises and the government, the starting point should be good and the understanding of the industry should be thorough. " On July 24, Fu Qiang, co-founder and President of Aichi automobile, said in an interview with 21st century economic reporter.

In the second half of the competition for "hematopoietic" ability

In 2020, the new forces of car making will go through the first round of elimination, and the surviving enterprises will enter the next stage. In this process, the new force not only needs to prove its commercial value, but also needs to show the possibility and ability of making profits.

As far as the automobile industry is concerned, the key to success or failure lies in the product. Zheng Yun, global senior partner and vice president of Greater China region of Roland Berger, believes that the new forces of several car makers have slowly entered a stable period. Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng, etc. have taken out good products, and formed their own characteristics. "Weilai's products, brands and services are all well done. Xiaopeng's modeling and intellectualization, and the large-scale SUV market that ideal one cuts into have their own characteristics. " Zheng said.

However, judging from the sales trend of new forces' products, many new forces of car manufacturing have experienced the problem of insufficient follow-up orders after the digestion of advance orders. But the automobile industry product renewal speed is very fast, regarding the new force product continues the competitive power judgment to wait for the observation.

The sales volume of Xiaopeng G3 in the first half of this year has declined to a certain extent. The delivery of ideal cars started at the end of last year, and this year began to digest the orders accumulated since 2018. The data shows that the sales volume of ideal cars was 2600 in April, but dropped to 2148 in May, and 1891 in June. With the consumption of accumulated orders, sales of ideal cars are declining month by month, which is likely to continue in the second half of the year. From the perspective of the first half of August, the sales of ES models and vehicles have basically entered the market.

From the rhythm of product launch, Weilai and Xiaopeng are at the front. Weilai already has es8 and ES6 products on sale, and the third mass production vehicle ec6 is about to be delivered, but all three models are SUVs. The sug7 car and the car have been launched in two fields.

As for the ideal car, the pace will be slow because all the energy has been put on the first car before. According to the plan, the ideal car plans to launch a full-size SUV in 2022 and will be equipped with a new generation of extended range system. In other words, only one SUV with limited space will be sold in the future.

In the first half of this year, although China's car market declined, the private car market of new energy vehicles is growing. In the future, the market base of new energy vehicles will be larger, which will bring more market opportunities to the new forces of car making.

However, the new automobile manufacturing forces must face the competition with Tesla. At the same time, with the introduction of more different types of electric vehicles by foreign brands such as Volkswagen and Toyota in China, the competition in China's new energy vehicle market will become more intense, and the challenges faced by the new automobile manufacturing forces will also be more severe.

Li Xiang is highly confident in making cars. In September 2017, when 21st century economic reporter interviewed Li Xiang exclusively in chehejia Beijing Technology Research and development center, he once said, "the probability of success is 100% In October 2018, in an interview with 21st century economic reporter, he added, "I want to build a company with a hundred billion dollars."

Taking this step of IPO, Li Xiang's "ideal" began to shine into reality. However, in fact, in the development process of China's automobile industry, only Geely, great wall and BYD have real strength. And it will be more difficult for the new forces to succeed.

"Entrepreneurship itself is a matter with high probability of failure, and the failure probability of automobile entrepreneurship is higher. There are not enough short boards, high quality products and good quality service. The auto industry couldn't have had so many new companies. " Li Bin told reporters of the 21st century economic report that he is still worried about whether Weilai can survive or not. What is really difficult for automobile companies is not to live in the present, but to live in the future.