In the tide of new car construction, Byton Automobile’s cool products and team elites were once considered the second Weilai by the capital circle. But in this business that eats money, has a complex supply chain, and has a short time window, Byton has tasted the bitterness of treading the wrong key rhythm.
Text ｜ Li Qin
Edit ｜ Yang Xuan
1 Behind the lack of money
“A lump sum of 2,000 yuan was owed to the supplier for a few months, and the project could not be promoted because of lack of money.” Wei Qing, a mid-level product employee at Byton Motors, talked about the reason for leaving. Just a few months ago, he also hoped that star Byton in the new car company rejected a offer with a salary of one million yuan.
Byton Motor started a round of layoffs involving nearly a hundred people from the end of June this year. Wei Qing, who can participate in Byton’s VP-level meeting, told that during the same period, Byton also frozen a large number of external expenditures, only paid staff salaries and promoted factory projects funded by the Nanjing Municipal Government. “From June, Nanjing City A monthly loan of about $ 20 million will be given to Byton to maintain operations, and the money to maintain staff salaries also comes from the Nanjing Municipal Government.
In response, Dai Lei, CEO of Byton Motors, said, “Nanjing does provide many forms of support, including loans.”
News from the supply chain point directly to Byton’s money shortage crisis. In August this year, I learned from a core source close to Bosch ’s North American senior management that, due to Byton ’s failure to pay in time, the projects such as powertrain and intelligent driving provided by Bosch were put on hold. More than half a year. ” However, Byton Motors denied this claim, saying that the two parties adjusted the project acceptance plan according to Byton’s new mass production plan, which can meet Byton’s mass production time node.
Because of lack of money, Byton once postponed the payment of the acquisition of FAW Huali’s production qualification. FAW Xiali disclosed in the announcement that Nanjing Zhixing, the parent company of Byton Automobile, purchased 100% equity of its subsidiary FAW Huali. It should have repaid 640 million yuan of debt, but as of April 30 this year, 310 million yuan was overdue. . By October this year, FAW Xiali said in response to investor inquiries that it had not yet received part of the payment due by Byton.
“We have indeed had a very, very difficult time this year.” A Byton executive acknowledged that Byton was also affected by this year’s weak industry confidence.
It’s not difficult to feel that Byton is trying every way to raise funds. After an exclusive interview with Byton CEO Dai Lei in November this year, the next destination was the Middle East-China New Economy Corporation generally went there only for one purpose: to raise funds.
The critical situation in Byton has now been slightly relieved. Today, Byton announced the top 5 with JapanMarubeni, one of the trading companies, signed an agreement. In addition to a series of business collaborations between the two parties, Marubeni also decided to inject Byton as one of its C round investors. It is reported that Byton’s Series C financing has not been closed, but in addition to Maru Infrared, there are FAW, Nanjing-owned industrial funds, and South Korean auto parts manufacturer MS Autotech have determined to participate in Byton’s Series C financing. Byton said that the C round of financing has gradually arrived.
The aforementioned sources close to Bosch North America also told that recently, Byton Motors has restarted cooperation with Bosch, and the project engineering has been rescheduled.
Although the most critical moment has passed, why did Byton get into such a financial dilemma for a time?
Because from past history, Byton is a star new car company that was once regarded as the “second Weilai”, and the money it raised before can not be considered small.
Its team configuration is luxurious, CEO Carsten Breitfeld is known as BMW’s “father of i8”, and President Daniel Kirchert was previously the general manager of Infiniti China and the vice president of design Benoit Jacob. He also served as vice president of design at BMW. The tidy German founding team style makes Byton Motors unique in the new Chinese car camp that emerged in 2014.
More intense is that the first mass production model launched by Byton is almost anti-traditional, equipped with a 48-inch large screen across the center and a rotatable front seat. Byton Motors has attracted such attention.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, a 48-inch large screen of Byton’s mass-produced models
In its Series B financing, it stands by the strongest lineup of capital from China ’s auto industry ’s eldest son, FAW Group, Nanjing Municipal Government, and even the only electric vehicle company invested by Ningde Times, a leading battery company, is Byton Motors. The total financing amount of its Series B and before reached US $ 780 million, or more than 5 billion yuan, according to public information.
But compared to peers, such as Ideal Cars, at the time when the financing amount is equivalent (August 2019), after the mass production of low-speed electric vehicles has been cut off, the second model is about to be mass-produced.7-seater SUV. And before the Byton auto factory was completed, it was already in a shortage of money. The lack of funding has also delayed the mass production of Byton Motors. At the Frankfurt Motor Show in September this year, Byton said that the mass production of the first car is expected to be listed in mid-2020-this is more than the original “2019 Mass production at the end of the year “was postponed for half a year.
Facts have proven that car construction is particularly costly, the supply chain is complex, and the time window is too short to imagine. Once a startup company does not follow the key rhythm, it will suffer.
2 Round of capitals
Building a car is not a simple entrepreneurship. Byton ’s story has laid a foreshadowing in the beginning.
Finconn, Tencent, and Harmony Motors jointly established a bureau in mid-2015 when new car startups were surging. They invested in 3: 3: 4 and jointly registered and established the “Harmonious Futeng Internet Plus Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industry Fund”. The initial scale is 1 billion yuan. They have two sub-brands, one is Byton, which focuses on high-end electric vehicles, and the other is the predecessor of Aichi, which focuses on economical electric vehicles.
After finishing the resources, start to team. As the main investor, Harmony Motors is a domestic luxury car dealer group. Feng Changge, chairman of Harmony Motors, paid three visits to persuade Bi Fukang, then vice president of BMW Group, to leave and start a business as CEO of Byton. The German Bi Fukang spent 20 years of professional career at BMW, and successively held a number of senior management positions including chassis development, transmission system development, product strategy, electric super i8 project director.
At the same time, Byton also needs a senior executive who understands the Chinese market. Feng Changge invited his friend, Dai Lei, then the general manager of Infiniti China, to join as COO. The German Dai Lei has a good reputation in the automotive market and marketing circles, and is very familiar with the Chinese market. He is known as the “China Connect” in the automotive industry and also has 5 years of experience in BMW. The two made their debut with the combination of “Lao Bi Lao Dai”.
A Byton executive recalled that at that time, whether it was Harmony Automobile or Foxconn, they pledged to the founding team, “You don’t need to worry about funds, and there will be tens of billions of investment in the future, especially Foxconn, which clearly said that it would become The mother company behind. “
But not long after, Tencent and Foxconn quietly withdrew their capital. Officials explained that at that time investment in Hong Kong by mainland funds was blocked. Unlike the “commitments” I heard earlier, it wasn’t until December 28, 2016 that Byton won the first financing, with an investment of 30 million US dollars by Harmony Automobile, Lihe Automobile, and Jinheng Investment.
A senior executive of Byton recalled that financing was very difficult at that time, and the management was worried about the team playing tickets and asked the founding members to make personal contributions. The founding members have invested in a lot of net worth.The largest sum of money was made by members. However, CEO Bi Fukang rejected personal funding.
U.S. $ 30 million is obviously not enough for car construction. In early 2017, Byton Motors began to seek more external financing. As a side of the “beings”, the Byton team has been waiting for shareholders for a year and a half.
At this time, Capital has bet heavily on projects such as Weilai, Ideal and Weimar, while Byton’s products and team are just getting started. In the words of the above Bytten executives, “when I went to see investors, there was really nothing.”
After the introduction of social capital has been frustrated, local governments are also very interested in new cars. Byton Automobile then bound the Nanjing Municipal Government and gradually received financing for blood transfusion. In August of that year, Byton introduced a US $ 240 million investment from Nanjing Municipal Government, Fengsheng Holdings and other institutions. Since then, in June 2018, Byton completed another $ 500 million in Series B financing from institutions such as FAW Group and Ningde Times.
Compared with peers, Byton’s financing progress has lagged. Weilai has completed US $ 2.4 billion financing in the private equity market. The financing of Xiaopeng Automobile will also reach 10 billion yuan. Weimar Automobile announced that it has obtained over 20 billion yuan in financing. Byton’s total funding at this time was nearly $ 780 million.
In March 2018, Byton dug up the growth of the China CEO of Standard Chartered Bank’s investment banking department, hoping to catch up with the financing progress. “Growing up found Weilai’s investors again, but it was too late, and everyone was afraid to vote for the second Weilai again.” One Weilai investor told, “Byton’s international structure and Wei It ’s a lot like this model is too expensive.
3 Innovation and cost
Byton, which was later established, obviously chose a more aggressive style in terms of products and strategy. The most interesting thing is the 48-inch shared full screen in the car.
A former Faurecia interior designer told me that many cars have such a large-screen design, including the Honda e electric car that debuted in Frankfurt this year, but most of them are split-screen designs. It is the largest in size, and it is installed in mass production models. This is a big innovation for the design of the intelligent cockpit of the entire industry. ”
But this innovation first brought challenges to the engineering team. BOE is a supplier of large-screen panels to Byton Automotive. A senior technical officer at the company told that Byton panels will be produced on a TV panel line., “It ’s not difficult to pass vehicle-level verification, but because multiple suppliers are involved, the yield of fitting is not high.”
At the same time, in the definition of Byton ’s interaction, Byton ’s large 48-inch screen cannot be touched directly, but is operated by the touch screen on the steering wheel. Therefore, Byton needs to fix the middle part of the steering wheel. . This means that for other manufacturers, the steering wheel is a mature component, and for Byton, it needs to bring together multiple suppliers to re-customize development.
A Byton auto designer explained this: because the screen is placed in the middle of the steering wheel, the size is fixed, the airbag size is also fixed, and the internal travel gear structure is also fixed. None of these have been done before. Suppliers, production suppliers, and manufacturers of abrasive tools contact to customize and unite to do a good job.
This kind of custom development is everywhere in Byton, including the airbag position of the co-pilot, the integration of the switch button at the door handle, and the angle adjustment of the windshield in order to prevent large screen reflections, etc … We really spent a lot of money to build a car, and we think it’s worth it, “said the Byton designer mentioned above.
Byton ’s first car, M-Byte, also has a lot of planning around autonomous driving, including the ability to rotate the front seats by 10 degrees in production models to facilitate occupant conversation during autonomous driving-this almost belongs to The first case in automotive history.
Bong Teng, Vice President of User Experience Cong Haoren recalled that before January 2018 CES in the United States, Byton ’s interaction was designed around autonomous driving. The highest weight was gesture interaction, but after CES, Byton found that autonomous driving It still takes a long time to land, and paying too much attention to gestures will cause the driver’s distraction, so the priority of gesture interaction is reduced to third, touch interaction becomes first, and voice second.
Behind a series of radical designs is Bytten’s strategy for creating high-end routes, which has been proven once by Tesla. Dai Lei also told the Frankfurt Auto Show in September that in order to achieve a series of innovative designs advocated by Byton, an international organization structure was set up early to gather global technology and talents.
Today, Byton has a design team of more than 100 people in Munich, Germany, and a R & D team of more than 500 people in Silicon Valley. It is understood that in September 2017, Byton Motors also set up a forward-looking design laboratory in Los Angeles, under the responsibility of Wolfram Luchner, vice president of user experience design. In Byton, with a total number of 1,600 employees, foreign teams account for a large proportion.
It is also a high-end strategy, and it also has an international team. Byton ’s overseas structure is even larger than Weilai Automobile. Weilai’s North American team is only responsible for digital services related to autonomous driving and connected cars, while Byton’s US team is responsible forResponsible for the overall research and development business of connected cars, autonomous driving, vehicle electrics, and even some markets and business teams.
Of the more than 20 vice presidents of Byton Motors, only the chief affairs officer Ding Qingfen, the growth youth responsible for financing, Duan Lianxiang, the head of China’s R & D, and the head of production and manufacturing should look forward to China. tube. Such a team configuration is obviously too high for a startup.
4 Imbalanced team
In fact, in addition to product development and design needs, the formation of Byton’s early founding team also directly promoted the international architecture.
”Although Feng Changge is an investor, he often participates in the daily operations of Byton Motors. Many North American executives need Feng Changge to interview in person. Feng Changge ’s home is in Los Angeles. At the same time, Bi Fukang is a German. And long-term industry resources are also overseas, it is impossible to come to China. “Li Bing reported to Bi Fukang directly in North America before leaving, he told so.
The heavy configuration of overseas teams once made the outside world think that Byton is an American company. A Bosch employee revealed that the company will treat some good new car projects early as the focus of the next Tesla maintenance. Come, Xiaopeng, etc., the United States is Byton.
Headquartered in China, the early market and core market are also in China, but the products, technology and R & D are resold overseas; the founding team seems to be complementary, but it is actually pinched together by such players. This team configuration , Has buried multiple crises for Byton Motors.
First is the consumption of funds. “Dai Lei hesitated softly, while Bi Fukang was extremely ambitious. He quickly recruited and expanded in the United States, and Dai Lei’s business was constantly being squeezed.” Li Bing commented on the two founders of Bytten. Although Dai Lei became the president of Byton Automobile in September 2017, he is only responsible for the marketing, recruitment and finance of China, while Bi Fukang controls the product technology, R & D, supply chain, manufacturing, qualification, etc. of Byton Core Business.
Byton’s aggressive product strategy and high percentage of overseas teams, Bi Fukang’s will has played an important role. Bi Fukang even deployed a Level 4 self-driving team of more than 20 people while cooperating with the autonomous driving company Aurora. A former employee of the team told him, “We are a forward-looking R & D department and compete with Aurora. ”
Everyone in the industry knows that this means a lot of capital consumption. From the industry’s understanding, the average salary of a research and development engineer in North America is about 200,000 US dollars, and an overseas research and development team of more than 500 people is undoubtedly a huge expenditure for a startup. The Byton North America team has the same size and salary level as the Weilai North American team. At the highlight of the second half of 2018, it also once attracted the Weilai North American team to collectively change jobs.
A person close to Weilai ’s senior management has disclosed a set of data, “In the stage with the largest number of Weilai in North America, the proportion of personnel accounted for 15%, but the proportion of operating costs reached 45%. ”
Even if the first car, which will be sold to Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, has not set up a large R & D team overseas. “We have R & D institutions in Europe, but the task is to develop adaptively, collect customer feedback and quickly respond,” said Fu Qiang, president of Aichi Motors. “Startup companies set up a research and development base in overseas markets. Actual. “
Holding core R & D and business resources overseas has also allowed the two founders of Byton to play a game of power distribution. According to a number of Byton North American employees, during Bi Fukang ’s role as CEO, President Dai Lei rarely appeared in the US office, “Maybe 1-2 times a year, talk about some of the work he has recently done, in the North American team Have low awareness. “
This game is also reflected in the configuration of redundant executives. Byton has only three VPs (Vice Presidents) in charge of personnel affairs: one is responsible for operations and one is responsible for recruitment. SVP (Senior Vice President), belongs to Bi Fukang camp. Following the struggle between Bi Fukang and Dai Lei, the SVP left and rejoined from Byton many times. And there are two VPs in the two camps, Dai Lei and Bi Fukang, one is from China Development CEO of Standard Chartered Bank’s investment bank, and the other is Zhao Chenfan of Credit Suisse Bank.
“Byton has 29 VPs at most (Vice President, in charge of various business lines), and Weilai Automobile has a scale of nearly 10,000 people, and only 17 VPs are established.” Former Byton North America employees Li Bing said. He has worked in North America for a long time and has deep contact with various Chinese car companies in Silicon Valley.
The big stall laid by the high-end strategy originally made Byton’s capital tight, and the existing team crack finally broke out before the financing problem. In January of this year, Byton Motors announced personnel adjustments. The company’s chairman and CEO Bi Fukang ceased to serve as CEO and President Dai Lei took over. In April, Bi Fukang left Byton and now serves as Faraday Future CEO.
Li Bingxiang analyzes that the main reason for Bi Fukang to leave is that he deployed a large number of R & D resources abroad, which has caused domestic investors to be dissatisfied. R & D strength, this is a contradiction, and Dai Lei is closer (closer) to the investor, so Bi Fukang is gone. “
Bi Fukang himself also said in an interview with Sina Technology, “ FAW Group entered the company as an investor (Byton), and I realized that there have been some significant changes in the company, especially in the strategic direction, more emphasis on China’s local area, so I left.
5 Byton saves himself
After taking over as CEO, Dai Lei quickly gathered the company’s operational powers in products, research and development, manufacturing, and finance, and adjusted its business lines.
By the end of June this year, Byton Motors launched its first layoff plan. Nearly 20 people in the North American autonomous driving team were “optimized”. An employee in the department told them that “the reason given by HR is very simple. The company now No money, we ’re not the car builder (department). “
Byton has previously traveled and has hired Chief Operating Officer Rainer Becker from GM’s Maven as the person in charge, and now plans to spin off. At the same time, Byton’s forward-looking design laboratory in Los Angeles was also abolished.
Dai Lei is also aware of the burden of the company on the huge international structure. “China has been developing rapidly in the field of innovative technologies in recent years, and some places have even surpassed Silicon Valley, so our foreign teams will not expand any further. The focus of research and development on a model will be domestic. “
In addition, the three personnel VPs mentioned above, Chen Taiyu, VP of digital technology, Toni Abou hayd, vice president of quality, CFO Albert, and VP Henrik Wenders of marketing also all left Byton.
For the turbulence caused by a series of layoffs and personnel changes, Byton CEO Dai Lei explained, “Now the new car industry is not only building a car, the key is to survive. Our adjustment direction is to make efficiency more efficient. Gao, focusing on mass production, I think this team is now a true entrepreneurial team. “
Dai Lei said that the experience of the past few years has made him understand the importance of “entrepreneurship”. An insider from Byton told me that after the organizational structure adjustment this year, Byton’s core executive team is a small team of seven people, making decisions faster.
In terms of funding, Byton Motors is looking for leeway. It was learned from a Byton employee close to the top that the financing business will also be taken over by Dai Lei.
Byton Motors originally planned to complete a $ 500 million Series C financing at the end of June. It was not announced until the Frankfurt Auto Show in September this year. The main investors were FAW Group and South Korean parts supplier Myoung Shin Co., And the Industrial Investment Fund under the Nanjing Municipal Government and the Jiangsu Provincial Government.
“One third of the payment has been received, FAW is still following the ODI (Overseas Investment Filing) process, and some foreign capital has also entered the due diligence process.” Byton Motors CEO Dai Lei told in November this year .
When asked why he did n’t control the cost and fell into a financial dilemma, Dai Lei replied that the speed of wind change in the capital market was completely unexpected.The picture requires Byton to reject investors.
A senior executive of Byton Motors revealed that after settling in Nanjing in early 2017, he has already obtained a lot of resources from the local government. Including a total of 10.7 billion yuan in funding support, “70% of this 10.7 billion yuan will be given to Byton through loans, subsidies, cash rewards, etc., provided that Byton is to complete some progress, including Get the production license, plant foundation, equipment into the workshop, etc. “
Besides, in the conditions of Byton ’s settlement, it also includes a land of 200 acres of commercial housing for employees. “Many people will come to us to invest in this land, but our principle is to maintain Operate independently. “
But Dai Lei insists that Byton’s strategic direction is “wrong.”
What Dai Lei insists on is that Byton’s products take a high-end line and make a global layout. Byton’s current partners include Sweden’s Hedin Automotive, France’s BYmyCAR Group, Portugal’s Salvador Caetano, and Switzerland’s Modern Driving Company, and has obtained dual licenses for dealers and agents in California, USA, and the largest open Electrify America, a DC fast charge network operator, has reached a cooperation. Dai Lei said that the future of Byton’s vehicle sales must be “not limited to the Chinese market.”
2019 is coming to an end. It seems that only the ideal car has caught up with the last node of the delivery in December for the many new car companies that would have mass production in the second half of the year. The industry situation in 2020 is undoubtedly more severe.
At the time of mass production in 2020, electric cars will compete fiercely. By then, Weilai Automobile has launched the third volume model, and the Model 3, which eats half of the new energy vehicle market in the North American market, has also been produced domestically and is in a ramp-up period. However, the electric products of traditional car-making forces, such as the volume High Volkswagen ID.3 has begun delivery.
Byton Motors is gradually in place with the Series C financing, which will quickly push the product into production and let the market speak. Among the progress announced by Byton Motors, the construction of the plant in Nanjing has been basically completed, and trial production began in October. On October 30, there were media reports that Byton began pre-production of the first production car M-Byte at the Nanjing plant. A person close to Bosch’s North American high-level sources told me that recently, Byton Motors has restarted cooperation with Bosch, and the project engineering has been rescheduled.
If Byton’s first SUV can be mass-produced as scheduled, it will undoubtedly face the increasing rivals in the electric vehicle market.
However, with the exception of China and the United States, electric vehicles have not entered the mainstream vision in most countries around the world, including Germany, the home base of the automotive industry. This is not only because of lack of policy promotion and lack of charging infrastructure, but also because there are not too many options for electric vehicles, but too few.
(At the request of interviewees, articles by Wei Qing and LiBing are pseudonyms)
Building a car is not a simple entrepreneurship. Byton ’s story has laid a foreshadowing in the beginning.
Finconn, Tencent, and Harmony Motors jointly established a bureau in mid-2015 when new car startups were surging. They invested in 3: 3: 4 and jointly registered and established the “Harmonious Futeng Internet Plus Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industry Fund”. The initial scale is 1 billion yuan. They have two sub-brands, one is Byton, which focuses on high-end electric vehicles, and the other is the predecessor of Aichi, which focuses on economical electric vehicles.
After finishing the resources, start to team. As the main investor, Harmony Motors is a domestic luxury car dealer group. Feng Changge, chairman of Harmony Motors, paid three visits to persuade Bi Fukang, then vice president of BMW Group, to leave and start a business as CEO of Byton. The German Bi Fukang spent 20 years of professional career at BMW, and successively held a number of senior management positions including chassis development, transmission system development, product strategy, electric super i8 project director.
At the same time, Byton also needs a senior executive who understands the Chinese market. Feng Changge invited his friend, Dai Lei, then the general manager of Infiniti China, to join as COO. The German Dai Lei has a good reputation in the automotive market and marketing circles, and is very familiar with the Chinese market. He is known as the “China Connect” in the automotive industry and also has 5 years of experience in BMW. The two made their debut with the combination of “Lao Bi Lao Dai”.
A Byton executive recalled that at that time, whether it was Harmony Automobile or Foxconn, they pledged to the founding team, “You don’t need to worry about funds, and there will be tens of billions of investment in the future, especially Foxconn, which clearly said that it would become The mother company behind. “
But not long after, Tencent and Foxconn quietly withdrew their capital. Officials explained that at that time investment in Hong Kong by mainland funds was blocked. Unlike the “commitments” I heard earlier, it wasn’t until December 28, 2016 that Byton won the first financing, with an investment of 30 million US dollars by Harmony Automobile, Lihe Automobile, and Jinheng Investment.
A senior executive of Byton recalled that financing was very difficult at that time, and the management was worried about the team playing tickets and asked the founding members to make personal contributions. The founding members have invested in a lot of net worth.The largest sum of money was made by members. However, CEO Bi Fukang rejected personal funding.
U.S. $ 30 million is obviously not enough for car construction. In early 2017, Byton Motors began to seek more external financing. As a side of the “beings”, the Byton team has been waiting for shareholders for a year and a half.
At this time, Capital has bet heavily on projects such as Weilai, Ideal and Weimar, while Byton’s products and team are just getting started. In the words of the above Bytten executives, “when I went to see investors, there was really nothing.”
After the introduction of social capital has been frustrated, local governments are also very interested in new cars. Byton Automobile then bound the Nanjing Municipal Government and gradually received financing for blood transfusion. In August of that year, Byton introduced a US $ 240 million investment from Nanjing Municipal Government, Fengsheng Holdings and other institutions. Since then, in June 2018, Byton completed another $ 500 million in Series B financing from institutions such as FAW Group and Ningde Times.
Compared with peers, Byton’s financing progress has lagged. Weilai has completed US $ 2.4 billion financing in the private equity market. The financing of Xiaopeng Automobile will also reach 10 billion yuan. Weimar Automobile announced that it has obtained over 20 billion yuan in financing. Byton’s total funding at this time was nearly $ 780 million.
In March 2018, Byton dug up the growth of the China CEO of Standard Chartered Bank’s investment banking department, hoping to catch up with the financing progress. “Growing up found Weilai’s investors again, but it was too late, and everyone was afraid to vote for the second Weilai again.” One Weilai investor told, “Byton’s international structure and Wei It ’s a lot like this model is too expensive.
3 Innovation and cost
Byton, which was later established, obviously chose a more aggressive style in terms of products and strategy. The most interesting thing is the 48-inch shared full screen in the car.
A former Faurecia interior designer told me that many cars have such a large-screen design, including the Honda e electric car that debuted in Frankfurt this year, but most of them are split-screen designs. It is the largest in size, and it is installed in mass production models. This is a big innovation for the design of the intelligent cockpit of the entire industry. ”
But this innovation first brought challenges to the engineering team. BOE is a supplier of large-screen panels to Byton Automotive. A senior technical officer at the company told that Byton panels will be produced on a TV panel line., “It ’s not difficult to pass vehicle-level verification, but because multiple suppliers are involved, the yield of fitting is not high.”
At the same time, in the definition of Byton ’s interaction, Byton ’s large 48-inch screen cannot be touched directly, but is operated by the touch screen on the steering wheel. Therefore, Byton needs to fix the middle part of the steering wheel. . This means that for other manufacturers, the steering wheel is a mature component, and for Byton, it needs to bring together multiple suppliers to re-customize development.
A Byton auto designer explained this: because the screen is placed in the middle of the steering wheel, the size is fixed, the airbag size is also fixed, and the internal travel gear structure is also fixed. None of these have been done before. Suppliers, production suppliers, and manufacturers of abrasive tools contact to customize and unite to do a good job.
This kind of custom development is everywhere in Byton, including the airbag position of the co-pilot, the integration of the switch button at the door handle, and the angle adjustment of the windshield in order to prevent large screen reflections, etc … We really spent a lot of money to build a car, and we think it’s worth it, “said the Byton designer mentioned above.
Byton ’s first car, M-Byte, also has a lot of planning around autonomous driving, including the ability to rotate the front seats by 10 degrees in production models to facilitate occupant conversation during autonomous driving-this almost belongs to The first case in automotive history.
Bong Teng, Vice President of User Experience Cong Haoren recalled that before January 2018 CES in the United States, Byton ’s interaction was designed around autonomous driving. The highest weight was gesture interaction, but after CES, Byton found that autonomous driving It still takes a long time to land, and paying too much attention to gestures will cause the driver’s distraction, so the priority of gesture interaction is reduced to third, touch interaction becomes first, and voice second.
Behind a series of radical designs is Bytten’s strategy for creating high-end routes, which has been proven once by Tesla. Dai Lei also told the Frankfurt Auto Show in September that in order to achieve a series of innovative designs advocated by Byton, an international organization structure was set up early to gather global technology and talents.
Today, Byton has a design team of more than 100 people in Munich, Germany, and a R & D team of more than 500 people in Silicon Valley. It is understood that in September 2017, Byton Motors also set up a forward-looking design laboratory in Los Angeles, under the responsibility of Wolfram Luchner, vice president of user experience design. In Byton, with a total number of 1,600 employees, foreign teams account for a large proportion.
It is also a high-end strategy, and it also has an international team. Byton ’s overseas structure is even larger than Weilai Automobile. Weilai’s North American team is only responsible for digital services related to autonomous driving and connected cars, while Byton’s US team is responsible forResponsible for the overall research and development business of connected cars, autonomous driving, vehicle electrics, and even some markets and business teams.
Of the more than 20 vice presidents of Byton Motors, only the chief affairs officer Ding Qingfen, the growth youth responsible for financing, Duan Lianxiang, the head of China’s R & D, and the head of production and manufacturing should look forward to China. tube. Such a team configuration is obviously too high for a startup.
4 Imbalanced team
In fact, in addition to product development and design needs, the formation of Byton’s early founding team also directly promoted the international architecture.
”Although Feng Changge is an investor, he often participates in the daily operations of Byton Motors. Many North American executives need Feng Changge to interview in person. Feng Changge ’s home is in Los Angeles. At the same time, Bi Fukang is a German. And long-term industry resources are also overseas, it is impossible to come to China. “Li Bing reported to Bi Fukang directly in North America before leaving, he told so.
The heavy configuration of overseas teams once made the outside world think that Byton is an American company. A Bosch employee revealed that the company will treat some good new car projects early as the focus of the next Tesla maintenance. Come, Xiaopeng, etc., the United States is Byton.
Headquartered in China, the early market and core market are also in China, but the products, technology and R & D are resold overseas; the founding team seems to be complementary, but it is actually pinched together by such players. This team configuration , Has buried multiple crises for Byton Motors.
First is the consumption of funds. “Dai Lei hesitated softly, while Bi Fukang was extremely ambitious. He quickly recruited and expanded in the United States, and Dai Lei’s business was constantly being squeezed.” Li Bing commented on the two founders of Bytten. Although Dai Lei became the president of Byton Automobile in September 2017, he is only responsible for the marketing, recruitment and finance of China, while Bi Fukang controls the product technology, R & D, supply chain, manufacturing, qualification, etc. of Byton Core Business.
Byton’s aggressive product strategy and high percentage of overseas teams, Bi Fukang’s will has played an important role. Bi Fukang even deployed a Level 4 self-driving team of more than 20 people while cooperating with the autonomous driving company Aurora. A former employee of the team told him, “We are a forward-looking R & D department and compete with Aurora. ”
Everyone in the industry knows that this means a lot of capital consumption. From the industry’s understanding, the average salary of a research and development engineer in North America is about 200,000 US dollars, and an overseas research and development team of more than 500 people is undoubtedly a huge expenditure for a startup. The Byton North America team has the same size and salary level as the Weilai North American team. At the highlight of the second half of 2018, it also once attracted the Weilai North American team to collectively change jobs.
A person close to Weilai ’s senior management has disclosed a set of data, “In the stage with the largest number of Weilai in North America, the proportion of personnel accounted for 15%, but the proportion of operating costs reached 45%. ”
Even if the first car, which will be sold to Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea, has not set up a large R & D team overseas. “We have R & D institutions in Europe, but the task is to develop adaptively, collect customer feedback and quickly respond,” said Fu Qiang, president of Aichi Motors. “Startup companies set up a research and development base in overseas markets. Actual. “
Holding core R & D and business resources overseas has also allowed the two founders of Byton to play a game of power distribution. According to a number of Byton North American employees, during Bi Fukang ’s role as CEO, President Dai Lei rarely appeared in the US office, “Maybe 1-2 times a year, talk about some of the work he has recently done, in the North American team Have low awareness. “
This game is also reflected in the configuration of redundant executives. Byton has only three VPs (Vice Presidents) in charge of personnel affairs: one is responsible for operations and one is responsible for recruitment. SVP (Senior Vice President), belongs to Bi Fukang camp. Following the struggle between Bi Fukang and Dai Lei, the SVP left and rejoined from Byton many times. And there are two VPs in the two camps, Dai Lei and Bi Fukang, one is from China Development CEO of Standard Chartered Bank’s investment bank, and the other is Zhao Chenfan of Credit Suisse Bank.
“Byton has 29 VPs at most (Vice President, in charge of various business lines), and Weilai Automobile has a scale of nearly 10,000 people, and only 17 VPs are established.” Former Byton North America employees Li Bing said. He has worked in North America for a long time and has deep contact with various Chinese car companies in Silicon Valley.
The big stall laid by the high-end strategy originally made Byton’s capital tight, and the existing team crack finally broke out before the financing problem. In January of this year, Byton Motors announced personnel adjustments. The company’s chairman and CEO Bi Fukang ceased to serve as CEO and President Dai Lei took over. In April, Bi Fukang left Byton and now serves as Faraday Future CEO.
Li Bingxiang analyzes that the main reason for Bi Fukang to leave is that he deployed a large number of R & D resources abroad, which has caused domestic investors to be dissatisfied. R & D strength, this is a contradiction, and Dai Lei is closer (closer) to the investor, so Bi Fukang is gone. “
Bi Fukang himself also said in an interview with Sina Technology, “ FAW Group entered the company as an investor (Byton), and I realized that there have been some significant changes in the company, especially in the strategic direction, more emphasis on China’s local area, so I left.
5 Byton saves himself
After taking over as CEO, Dai Lei quickly gathered the company’s operational powers in products, research and development, manufacturing, and finance, and adjusted its business lines.
By the end of June this year, Byton Motors launched its first layoff plan. Nearly 20 people in the North American autonomous driving team were “optimized”. An employee in the department told them that “the reason given by HR is very simple. The company now No money, we ’re not the car builder (department). “
Byton has previously traveled and has hired Chief Operating Officer Rainer Becker from GM’s Maven as the person in charge, and now plans to spin off. At the same time, Byton’s forward-looking design laboratory in Los Angeles was also abolished.
Dai Lei is also aware of the burden of the company on the huge international structure. “China has been developing rapidly in the field of innovative technologies in recent years, and some places have even surpassed Silicon Valley, so our foreign teams will not expand any further. The focus of research and development on a model will be domestic. “
In addition, the three personnel VPs mentioned above, Chen Taiyu, VP of digital technology, Toni Abou hayd, vice president of quality, CFO Albert, and VP Henrik Wenders of marketing also all left Byton.
For the turbulence caused by a series of layoffs and personnel changes, Byton CEO Dai Lei explained, “Now the new car industry is not only building a car, the key is to survive. Our adjustment direction is to make efficiency more efficient. Gao, focusing on mass production, I think this team is now a true entrepreneurial team. “
Dai Lei said that the experience of the past few years has made him understand the importance of “entrepreneurship”. An insider from Byton told me that after the organizational structure adjustment this year, Byton’s core executive team is a small team of seven people, making decisions faster.
In terms of funding, Byton Motors is looking for leeway. It was learned from a Byton employee close to the top that the financing business will also be taken over by Dai Lei.
Byton Motors originally planned to complete a $ 500 million Series C financing at the end of June. It was not announced until the Frankfurt Auto Show in September this year. The main investors were FAW Group and South Korean parts supplier Myoung Shin Co., And the Industrial Investment Fund under the Nanjing Municipal Government and the Jiangsu Provincial Government.
“One third of the payment has been received, FAW is still following the ODI (Overseas Investment Filing) process, and some foreign capital has also entered the due diligence process.” Byton Motors CEO Dai Lei told in November this year .
When asked why he did n’t control the cost and fell into a financial dilemma, Dai Lei replied that the speed of wind change in the capital market was completely unexpected.The picture requires Byton to reject investors.
A senior executive of Byton Motors revealed that after settling in Nanjing in early 2017, he has already obtained a lot of resources from the local government. Including a total of 10.7 billion yuan in funding support, “70% of this 10.7 billion yuan will be given to Byton through loans, subsidies, cash rewards, etc., provided that Byton is to complete some progress, including Get the production license, plant foundation, equipment into the workshop, etc. “
Besides, in the conditions of Byton ’s settlement, it also includes a land of 200 acres of commercial housing for employees. “Many people will come to us to invest in this land, but our principle is to maintain Operate independently. “
But Dai Lei insists that Byton’s strategic direction is “wrong.”
What Dai Lei insists on is that Byton’s products take a high-end line and make a global layout. Byton’s current partners include Sweden’s Hedin Automotive, France’s BYmyCAR Group, Portugal’s Salvador Caetano, and Switzerland’s Modern Driving Company, and has obtained dual licenses for dealers and agents in California, USA, and the largest open Electrify America, a DC fast charge network operator, has reached a cooperation. Dai Lei said that the future of Byton’s vehicle sales must be “not limited to the Chinese market.”
2019 is coming to an end. It seems that only the ideal car has caught up with the last node of the delivery in December for the many new car companies that would have mass production in the second half of the year. The industry situation in 2020 is undoubtedly more severe.
At the time of mass production in 2020, electric cars will compete fiercely. By then, Weilai Automobile has launched the third volume model, and the Model 3, which eats half of the new energy vehicle market in the North American market, has also been produced domestically and is in a ramp-up period. However, the electric products of traditional car-making forces, such as the volume High Volkswagen ID.3 has begun delivery.
Byton Motors is gradually in place with the Series C financing, which will quickly push the product into production and let the market speak. Among the progress announced by Byton Motors, the construction of the plant in Nanjing has been basically completed, and trial production began in October. On October 30, there were media reports that Byton began pre-production of the first production car M-Byte at the Nanjing plant. A person close to Bosch’s North American high-level sources told me that recently, Byton Motors has restarted cooperation with Bosch, and the project engineering has been rescheduled.
If Byton’s first SUV can be mass-produced as scheduled, it will undoubtedly face the increasing rivals in the electric vehicle market.
However, with the exception of China and the United States, electric vehicles have not entered the mainstream vision in most countries around the world, including Germany, the home base of the automotive industry. This is not only because of lack of policy promotion and lack of charging infrastructure, but also because there are not too many options for electric vehicles, but too few.
(At the request of interviewees, articles by Wei Qing and LiBing are pseudonyms)