Weilai will always bless the “predecessors”. Editor’s note: This article is from ”
Future Auto Daily”, (WeChat public account ID: auto-time), author: Wu Xiaoyu.
Source: Network
Author | Wu Xiaoyu
Edit | Li Huanhuan
Working together for many years, the two “love affair” between Weilai and traditional car companies have ended in no time.
May 20th, this day is regarded as another Valentine’s Day by young people because of the homophony. However, Changan Automobile issued a “breakup” announcement on this day, its holding subsidiary “Changan Weilai” officially changed its name to Avita Technology. Avita Technology will fully market-oriented operation, independent operation, independent development, and Changan Automobile, Huawei, and CATL will work together to create a smart electric networked vehicle platform (CHN) to create a smart car product series.
With the establishment of Avita Technology, the role of NIO in Changan’s project to build a high-end new energy brand has become even weaker. Tianyan check shows that Weilai holds only 4.62% of the company’s shares.
On the other side, GAC and Weilai also quietly ended their relationship. On April 6, GAC NIO officially changed its name to Hechuang Technology. Tianyan Check showed that Weilai’s shares were diluted to only 4.4589%. Weilai’s founder and chairman Li Bin retired from GAC Weilai’s legal representative in January this year.
Weilai’s two romances both started in 2017. In April and December of that year, Weilai signed strategic cooperation agreements with Changan Automobile and Guangzhou Automobile Group respectively. “Just like falling in love and getting married, I will observe many people at first and choose the most suitable one in the end.” Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, once said at the signing ceremony.
At the beginning, the “most suitable” partner seems to be no longer suitable, but after joining hands with the newcomers, the road to high-end new energy for Changan and GAC may still not be easy.
The story behind the breakup
According to Li Bin’s earlier statement, the joint venture project between Weilai and Changan is actually a kind of “getting their own strengths.” NIO needs to take advantage of Changan’s strength in R&D, manufacturing and supply chain, while Changan has expectations for NIO’s three-electric and intelligent technology advantages.
2018In August 2008, Changan Weilai settled in Nanjing Jiangning Development Zone. After that, Changan Weilai has made little progress. For more than two years, Changan Weilai’s strategic planning, brand LOGO and products have not progressed.
Source: Changan Weilai official
Under this situation, Chang’an couldn’t sit still a bit. In June 2020, Changan Weilai had a business change. Tan Benhong, executive vice president of Changan Automobile, succeeded Li Bin as chairman of Changan Weilai. Through cash capital increase and other methods, Changan’s total holdings of Changan Weilai’s equity increased to 95.38%, while Weilai only holds 4.62%.
Regarding “abandoning” Weilai, Wang Yuan, an analyst at CITIC Securities Automotive, believes that Changan originally “hoped to build its own mid-to-high-end brand with the help of Changan Weilai’s team”, but Changan Weilai is making slow progress and adjusted its equity. “Changan can tightly control the control of Changan Weilai”, which is convenient for controlling the rhythm of brand planning.
But in fact, Weilai has its own difficulties.
Shortly after Changan Weilai settled in Nanjing, Weilai entered “the toughest year of 2019”, and Li Bin was also ridiculed as “the worst person in 2019.” In 2019, Weilai encountered negative incidents such as vehicle spontaneous combustion and squatting, and its performance was “horrible.” The financial report shows that in 2019, Weilai lost more than 11 billion yuan, with an average monthly sales volume of less than 2,000 vehicles. At that time, Wei Lai, “seems to have more than enough energy for joint venture projects.”
It wasn’t until April 29 last year that Weilai’s China headquarters settled in Hefei, and successfully won a strategic investment of 7 billion yuan, that Weilai’s situation improved. “But Wei Lai, who got the life-saving money, may be more concerned about saving himself.”
Compared with Changan Weilai, GAC Weilai is considered “running faster”.
On April 10, 2018, GAC NIO was formally established. A year later, GAC NIO released its new brand-“HYCAN Co-Chuang”, and launched the first mass-produced model 007.
According to the official introduction, GAC NIO 007 was born on the pure electric GEP2.0 platform of GAC New Energy Smart Ecological Factory, and at the same time incorporates NIO’s intelligent technology genes. Therefore, 007 is called “Xiao Weilai” by the market, and GAC has set a sales target of “15,000 vehicles in 2020” for 007.
However, GAC Weilai has not been recognized by consumers. According to data from the Travel Association, GAC NIO will sell only 659 vehicles in 2020, and sales are bleak.
Xiao Ming, a sales consultant of GAC Weilai, analyzed to Future Automobile Daily (ID: auto-time) that as a brand jointly invested and independently operated by GAC and Weilai, “Many consumers simply cannot tell GAC What is the difference between Weilai and Weilai”, 007 is very similar to GAC AION LX, Weilai ES6 and other models in many aspects, and the homogeneity problem is prominent.
In addition, GAC NIO has experienced many marketing accidents, which greatly affected its brand image. This may have exacerbated the “disintegration” between GAC and Weilai.
At the end of 2020, GAC NIO announced on its official Weibo that it would accept digital currency for car purchases. As Bitcoin is not a legal tender in China, GAC Weilai was quickly criticized by netizens and the media. Two hours later, the official deleted this Weibo.
Source: Weilai official
“The (extraordinary) performance in marketing may be due to financial constraints,” Xiao Ming said. According to Tianyan Check, GAC NIO has a registered capital of 500 million yuan. GAC NIO has not received public financing for more than two years after its establishment. According to its announcement, it did not obtain a strategic investment of 2.405 billion yuan from Pearl River Investment Management and GAC Aian until January this year.
“GAC Weilai is short of money, but Weilai may not have enough money and energy to operate GAC Weilai.” Wang Yuan thinks.
However, Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Weilai Automobile, once clarified that although there are some financial challenges, the money invested in the joint venture has not been affected. “They (GAC Weilai and Changan Weilai) Development (in case of setbacks) is not (only because of) money issues”.
“Weilai will always bless and help them (Changan Weilai and GAC Weilai), but they need to find their own way.”
How to realize their respective “high-end dreams”?
After abandoning Weilai, Changan found a new partner—Huawei and Ningde era.
According to Changan Automobile, Huawei will use its ICT technology advantages to jointly build R&D, channels, services, ecology and other full value chain links with Avita Technology, and provide users with full-stack smart car solutions to realize electric vehicle intelligence. 化 level. As a power battery provider and new energy solution service provider, CATL uses smart electric vehicle power battery technology to empower Avita Technology to create a safe and convenient energy ecosystem.
Source: Huawei official
Joining hands with Huawei may be the best choice for Changan to accelerate its smart electric vehicle business. After all, several auto companies currently holding Huawei have “taste the sweetness.” The share price of the well-off shares of Cyrus SF5 jointly built with Huawei has doubled, and BAIC, which jointly released the Polar Fox Alpha S with Huawei, also ushered in a continuous surge.
But on the other hand, Changan has to rely on itself if it wants to achieve success in the field of high-end new energy vehicles and hold capital and technology in its own hands. After all, Huawei has a large number of automotive customers, and how to achieve differentiated advantages is a difficult problem.
“This model (cooperating between car companies and Huawei), I tried before at UC, and later died miserably.” Xiaopeng Motors Chairman He Xiaopeng once said bluntly in an interview with the media. He believes that car companies rely on Huawei, just as mobile phone manufacturers hand over the operating system to outsiders. This way of cooperation is very challenging. Only the vertical integration model of software and hardware integration adopted by Apple can control its core competitiveness in its own hands.
On May 24, Huawei issued a statement again and reiterated, “So far, we have not invested in any car companies. We will not invest in any car companies in the future, let alone hold or participate in shares.”
It seems to foresee that Huawei is so “absolutely”. After Changan Weilai changed its name to Avita Technology, the share price of Changan Automobile fell 6.30%, which is the opposite of the previous surge in the share price of “Huawei Auto Concept Stocks” such as Xiaokang. .
GAC NIO found a new partner-Zhujiang Investment Management in January this year.
Source: Hechuang Auto
On January 6, GAC Group issued an announcement stating that it agreed to its joint venture, GAC NIO, to implement the capital increase and share expansion plan by introducing strategic investors, GAC Aian and Zhujiang Investment Management, and sign agreements related to capital increase and share expansion. 2.405 billion yuan.
According to the plan, GAC NIO hopes to deliver 250,000 vehicles in 2025, with a total output value of over 40 billion yuan. In terms of new cars, GAC NIO will launch A-class sedans and A-class SUVs this year based on GAC Aian’s models. The price of the A-class sedans may be set at less than 200,000 yuan.
On April 6, GAC NIO officially changed its name to Hechuang Technology. Hechuang Auto CEO Yang Ying believes that “Zhujiang Investment Management Group has a wide range of forward-looking technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data applications, blockchain, intelligent manufacturing, data supercomputing and processing, as well as new retailers such as Heshenghui. Layout. Hechuang Auto can take advantage of these advantages to participate in multiple car usage scenarios of consumers and provide a more complete service experience.”
Despite the high levels of confidence, the embarrassing reality cannot be ignored. Competitive pressure from fellow brother GAC E’an still exists. How to clearly distinguish Cochuang’s new car from GAC Aian’s products is a big problem that cannot be avoided.
(At the request of the interviewee, some characters in the text are pseudonyms)
Future Car Daily