"Close-up" "PPT car building" is coming with a vengeance

"PPT car-making", a term that has been used to describe new car-making forces for a long time, has gradually faded away in the context of NIO, WM Motor, and Xpeng Motors gradually launching their products.

But even so, when people hear the term "new car-making force", they will always reflexively retain most of their rationality, and at most they will adopt a cautiously optimistic attitude.

In an industrial park on Xinjun Ring Road in Pujiang Town, Minhang District, Shanghai, the first floor of Building 3 with the "Y"-shaped LOGO printed on the outer wall is where the headquarters of Youxia Automobile is located. To a certain extent, the birth of the term "PPT cars" is "attributed" to this company.

The time goes back to 3 years and 4 months ago.

In July 2015, relying on the results obtained by the "day and night" work of the 50 company employees working here, Youxia Motors, which was only one year old at the time, held a brand launch conference in the Orange Hall of Sanlitun, Beijing, committed to building a "Chinese Tesla" .

Founder Huang Xiuyuan directly displayed a concept car called "Yangxia X" at the press conference, intending to create an effect of appearing out of nowhere and making a brilliant debut.

The vehicle is equipped with an asynchronous motor and adopts rear-wheel drive mode. The peak power is 270 kw, the maximum torque is 440 nm, and the maximum speed can reach 16000 r/min. The battery uses Panasonic 18650. The battery official claims that the "Yangxia X" has a cruising range of up to 460 km and can accelerate from 100 kilometers to 100 kilometers in 5.6 seconds.

In addition, a "Y" shaped LOGO of Youxia Motors is pasted on the front face of the vehicle.

At the press conference, some people whispered, "This is not a Tesla Model S." Change the label?

The night after the show, more people realized that the "Yangxia X" concept car has almost the same appearance as the Model S, and the interior and central control system KITT OS are also similar to Tesla.

During the subsequent visit to the factory, the media even discovered the word "Tesla" on some parts of the Ranger X.

The emotional phrases such as "50 people", "482 days" and "independently developed chassis" announced in the press conference, which were originally full of sweat and tears, seem to have become bargaining chips used to attract investment.

Zhihu netizen maomaobear said: "He (Huang Xiuyuan) did not look for a job after graduating from the Media University. He and a few classmates took advantage of the easy access to venture capital money in the past two years to start a business. Before and after, he started 5 or 6 projects, but none of them Those who have persisted for more than a year have basically spent all the venture capital money. Go to 36kr (a technology startup incubation company) to see what new projects can attract venture capital, and then prepare a business plan and try again."

What's even more bizarre is that the performance parameters advertised in the PPT of the press conference are not the parameters of the trial production car, but the indicators that the team "expected" hopes to achieve.

The name of “PPT Car Manufacturing” is now firmly established.

Huang Xiuyuan did not expect that using "Tesla" as a benchmark would cause such a big rebound in the industry.

The public backlash after the press conference caught the Ranger team by surprise, and the team was in trouble due to a lack of funding. He faced yet another impulsive and failed venture.

Huang Xiuyuan, who was dissatisfied, later told reporters about the "massive" work carried out by the entire team from the time he conceived the idea of ​​building a car in 2013 to the press conference in July 2015.

"When I saw Tesla in 2013, my idea of ​​making a super cool car couldn't be calm in my heart for a long time. If I didn't realize it, I felt that my life was in vain. I made up my mind to make it. Go work on a car." So, one afternoon in October 2013, Huang Xiuyuan made an appointment with investor Wei Jianguo at a cafe near Beijing's Colorful City.

In February 2014, after meeting several investors and obtaining preliminary funding, Huang Xiuyuan went to Shanghai alone because it had the most powerful automobile supply chain resources in the country. He rented an office of less than 100 square meters in Building A, Xujiahui Jiahui International Plaza. "When I went to the company on the first day, the sweeper lady told me that this office has good feng shui, and all the companies here have moved to larger places." Huang Xiuyuan told reporters.

After a lot of recruitment, Youxia Motors did what many new car-making forces would do - purchased a fuel vehicle (Hyundai Coolpad) and transformed it into an electric vehicle; purchased a Tesla Model S and dismantled it Analyze and learn.

From exterior and interior design, to power battery pack assembly, BMS battery management system, and central control UI design, almost all systems of the Ranger X are inspired by the Model S.

Therefore, when the trial production of the Youxia X concept car was completed in June 2015, Huang Xiuyuan could not figure out why he thought his "stunningly beautiful" work was viewed as a plagiarism by the outside world.

In fact, the reason is very simple. Even with minor design changes and UI design, from the brand positioning of "Chinese Tesla" to the appearance of products that resemble Tesla, no one will buy into the second Tesla - just Just like there is only one "apple" in the world.

Auto industry analyst Zhang Xiaolin told Jiemian: "The team defines the Ranger ?For cars, these are just peripheral selling points that are icing on the cake. For any brand, such changes are reluctant to say 'new' or 'remodeled'."

The experience of self-exposure did not revive the reputation of Youxia cars. On the contrary, some people joked that Youxia could enter the car modification industry.

The founder Huang Xiuyuan himself was labeled as "defrauding investments and cashing out money." His image is even worse than that of Lao Jia, the "person subject to execution for breach of trust". But at least three years ago, Jia Yueting's LeTV Super Car was considered the most promising rising star in China to subvert the automobile industry.

As mentioned in the article "Shanghai Does Not Believe in the Internet", "Shanghai only believes in those who are already 'characters' and does not believe in empty-handed dreamers."

The plan of "opening the first batch of pre-orders for the Youxia X in 2016 and officially launching mass production in 2017" ultimately came to nothing.

But the Ranger car's story doesn't end there.

The baton of "PPT car manufacturing" was handed over from Huang Xiuyuan to Wei Jun, chairman of Xituo Industrial Group. The latter acquired 90% of the shares of Youxia Motors.

The same thing as Huang Xiuyuan is that Wei Jun, who was born in 1989, also has zero experience in the automobile industry. The field of Xituo Industrial Group was originally industrial electrical. According to Wei Jun himself, he acquired Youxia Auto for two reasons. First, performance cars are one of his greatest joys in life, followed by tea and tobacco. Wei Jun himself is a Tesla owner, thanks to the fact that the Ranger X looks very similar to the Model S. "Model S is different from electric cars like the Nissan Leaf. The latter is not fundamentally different from a fuel car except that the powertrain is electric. Tesla's car can provide owners with unprecedented features in terms of control, acceleration, etc. Cool driving experience, this is the biggest advantage and selling point of electric vehicles,” he said.

Another reason is that "the vast majority of venture capitalists do not have a clear understanding of the industry and are easily affected by the environment, and the public is even more willing to follow suit. From this perspective, I would also like to thank these people, otherwise I would not It's impossible to buy a Ranger at such a low price." Wei Jun's words not only expressed the complacency of picking up a "bargain", but also expressed a hint of ridicule for those "Yanger doubters" who have not experienced the extreme acceleration of electric vehicles. .

Considering that Huang Xiuyuan's "personal halo" was no longer convincing, Wei Jun, who was supposed to be the controller behind the scenes, stepped to the front and assumed the role of the manager of Ranger Auto, while Huang Xiuyuan retreated behind the scenes. One of the two is responsible for product definition and new ideas, and the other is responsible for solving work at the supplier, factory and capital levels - after all, Xituo Industrial Group, with annual revenue of 300 million, has a good image and suppliers that partially overlap with the automotive industry. .

Building a capital structure for Ranger has become one of Wei Jun's most important tasks. In addition to venture capital, he also introduced industrial capital through the issuance of convertible bonds. Compared with financing methods such as loans, convertible bonds have lower coupon rates - which means that when the bonds are converted into stocks in the future, they can obtain greater value than the original value.

Wei Jun's confidence also comes from the industrial funds managed by his team. He said that they currently manage 9 funds with a scale of more than 11 billion yuan.

Through various rounds of financing, as of the B+ round, Youxia has now raised US$1.25 billion (approximately RMB 8.65 billion). Wei Jun told reporters: "This amount of money is enough to mass produce Youxia X."

During this period, Youxia Auto also received support from the Huzhou Municipal Government and established a factory covering an area of ​​2,600 acres in Huzhou.

There is nothing dramatic about the next process - just like the steps of any new car-making force. So far, the progress of mass production of Ranger X can be summarized as follows:

2016.11: Small batch trial production of Ranger X data freeze started

2017.4: Signing contract with Youxia Smart Factory

2017.6: Youxia X small batch trial production vehicle completed core testing

2017.10: The construction of Youxia factory started and the design of automated production line was completed

2018.4: Site selection and construction of Youxia City Experience Center

The current progress seems to be far from mass production, and even the factory environmental impact assessment construction qualifications and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology/National Development and Reform Commission qualifications have not been obtained. The fastest mass production of SOP will take until September next year - six years after the company was established.

Wei Jun seemed to be impatient and adopted the same tactics as NIO.

According to Wei Jun, in the next C round of financing, Youxia Auto will build a VIE structure and plan to go public in the United States after the vehicle is delivered in the second half of next year.

In contrast, Youxia Auto cannot compare with NIO in terms of popularity, prestige, technical strength, government background, and even "circle of friends".

Wei Jun, who has zero experience in the automotive industry, believes that “it only takes US$1 billion to achieve mass production.” In a recent event, Wei Jun put forward the view that "new energy vehicles priced between 50,000 and 250,000 will be eliminated in the future."

"Judging from experience, he is contradictory. WM Motor and Xpeng have both raised more than 10 billion, but the price of mass-produced cars is what Wei Jun calls 'obsolete cars'. So the Ranger is positioned at the Model S level Why does

According to Wei Jun, mass production of Ranger X will be achieved in the second half of 2019. However, Jiemian News found on the official website of Youxia Automobile that there is still a "car disassembly and measurement engineer" position on its recruitment page. This position is responsible for the disassembly and measurement of benchmark cars, data recording and documentation; it is responsible for the disassembly and test car disassembly work - —This is the earliest step in the car-building process, and it can also be used for reverse development. At the same time, this is also the largest number of positions within the well-known independent brand Zotye.

"It's not that he doesn't have a sense of awe, but he hasn't encountered any real problems yet," Zhang Xiaolin said.

Regarding building cars, the founders of several leading companies have the following views:

Xpeng Motors obtained a new energy license in Guangzhou, and chairman He Xiaopeng said: "Building a car is a hundred times more difficult than I fully expected."

Xinte Motors started batch deliveries in November and is expected to deliver 4,000 DEV1 models by the end of the year. Xinte CEO Xianyue said: "We will eventually encounter all the problems encountered by new forces. We will try our best to survive."

Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Automobile, which has become a listed company, said: "Building a car requires at least 20 billion in funds."

As one of the first companies to try something new, Youxia Motors, which was established in 2014, has so far focused on concept cars. Chairman Wei Jun still insists: "I will definitely succeed."

This young man who believes in "taking the first step will get through the most difficult stage" does not know that building a car actually "gets more difficult in the later stages." And his "predecessor" manager Huang Xiuyuan has not yet reached this point, so Wei Jun has no lessons to learn from the past.

Since he believes that he can build "China's Tesla", let us look forward to his performance.