The tide of new cars ebbs: the "subversive" dumped by the times

Editor | Wu Yan

After three years of building a car in Red Star, once known as the "Oriental Beauty", Wei Jie seems to have experienced a big dream.

The dream of press conference in spotlight, new equipment with silvery light and intelligent cutting-edge technology has long been unrecognizable, replaced by the cold reality of hard-to-find sales and depreciation of assets. Wei Jie, who joined Red Star with entrepreneurial ambition, had to admit that state subsidies had never been issued, and the cash flow of enterprises had encountered great problems. He had to stop production and take holidays to save expenses. "Let's live through this year first." In order to reduce operating costs, employees who have an indefinite holiday since June 22 are mainly concentrated in the R&D team.

The Red Star Factory, which was once highly anticipated by entrepreneurial teams including Wei Jie, is located in an obscure town in Xingtai County, Hebei Province, more than 4 kilometers away from Beijing. Approaching an empty and low-rise red brick building and an old factory building, it seems to travel through time to another world, "making people return to the 198 s instantly", which is quite different from people's impression of the glamorous and avant-garde new car-making forces. Only the huge slogan on the wall reminds people that there have been brilliant moments here.

Source: Network

Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) visited in the afternoon of a working day, but few people came in and out of the Red Star factory with its doors closed. Even the villagers living nearby know that this factory, which has been relocated for nearly 5 years, is "not very effective", and many people have never even heard of the name Red Star Automobile.

The "sparkling red star", which was a smash hit in the 196s and 197s, is now eclipsed. Wei Jie regards it as the result of "continuous strategic mistakes", but he believes that this is only a small microcosm of the "tragic industry downturn". "Red Star is still good, at least not in arrears." He told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that many new car-making forces are now in arrears, and "suppliers are being dragged to death".

with the decline of subsidies, the ebb of capital and the intensification of competition, the new car-making forces have ushered in a major reshuffle, and the first batch of start-ups that are about to fall behind have fallen into a precarious situation. The life-and-death knockout, which is more cruel than expected, has just begun a corner curtain.

Wei Jie still remembers how it took them three months to drive out more than 1, cars in the cold winter without heating in 216. "It's really a fight, and the scene is very tragic." He recalled to the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time), "It was all made by hand, just like Rolls-Royce."

At that time, in order to keep the production qualification and subsidies for new energy vehicles, he and his colleagues received a "death order" to build the car in the "historic" factory in the town before the new subsidy policy was introduced. These hard-won Rolls Royce once again saved Red Star's life.

It's a new beginning for Red Star, which has changed hands several times. In 215, after it was acquired by Shuanghuan Automobile and went bankrupt, Red Star Automobile was acquired 72.5% of the shares by Duofuduo, a listed company in the chemical industry, which became a key link in its automobile industry chain from fluorine chemical industry, battery materials, power batteries to car-making.

As an early employee, Wei Jie's judgment at that time was that building a car was "possible".

"With the backing of listed companies, Polyfluoride promised 1 billion yuan for building cars. (Major shareholder) itself is a battery, which can save half the cost. " With money and qualifications, and the support of the industrial chain, plus the lessons learned from previous failures, Wei Jie feels that the starting point of Red Star is not low, except for its geographical location.

less than a year after the acquisition, an old model of Red Star was "resurrected" and transformed into a new energy vehicle, and "it made money in the first year", and the team also grew rapidly from dozens to more than 1,. In June 218, Red Star released the first mass-produced electric vehicle, Red Star Sparkling X, claiming that the average monthly sales exceeded 1,. However, Wei Jie told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that the sales of three electric logistics vehicles and an A-class electric SUV launched by Red Star actually add up to several thousand vehicles, and even fewer are sold to individual car owners.

capital is a double-edged sword. The new car-making forces may be "strangled" by capital while boosting sturm und drang.

Wei Jie believes that the first batch of cars built to keep their qualification can be sold better if the price is lower, and "it is the most important thing to get the money back". At that time, the team negotiated the channel, but because the management assessment was too strict, the plan to reduce the car price by several thousand yuan was stopped, so that no one was willing to buy it at the end. "Hidden trouble has been quietly buried at that time.

bad news followed. Red Star's car-making space has been continuously compressed, and the original promised 1 billion yuan has also become 1 billion. After the new energy subsidies receded, Red Star products became more and more unsalable. The annual report of polyfluoride shows that Red Star Motor's loss in 218 was 43.891 million yuan.

Red Star's dilemma is not an isolated case. The future car backed by the parent company Great Wall Huaguan is also in deep trouble.

In August last year, Future Auto released the first high-end electric sports car K5. Although it caught up with the first batch of production and delivery, the market did not buy it because the price exceeded 7, yuan. Since its listing last year, the total number of K5 cards has only been 131.

Source: Future official website

An investor believes that the positioning of the future K5 itself determines that it cannot become a moving vehicle. "They are very small in the target Porsche 718 itself. It is too difficult to compete with Porsche and get market share." He told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time).

It's not easy to survive in the cold winter. Even if we catch the last bus for mass production, dangerous signals still appear from time to time.

The first production car DEV 1 was officially unveiled less than a year ago. By the end of June, the new special car that had only delivered 5,343 cars was facing unsalable sales and had to seek new funds to continue its life. In May this year, in order to get the B round of financing led by the relevant industrial funds in Changshou District of Chongqing, Xinte had to move its headquarters from Hangzhou to Chongqing, and spent 4 billion yuan to build a pure electric vehicle production project with an annual production capacity of 12, vehicles.

"survive in the cracks." A Xinte employee told the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that this last choice not only solved part of the funding problem for subsequent development, but also "laid off" some employees with higher salaries in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai through relocation, thus reducing labor costs.

In July this year, it was reported by national business daily that due to the tight capital chain, Hangzhou Changjiang Automobile had large-scale arrears of wages and payment to suppliers, and many of its subsidiaries were affected. Because of "lack of money", similar situations have gradually spread in the industry, and more than 1 new car-making forces such as Baiteng, Yundu, Zero Run, Electric Cafe, Bojun and Zhidou have been involved.

The new car-making forces, which used to have the same scenery, are in a downturn, which makes the practitioners in a dilemma. It is a thing of the past to easily double the salary for job-hopping. An employee who has left a new car-making enterprise told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that it is not easy to find a job in the same industry because he is at risk of being owed wages.

no one knows what to do in the future.

Wei Jun, CEO of Ranger, has seen almost all kinds of mass-produced new cars such as Tesla, Weilai and Lamborghini in his circle of friends in the past two years, but he has never seen the Ranger car. Almost no one has seen the four trial-produced cars that the company has always only heard its voice and not seen its shadow. At last year's B-round financing conference, Ranger only showed a few renderings of the super factory.

Source: Wei Jun's circle of friends

Everything is still in the PPT stage.

four years ago, a Ranger X1 concept car, almost all the key components of which were disassembled and assembled by Tesla, instantly pushed Ranger into public opinion and became a "PPT car-making" company among some people. According to Wei Jun's previous plan, Ranger X should have achieved small batch production in the second half of 218 and large-scale delivery from 219 to 22. But until now, the problems of production qualification, factory, capital and so on, which are placed in front of mass production, are all pending.

It is not easy for Rangers to get rid of the label "PPT makes cars", and mass production is the only way.

At the end of 215, Huang Xiuyuan, the founder of Ranger, kept a minority stake and retired behind the scenes, and Wei Jun took over in a low-key way to restart the road of building cars. At that time, Wei Jun was only 29 years old, three years younger than Huang Xiuyuan.

However, after the announcement of the B round of financing, Wei Jun failed to fulfill his original promise, claiming to invest 11.5 billion yuan to build Huzhou Super Factory with an annual production capacity of 2, vehicles, and is still on the road. Just recently, Ranger not only failed to achieve small-scale mass production, but also reported that Huzhou factory had been shut down for half a year. Wei Jun confirmed to Future Auto Daily that the Huzhou project was only suspended for four months, not stopped.

"(This is just) strategic adjustment." Well Lee, co-founder and marketing director of Ranger Auto, told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time). In the past year, Ranger focused on testing and the development and design of new platform models, and rebuilt the factory for product adjustment. Well Lee said that Ranger has prepared four pure electric vehicles, two of which were originally planned to be released at the end of last year, and the time has also been adjusted to the second quarter of next year. At present, Rangers are also preparing for OEM or acquisition qualification.

Well Lee thinks that the reason why Rangers are "late" is to observe and adjust products on the one hand, and to "save dry food" on the other. Yin Kun, the chairman of investor Zhongchuang Ocean, also thinks that the Ranger who has formulated a new strategy "still has a chance". "At this stage, there is not much investment in all aspects, and there is no debt. Save your strength and re-enter at the right time."

But for Zhao Yuan, an employee of Singularity Automobile, the delay in mass production is particularly worrying.

Singularity released its mass production model as early as 217, and announced that it would be produced in small batches by the end of the year and officially launched in 218. However, as the original plan was postponed several times, Singularity Auto, which stood at the starting line early, also started a "jumping ticket" trip for more than two years.

if you lose confidence, it will only get harder and harder.

Zhao Yuan still remembers that at the press conference where Singularity iS6 made its debut, CEO Shen Haiyin spoke in high spirits for more than two hours. After the conference, hundreds of intentional orders also ignited the fire of hope for employees. But this light soon disappeared without a trace, replaced by a loss of sight of the road ahead. For a while, even the old employees began to question whether this car can still be listed.

"If you can't get the car for two years, users will cancel the reservation under normal circumstances." Zhao Yuan said that until he left, he couldn't wait until iS6 walked out of PPT alive.

Shen Haiyin tried to explain the reasons for the frequent "ticket jumping". On the one hand, the internal changes of BAIC Group, which is responsible for OEM, and on the other hand, in order to avoid the "pit" trampled by other new car-making forces, he thought that Singularity needed to be more fully prepared before launching products. He also said that the Tongling base built by Singularity started construction at the end of last year and can be completed and put into operation in about two years. He hopes that by mass-producing iC3 in Tongling, he can meet the new standards for applying for automobile qualification, so as to end the current situation of OEM.

Source: Future Auto Daily

But in Zhao Yuan's eyes, compared with these beautiful but nihilistic "imaginations", the backwardness of singularity has already been traced.

Zhao Yuan, who comes from a traditional car company, thinks that the intelligence that Singularity focuses on is just icing on the cake, and it should not be at the expense of performance, let alone make up for the problems of the car itself with intelligence. "Build the car in the shortest time, and then correct the iteration. This kind of Internet thinking cannot be used to build a car." He told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time).

when the new car-making movement was in full swing, he couldn't help but get excited and stepped into this wave. Looking back after regaining his composure, he realized that "Internet thinking can only make a super project manager, but it is difficult to build a really excellent car", although he met a boss who is expected to become "Steve Jobs or Lei Jun in the car industry".

he felt a little sorry, "he couldn't wait for the SOP of the new car". This is the real source of the inner sense of accomplishment of the car maker.

One of the reasons why Yin Kun decided to invest in Ranger was that Wei Jun was "young and thoughtful". "I admire his depth of understanding of the automobile industry at that age, which is different from other founders I contacted." He recalled to the Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time).

Four years after the change of ownership, the ranger's car still hasn't landed, but at least on the surface, Yin Kun still has "true love" for it.

"Even if Ranger is still living in PPT, I think at least it is in the right direction." Ranger X, the first model of Ranger, was difficult to give birth, but he felt that it was okay to postpone the time.

Having participated in the investment in Ranger twice, Yin Kun firmly believes that the positioning of high-end electric vehicles conforms to his own judgment on the market. "We must start from the high-end and then proceed". In his view, the core battery of electric vehicles, and the battery cost of some electric vehicles accounts for 7% of the whole vehicle. In this proportion, the driving comfort brought by vehicles to users will become limited.

in the face of the reshuffle of the industry, no one can tell the fate of new cars still living in PPT. Yin Kun bluntly said that the Ranger may succeed or fail. However, he stressed that, like the idea when he decided to invest in Ranger, "I will accompany you to the world if you succeed, and I will accompany you to make a comeback if you fail."

A few years back, building cars on the Internet is still a novelty that can stimulate investors' nerves. New car-making enterprises can be attracted by investors almost as long as they rush into this hot air.

In June, 215, Weilai Automobile, which was registered for less than one month, almost closed the door and finalized the A round of financing, and there were many "big coffees" such as JD.COM, Shunwei, Gaoyao Capital and Tencent Fund among the investors. An investor told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) that he had seen almost all the projects of the same type at that time, and he wanted to invest in Weilai most, but because of his lack of funds and fame, he couldn't invest at all. At the launch of ES8, Liu Qiangdong's wife, ZhangZetian, revealed a detail. Li Bin only spent 15 minutes talking about the idea of starting a business at the dinner table, while Liu Qiangdong only took 1 seconds to answer Yes.

Also in 215, Zhang Jianchun, the founding partner of No.1 Capital, saw the ground-dismantled Tesla in Xpeng Motors's base in Guangzhou University Town, and the "passionate passion" of founder He Xiaopeng impressed him even more. He can't forget the huge impact brought to him by the magical big screen, super accelerated response, silent performance and intelligent driving system when he first tried to ride Tesla. "It's like changing from a feature phone to a smart phone for the first time, which is a brand-new world."

One year later, Singularity Automobile became the first equity investment project of No.1 Capital.

in the next two years, capital poured in, making the whole industry look like