Guo Rui Senior Editor Industry Trends 2020-07-01 06:40
Some friends may have seen the picture below. At the 2018 Beijing Auto Show, new car-making brands made their first collective appearance in large numbers, dazzling many senior automotive media. So I made this picture, which confused a lot of people. It’s been almost three years now. How many brands do you know now that you didn’t know then? How many brands fell before everyone became familiar with them?
Starting from July 1, Byton has suspended its business operations in mainland China. Previously, Byton had been in arrears with employee wages for several consecutive months, and its offices in Shanghai and Beijing had also withdrawn leases. CCTV reported that Byton had burned through 8.4 billion and could not build a mass-produced car, which became a hot topic. Byton, which had been highly optimistic earlier, became one of the first companies to fall. Even Breitfeld, one of the co-founders of the Byton brand, resigned in April last year. At the same time, Bojun's salary arrears and transformation turmoil are still continuing; Sailin's boss Wang Xiaolin is avoiding the United States; Future revealed that he is owed wages, and chairman Lu Qun is restricted from spending too much...
A sudden new crown epidemic in 2020 dampened the enthusiasm of the consumer market and annihilated the enthusiasm of the investment market. The tide recedes too fast, and those who swam naked had no time to leave quietly... Byton's car-making story
When new car-making forces emerged in 2017, in addition to the pure electric supercar EP9 In addition to Weilai, which has gained countless eyeballs, Byton can be said to be one of the most prestigious brands at the time. Before the launch of the Byton brand, it was known as "Harmonious Futeng" and was regarded as a brand born with a golden key. In 2018, it presented its first concept car at the North American CES show, and its exaggerated large screen attracted countless attention. Even since 2020, when Byton was exposed to news of wage arrears, office lease cancellations, factory water and electricity arrears, etc., not many people felt that Byton was facing a life and death test.
However, on the evening of June 29, Byton CEO Dai Lei organized a temporary all-staff meeting and announced that the company had decided to suspend business operations in China (except Hong Kong) and suspend production starting from July 1, 2020. Production has been suspended, with a small number of employees remaining on duty. In addition, Byton North America and Byton Germany have initiated bankruptcy applications in accordance with local laws, leaving 10 people on duty respectively. This news was officially confirmed on the evening of June 30.
The details of the "Notice of Suspension of Work and Production in China" officially issued by Byton are as follows: Quick reading of key points 1 All employees of all companies in China are on standby, and the company will no longer arrange work; for necessary jobs, the company will separately Written notice. 2 During the suspension of work and production, the wages of all unemployed employees will be paid in accordance with laws and regulations, that is, wages will be paid normally in July 2020 in accordance with the labor contract, and living allowances will be paid to unemployed employees starting in August 2020. The specific standards will be determined according to local regulations. . 3. During the suspension of work and production, the social security and provident funds of all unemployed employees will still be paid in accordance with the law, and the personal part will also be borne by the company. 4 During the suspension of work and production, all unemployed employees will no longer enjoy performance bonuses, various allowances and welfare benefits. 5 The shutdown period is expected to be 6 months. Subsequent arrangements will be determined based on the company's specific circumstances and will be notified separately. Please keep your contact information open. 6 During the suspension of work and production, the labor relationship between all unemployed employees and the company will still exist, and employees should still abide by the company's rules and regulations and labor disciplines, including but not limited to confidentiality obligations. 7 For laid-off employees, the company will pay back wages for March 2020 before July 10, 2020, and the remaining back wages will also be actively created to create conditions for payment in installments. 8 For employees who choose to resign voluntarily, the company will do its best to raise funds and give priority to guarantees.
Employees who voluntarily submit their resignation in writing before June 30, 2020 (including those who resigned before the issuance of this notice) and complete the resignation procedures before July 3, 2020, will be required to settle all back wages in one lump sum before July 10, 2020.
On March 23, 2015, something big or small happened in the automotive industry. Harmony Auto, Foxconn and Tencent signed the "Strategic Framework Agreement on Smart Internet Electric Vehicles" in Zhengzhou. , Harmony Futeng has a total investment of 1 billion yuan, with Tencent Holdings, Foxconn and Harmony Automobile investing in a ratio of 3:3:4. This was the beginning of Harmony Futeng, which caused a sensation due to the participation of the two giants Foxconn and Tencent, but it was led by the unspectacular Harmony Automobile.
One day in 2016, BMW Group Vice President Carsten Breitfeld, who was highly praised for leading the development of the BMW i8, was on vacation in Lake Garda, Italy. At that time, he was already working at BMW In 20 years, a guest from China completely changed his destiny. This man is Feng Changge, the founder of Harmony Automobile. Feng Changge recommended him to join a new new energy brand he founded, and even directly brought him a letter of appointment, but Breitfeld did not directly agree. After some thought, he came anyway. What moved him was the optimism for new energy vehicles, the joint investment from giants such as Foxconn, Tencent, and Suning, and the living environment in Chinese metropolises that is no worse than Munich.
During this period, Harmony Futeng also hired Dai Lei, who had served as senior vice president of marketing at BMW Brilliance Automobile Co., Ltd. and general manager of Dongfeng Infiniti Automobile Co., Ltd. . Breitfeld and Dai Lei will serve as CEO and COO respectively in the new company. In other positions, they also hired technical elites from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Tesla and other companies, and the founding team can be described as luxurious. Soon after, Fu Qiang, the former CEO of Volvo China Sales Company, also joined Harmony Futeng with a high profile to create another team.
Luxury's investment team and Luxury's founding lineup failed to give Harmony Futeng a good result. Soon Foxconn said it would not launch a complete vehicle brand, and Harmony Futeng quietly dispersed. Under the leadership of Harmony Automobile, the teams of Breitfeld and Dai Lei established FMC and launched the vehicle brand Byton in 2017, while Fu Qiang led the team to establish a separate company and established AIWAYS. Until this time, Byton still relied on Tencent and Suning, and then ushered in a new backer? FAW.
In terms of product promotion, Byton has been performing well. It has launched two concept cars, M-Byte and K-Byte. The design concept is very eye-catching and the degree of completion is very good. Also very high. As a concept car, M-Byte is already an engineering vehicle that can be tested and experienced. In terms of qualifications, after forming an alliance with FAW, Byton bought the production qualifications of FAW Huali for 1 yuan and built its own factory in Nanjing. Of course, Byton still needs to bear Huali's 855 million debt. In "How many hundreds of millions does a birth certificate cost?" We also talked about how much it cost the new car-making forces to enter the market. This is not a very high price.
The first change in Byton, which seemed to be going smoothly, occurred in 2019. At the Shanghai Auto Show that year, Breitfeld unexpectedly appeared at the Iconic booth to introduce the company's future development plan as CEO on behalf of the latter. . At this time, everyone was shocked to realize that Breitfeld, the CEO and co-founder of Byton, had quietly resigned. Later, the media broke the news that the reason for Bifu's departure was that FAW, as the major shareholder, excessively interfered in the company's operations. It also revealed that many technical staff had resigned. Byton and Breitfeld subsequently publicly denied this statement.
At the end of 2019, Byton released its first mass-produced car at the Frankfurt Auto Show, and mass production work seems to be proceeding in an orderly manner. However, the Series C financing launched in 2018 was not successfully completed until 2020. It seems that the big mountain behind it is just an investment, and Byton still lost due to lack of funds. Starting around February 2020, Byton’s funds were no longer enough to pay employees’ wages.
It is reported that the two major shareholders, FAW and the Nanjing Development Zone Government, had expressed their willingness to make up for the salary arrears of employees for the past few months. However, due to differences of opinion with another shareholder, Harmony Automobile, they finally failed to reverse the situation. After a six-month shutdown, Byton will reorganize the company's development direction. Some media broke the news that FAW, Baoneng, Geely and other companies were interested in acquiring Byton, but soon Geely Holding Group spokesman Yang Xueliang said on social media that he had "never heard of this news." Who is swimming naked?
When a large number of new self-made car-making forces are exposed to the public, the topic of how many brands have fallen has been hotly discussed, and the new car-making forces have also been dubbed "PPT car-making". . After chatting, no one can clearly point out which brands have withdrawn from the stage, because so far no company owned by a new car-making power brand has gone bankrupt. But are some brands really still around?
In order to verify the survival status of these new car-making forces, I looked at the patent applications of 45 relatively independent new car-making forces. As a vehicle manufacturer, as long as R&D continues to advance, there will always be some innovations, big or small, that are born and patented. For example, Geely Automobile has applied for at least 18,000 related patents in China so far. Of course, the number of patents does not fully represent the technical strength of a company, and the confidentiality period of patents will also affect the judgment of the current status of the brand. For example, NIO has also simultaneously engaged in multiple fields such as battery swapping and self-service travel. The total number of patents since 2015 has reached more than 3,400, far exceeding other new car-making brands. However, it is certain that there is a certain correlation between the number of patents and brand development.
It really surprised me that Byton has only 98 patents since its establishment, and half of them are appearance patents that are not technical barriers. As you can see from the picture below, most of Byton’s patent applications were filed between the beginning of 2018 and the period between 2018 and 2019. After February 2019, the only patents Byton disclosed were the appearance patents of a few new concept cars. It can be believed that Byton has had problems in technology research and development since February 2019. In April of that year, former Byton CEO Carsten Breitfeld appeared at the Iconic booth.
Faraday Future founded by Jia Yueting and Sailin brought by Wang Xiaolin have registered 248 and 153 patents respectively, and are not included in the list. few. As Faraday Future's asset problems continue to worsen, the last patent it applied for was in April 2019, while Jiangsu Sailin was still applying for new patents until the end of last year. However, a closer look at their development history shows that they have always used projects to play with finance and create momentum to make money. Jia Yueting at least created a dream team at the beginning and also achieved some results. At least the pie was a bit too big. What Wang Xiaolin brought to China, besides the Sailin brand that he ruined, was Maimai, which had already defrauded a lot of money in the United States. Coincidentally, both of them are now in the United States. Jia Yueting will return to China next week, while Wang Xiaolin is still buying air tickets.
As for Weijia Automobile, which became popular some time ago, I am joking about the brand and trademark. It is not a joke if the two related companies do not have a patent. As for Art Car Manufacturing, which previously built Van Gogh's car, their only 6 patents also include projects such as car model display stands and model display boards. It can only be said that this is indeed an art company rather than a car company. Who said that new car-making forces only know PPT?
When talking about new car-making forces, everyone will always think of "PPT car-making". In fact, many new car-making forces actually have car-making skills, including some unsuccessful brands, such as Qiantu, Bojun and Tongjie in the previous picture. The predecessors of these three companies are Great Wall Huaguan, Shanghai Sizhi and Shanghai Tongji Tongjie. They are all automotive engineering companies with many years of experience. Before transforming into car manufacturing, they were responsible for providing technical support to vehicle companies and even undertaking the production of complete vehicles. outsourced R&D and training. It's a pity that if you have the skills, you may not really know how to build a car.
Tongjie is the brand that is most unfamiliar to everyone because it has not been officially released yet. In 2017, photovoltaic materials manufacturer GCL invested 5.6 billion to acquire Shanghai Tongji Tongjie and established Suzhou Tongjie, joining the army of new car-making forces. Although it has not been released yet, I was lucky enough to see the spy photos of their test car. Even if I don’t care about the sports car-like appearance, the interior looks like a Porsche and the logo looks even more like a Porsche, which makes me vaguely worried about its future.
Qiantu, which started as an engineering company, also chose to start with a sports car. The first car launched by Qiantu was a small sports car K50. It can break 100km/h in 4.6 seconds. When it comes to electric cars, they have been left far behind by many electric cars and even electric SUVs. When it comes to control, the K50 obviously cannot be compared with the Weilai EP9 or Tesla's first-generation Roadster, which was built on the basis of Lotus. It has not done much to sort out the brand image. The price of more than 700,000 yuan has really blocked out a large number of consumers. What about after K50? The two cars launched by Qiantu Plan seem to be niche models with very wrong positioning. I can only lament that this is really a brand founded by a straight male engineer. As a result, Qiantu's capital chain was broken, it was also revealed that Qiantu was owed wages, and Qiantu's chairman and founder Lu Qun was restricted from spending too much.
The first car of Bojun Automobile built by Shanghai Sizhi is finally not a sports car, but a coupe-type SUV... But this car is not yet available Since its listing, Bojun has already reached the forefront. Bojun Automobile first announced that it would invest 10 billion to establish a production base in Nanjing. In November 2018, Borjuna Auto reached agreements with Shanghai Lingang and Jiangsu Huaian respectively, investing 2.5 billion and 5 billion respectively to establish production bases. The Shanghai Lingang base is adjacent to the Tesla China factory. In September 2019, Borjun Auto and FAW Xiali established a Tianjin Borjun joint venture and obtained production qualifications through Xiali. However, recently it was revealed that Bojun has been in arrears with employee wages for half a year, and the company has come to a standstill.
After experiencing a series of farces, Huang Ximing, founder and general manager of Bojun Automobile, issued a public statement stating that he decided to reposition the company's business model and build on the company's already established success. and products, actively cooperate with external parties, and strive to create positive cash flow. It is almost announced that Bojun will transform and abandon car manufacturing. Later, there were rumors on the Internet that Huang Ximing had fled to the United States and would not return to China. However, Huang Ximing later publicly denied this statement.
The three companies with complete vehicle development skills have all encountered problems in product planning and financing. What is new about the new car-making forces is not just the brand, nor is it just the power model. In the new era, using new thinking to create new energy and intelligent new travel methods is the reason why new car-making forces are favored by capital. Hand in the paper, judge the hero by success or failure
No matter how good the PPT is, the delivery is the big test. Being able to survive until the mass production of complete vehicles is the real beginning of whether new car-making forces can survive. NIO, with cumulative sales of nearly 40,000 units, has yet to truly achieve profitability. However, achieving mass adoption gives investors and consumers the greatest confidence. Against the background of the wailing of new car-making forces, Weilai ushered in a new round of financing of 7.356 billion yuan; Ideal has begun to accelerate the pace of expansion, and plans to Can add 60 new stores...
Of course, for new car-making brands that are still in their infancy, sales are not entirely the only factor to measure their success or failure. , some brands are still in the stage of ramping up production or even about to be launched. It’s just that this year’s sudden epidemic has made it even more difficult for brands that were already strapped for funds to survive. A CCTV report mentioned that Byton burned 8.4 billion and failed to build a mass-produced car. 8.4 billion is certainly a lot of money, but Byton mentioned at the beginning of the brand launch that the expected investment in the Nanjing factory would reach 11 billion, and the financing difficulties made Byton difficult. However, for Byton, the chaos at the beginning and the coordination between foreign leaders and FAW as the major shareholder also exacerbated its own problems.
Conclusion
When building a car, we cannot completely determine the hero by success or failure. Before the launch of the Model S, Musk almost sold Tesla to Google. Financial difficulties almost crushed Tesla at the time. If it had taken action at that time, Tesla might have been just one of many failed brands.
But success is not accidental. When Tesla was struggling to continue, their engineers casually transformed an electric smart that impressed Mercedes-Benz. Not only did it send investment, but it also electrified the smart. The project was handed over to Tesla. In terms of "making a pie", no one can be bigger than Musk, who has always aimed to establish a Mars colony. But the success of the SpaceX rocket project and Tesla has made people regard Musk as a Is a "madman". You know, the lives of these two companies have been hanging by a thread, and there is only a thin line between "madman" and "liar". It's just that "crazy" may fail, but "liar" will not succeed after all.
The unexpected "epidemic" in 2020 has accelerated the selection of new car-making forces, which is a good thing. Only those with strength can outperform this "life and death speed". (Picture/Text: Guo Rui) @2019