Rising car new forces open "burn money" "rush people" battle

For the new vehicle builders, financing competition has become the focus of the moment.

According to sources, Byteng Automobile is in a new round of financing, amounting to about US$400 million. Prior to this, BYTON Concept, the first BYE Auto model, had a high profile at the CES, attracting the attention of investors. “Before CES, we have exchanged and negotiated with many investors.” Baiteng President and co-founder Dai Lei said in an interview with the “China Business” reporter, “We will probably complete this round of financing in the first half of the year. ."

“The development direction of electric vehicles is clear and favored by capital.” Xie Jun, deputy general secretary of Auto Finance Branch of China Automobile Dealers Association, believes that the broad market prospects of new energy vehicles are the reasons for attracting capital inflows from various sources. Judging from the amount of financing, it is not at the top of the new vehicle builders. Since 2017, the financing amounts of Weilai Automobile, Weimar Motors, Cars and Homes, FMC, Aiqi Yiwei, and Zero Running Auto have accumulated over RMB 22.6 billion. Among them, Weilai Automobile's five rounds of financing exceeded RMB14.6 billion, and Weima Motors, which has just completed a $1 billion B round of financing, has accumulated over RMB12 billion in financing so far.

Hot financing

So far, Benteng's Pre-A and A round of financing totaled about 300 million U.S. dollars. After the completion of the B round of financing, the valuation of Benteng will further increase. For the specific amount of financing, Dai Lei only revealed: "Larger than the previous round."

Automobiles are heavy asset industries, and “burning money” will accompany the entire mass production process. After Xiaopeng Automobile completed the A+ round of financing, Xiaopeng Automobile Chairman He Xiaopeng sighed: "Looking at other people's cars before thinking that 10 billion yuan (yuan) is too exaggerated, now I jump in to know that 20 billion (yuan) is not enough."

For the new vehicle builders, financing ability has become the key to testing whether they can smoothly produce volume. If the financing scale is insufficient, the progress of building a vehicle is slow. "The decision to leave funds is just a representation. The new forces that can get the funds have a relatively good overall product strength, channel capacity, and industrial integration capabilities," said Xie Jie.

At the same time, compared with the investment scale of the investor, the new forces of the constructors have paid more attention to the resource background of the investor. In order to solve the problem, the new vehicle builders are looking for investment not only to find the money, but also the visibility and influence of the investor, the ability to integrate resources, and the investment styles that are considered by the new vehicle builders.

Zhu Jiangming, chairman of the Zero Running Car, talked about the cooperation with Sequoia Capital and stated that “funds are not the most important to us at present. The purpose of this cooperation with Sequoia is to introduce more external resources and help zero running. Good growth.” And Tencent led by Wei, Ali shares Xiaopeng, behind the apparent resources are all inextricably linked with the investor's background.

According to statistics, the products of enterprises such as Xiaopeng, Weilai, Weimar, Qidian, Yundu have appeared, and most of the company's products will be produced and sold in 2018. However, He Xiaopeng bluntly stated that it may be difficult for new energy vehicles to form scale profits in the next five years. However, if we look at it from the perspective of development, every current investment may be able to exchange more revenue in the future.

Seize the market

At this stage, the new vehicle builders are making final preparations before mass production. Jia Xinguang, a well-known analyst in the automotive industry, believes that the shortcomings of traditional enterprises lie in Internet technology.

In Dai Lei's view, traditional car companies are not short of money and resources, but they will be more difficult in terms of intelligence. “It is impossible for the traditional car enterprises to adjust to the human-computer interaction system suitable for the post-90s consumers. It must go step by step. On the other hand, large-scale traditional car companies are mostly mechanical engineering cultures, not Internet cultures, and the transition will be very "Difficulties." Dai Lei said, "All the cars on the market can't meet the needs of young people on the car. Basically, no one uses car navigation. This is just a need. The current global car ownership is about 1.2 billion. People spend an average of 90 minutes a day in the car and a total time of more than 1.8 billion hours. Whoever can seize this 1.8 billion can quickly capture the market."

He Xiaopeng believes that the key factor for the decisive victory of the new vehicle builders is talent. “The new car company needs a team of talents from the Internet, vehicle, technology and other industries to upgrade the traditional single sales orientation to user-oriented, and tap the user’s The real demand.” He Xiaopeng further said, “Therefore, in terms of treating talents and making bold innovations, the pace of Internet companies will increase even more, and it will also pose a huge challenge to traditional car companies.”

At the same time, the new vehicle builders are scouring the traditional car executives. According to related statistics, the turnover rate of traditional auto makers in 2017 was twice as many as in previous years, and auto executives with more than 200 positions at the general manager level and above have opted to join the new vehicle builders.

Xie believes that “the new vehicle-building forces’ grasp on the future market, the guidance of consumers, and the judgment of new trends are the most likely to overcome the traditional car prices. Traditional car companies have their own thinking logic and management logic. , decision-making methods, and new companies do not have as much mode burden."

For the new carmakers who started developing in 2014, they would like to get up and going day and night and staking their races. What they ultimately want to achieve is more than just tearing a hole in the market dominated by traditional car companies.