This will be the first time to encounter difficulties in F4.

65438+February 1, official website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange shows that the prospectus of Weimar Automobile (hereinafter referred to as Weimar) is in an "invalid" state. Prior to this, an internal letter from Weimar founder Freeman Shen on June 5438+065438+1October 2/KLOC-0 made the financial pressure of this star new energy automobile company public. The internal letter listed a number of measures to deal with the financial pressure, including a salary cut of half for the management and 30% for the employees.

In the eyes of some internal employees, Weimar has been under financial pressure for a long time. People who still stay in Weimar are as eager to know as the outside world, can this car company, which once tied for "F4" with "Wei Xiaoli", stick to the end of the listing marathon?

Layoffs and pay cuts

The 8th of each month is the payday of Weimar employees. However, on the day of165438+1October 8, Weimar employee Zhang Feng (pseudonym) did not receive the prompt message of salary arrival. Weimar employees, including Zhang Feng, have been verbally informed on June 5438+00, and the payday will be postponed from the 8th to 25th of each month.

"At that time, we were ready for a pay cut, and we still needed a written notice. The result was posted on 2 1. " Zhang Feng revealed that Weimar had never extended his salary before.

According to Zhongxin Jingwei, Weimar had already laid off employees before the release of the internal letter of 2 1 salary reduction.

1June 15 or so, leaders of various departments in Weimar verbally informed employees that they had "such an opportunity": employees who signed up before the specified time can get compensation of N+ 1, leave their jobs at the end of the month, or continue to work with a 30% discount on their salary. In fact, not every employee who signs up for "voluntary layoffs" can get compensation of N+ 1, because each department has a number limit and needs leaders to fight for it.

165438+1October 2 1 After reading the internal letter, Zhang Feng had the idea of leaving his job. In his view, it is meaningless to continue working, and many people around him have the idea of leaving, because "the year-end award is gone."

Freeman Shen wrote in an internal letter that the extra bonus (salary 13), retention bonus (salary 14) and year-end bonus will be cancelled.

Although the outside world often hears the voice of "Weimar left behind", as an employee, Zhang Feng has never had an intuitive feeling. He feels that "the company atmosphere is good, the corporate culture is open, no punching, and less overtime."

At the same time of layoffs and salary cuts, Weimar's recruitment seems to have stalled. Zhongxin Jingwei was directly hired by BOSS. Although Weimar still has vacancies, the recruiter last went online four months ago. The "Join Us" column of Weimar's official micro-signal shows that there are no positions.

Fall behind and quit the store

The voice of "Weimar left behind" began to spread in 2020. At that time, Weimar sold 22,500 vehicles, ranking fourth among the new forces in building cars.

In 20 19, Weimar ranked second among the new forces with sales of12,800 vehicles, second only to Weilai. At that time, Weimar, Wei Lai, Tucki and Ideality were called "F4" by the outside world and were in the first echelon.

In 20021year, Weimar's annual sales reached 44,200 vehicles, ranking fifth after Tucki, Weilai, Ideality and Nezha. In the same year, Tucki delivered 98,200 vehicles and Weilai delivered 965,438+0,400 vehicles, with an ideal delivery volume of 90,500 vehicles.

According to the data disclosed by China Automobile Center, from 1 to 1 in 2022, the cumulative sales volume of Weimar vehicles was 29,284, down 14% year-on-year. This figure is much lower than that of Nezha Auto and Zero Run Auto in the same camp, whose sales have more than doubled.

Freeman Shen said in an interview with the media that the stagflation of Weimar's sales volume is not that it can't be sold, but that it is intended to be sold.

According to the prospectus submitted by Weimar to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2022, from 20 19 to 202 1 year, Weimar accumulated losses of136.32 million yuan; The gross profit margin is always below -40%, which is equivalent to a loss of 65,438+10,000 for every car sold.

Zhang Feng believes that the more you sell, the more you earn. You can do it when the funds are abundant, but when the funds are under pressure, it is a disaster.

Perhaps because of the "closed sales", the dealers could not get the goods, resulting in no cars to sell, and Weimar had a certain degree of withdrawal.

According to the prospectus, Weimar adopts the dealer sales model. According to the third-party map search, there are 23 Weimar stores in Beijing, but Weimar official website shows that Weimar has only 13 stores in Beijing. According to industry insiders, this may be because some shops have been withdrawn and third-party software updates are not timely.

165438+1On October 30th, Zhongxin Jingwei came to Cuiwei Impression City, Haidian District, Beijing. Guide card, on the first floor of the mall, showed that there was a Weimar store here, but I searched the whole mall and couldn't find it. The staff of Cuiwei Impression City said, "Weimar has been out of the store for about four months. The reason for the store withdrawal is unclear, and the lease may have expired. "

The store withdrawal is not limited to Beijing. 165438+1During the working hours on the afternoon of October 30th, Zhongxin Jingwei randomly dialed the sales stores in Henan, Sichuan, Hunan and other places 1 1 Weimar according to the public information, of which only three stores were connected, and the rest were not answered or transferred to other brand stores.

"Dealers should also make money," said Zhang Feng. Whether the car sells well and whether the dealer can make money determines whether Weimar Store can survive.

According to the prospectus, Weimar * * * has launched four models, namely EX5, EX6, W6 and E.5. According to public information, the prices of the above models are 6.5438+0.698 million yuan, 6.5438+0.899 million yuan, 6.5438+0.958 million yuan and 6.5438+0.0656 yuan respectively.

Song Mei (pseudonym), a salesperson of a Weimar store in Changsha, told Zhongxin Jingwei on the phone on the 30th that a batch of cars bought by the store in early 2022 had not been sold out and were currently being promoted.

"At present, there are 5 or 6 Weimar W6, 1 Weimar EX5 in our store, which arrived at the beginning of this year, and the discounted prices are about 6,543,805 yuan and 6,543,804 yuan respectively." Song Mei also said that only the existing cars in the store will be sold at the above price. If the existing car is sold out and the customer wants to buy another car, the delivery time and price are unknown.

rhythm

Why did Weimar come to this step? Zhang Feng inferred from the current results that the main reason lies in the problem of Weimar rhythm.

To understand this sentence, we have to start with Weimar's product line. At present, the prices of four models launched by Weimar range from 6.5438+0.5 million yuan to 250 thousand yuan. In Zhang Feng's view, it is not wrong for Weimar products to focus on this mainstream market in the early stage, considering the market users with a huge price range. However, if they are positioned in this market from the beginning, it will do more harm than good for the development of new energy vehicle companies.

"New energy vehicles are early adopters. The user groups are mainly middle-class families such as Internet executives. Ordinary people are very sensitive to price. They just need families to take a wait-and-see attitude towards new energy vehicles. " Zhang Xiang, dean of the New Energy Automobile Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, said, "Mainstream market positioning cannot help car companies establish a high-end brand image. Now there is great competition in all market segments. It is difficult for a car company that focuses on low-end models to raise prices and launch high-end models later. "

Weilai and Ideality take the high-end route. Weilai's cheapest ET5 model starts at 328,000 yuan, and the new ES starts at 70,000 yuan. Ideally, the cheapest model at present, Li ONE, starts at 349,800 yuan, and the L9 45.98 which was listed in June 2022, starts at 459,800 yuan.

G3i, the cheapest car in Tucki, is guided by official website168,900 yuan, followed by P5 official website179,900 yuan, and P7 is guided by 239,900 yuan. At present, the suggested retail price of the new car G9 launched this year in official website is 309,900 yuan.

High-end models mean more profits. The financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2022, the gross profit margin of Weilai Automobile was 65,438+06.4%, and that of Tucki was 65,438+03.5%. In the second quarter of the same year, the ideal gross profit margin of automobile was 265,438+0.8%.

Zhang Hong, secretary-general of china automobile dealers association New Energy Branch, told Zhongxin Jingwei, "Weimar tried to explore the middle and high-end market, and EX6 was Weimar's test of the middle and high-end market, but it failed."

Zhang Feng thinks that the failure of EX6 may be the beginning of Weimar's backwardness. "Weimar EX5 is a star product in the same price model. If the EX6 sells well, Weimar has two main cars. However, the sales volume of EX6 declined, and the R&D cost rose, which made the follow-up product release rhythm unable to keep up. When friends started pushing cars, Weimar was still pushing SUVs, "Zhang Feng said.

Weimar once said in the prospectus that the new car M7 will be listed in the second half of 2022, but there is no news at present.

"The new car M7 has no information yet." Many salespeople have given the same answer. Zhang Feng revealed, "The new car M7 is definitely suspended, depending on whether there is money for mass production in the future."

"Weimar is not selling many models at present. EX6, which originally planned to grab the mid-to high-end market, failed to turn the tide. The highly anticipated new car M7 has not yet been launched, and Weimar's product chain is facing a severe test. " Zhang Hong said.

Apart from the initial product positioning error, the self-built factory may be the second place where the rhythm is wrong in Freeman Shen.

Freeman Shen, with a traditional automobile company background, started to build its own factory very early. Although the production qualification of the two factories cost 65.438+0.38 billion yuan, Freeman Shen believes that self-built factories can control the production quality.

According to public information, Weimar has built two production bases in Wenzhou, Zhejiang and Huanggang, Hubei since 2065438+August 2006, with a total production capacity of 250,000 vehicles.

Weimar has also become the first brand of new power to build cars by its own factory, while Weilai, Tucki and Ideality are still choosing OEM.

The investment in two self-built factories has brought great financial pressure to Weimar. According to the prospectus, from 20 19 to 20021year, Weimar's R&D expenditure was 893 million yuan, 992 million yuan and 98 10/00000 yuan respectively, accounting for 50.7%, 37. 1% and 20.7% of the revenue in the same period respectively.

"Self-built factories are a forward-looking strategy. The new car-making forces are now starting to build their own factories, but the problem is that Weimar's factory was built too early, ignoring the cost. The two production lines wasted a lot of money and there were not enough orders to digest excess capacity. " Zhang Feng said.

Du Ligang, co-founder of Weimar, also told the media that premature investment in the second factory led to long-term idle production capacity and idle funds. If it is two years later, Weimar's financial burden may be smaller.

According to media reports, Weimar's two factories are still operating normally, but the capacity utilization rate is around 20%.

Throughout June 5438+00 and June 5438+0 10, the number of original Weibo published by Freeman Shen, who was active in Weibo in the past, was zero, and only one interview article about him was forwarded by the media. In the interview article he forwarded, he said that the company's capital chain and production and operation are normal. "It's just that the big environment is not good, so I have to live a little."