Is Li Bin really miserable? maybe not

Under the gorgeous lights, is it the nirvana rebirth of Weilai Automobile or the collective carnival of users?

From weilai automobile 20 17, the first NIO? Day first announced its mass production model ES8, and by 20 19 12.28, Shenzhen welcomed the third Weilai NIO. It seems that this has become the "routine" of Weilai Automobile every year.

It's hard to imagine NIO held at the Deep Spring Silkworm Gymnasium if Li Bin didn't say it himself at the scene. On that day, there were nearly 12000 seats, and there were more than 7300 Weilai car owners.

NIO every year? Li Bin will announce the model planning and company layout prospect of Weilai next year. It seems like a car launch conference, but it has become a "coronation ceremony" full of ritual in the development of Weilai Automobile. After all, for a new automobile manufacturer, every appearance is precious.

But under the gorgeous lights, is it the nirvana rebirth of Weilai Automobile or the collective carnival of users?

Back to the starting point

I still remember 20 17, which belongs to Wei Lai's "place where dreams begin".

Li Bin heroically contracted 19 hotels such as Beijing Wukesong Gymnasium and Beijing Five-Star Hotel, dispatched a private jet, invited Imagine Dragons to perform for the conference, and broadcast the conference live in eight cities nationwide, all for Weilai.

The total cost of the conference is more than 80 million yuan, and Li Bin spent the time of a conference on the communication budget of car companies for nearly one year. However, the dates of 20 17, 12 and 16 may be remembered by China automobile industry. The day officially opened the door to new car-making forces. Between the pros and cons, people who like to listen to Li Bin's stories look at Li Bin with sincere and enthusiastic eyes. A place about car dreams was staged on the stage of Wukesong Gymnasium.

Of course, the above scenes will only appear in the scenes described by Weilai die-hard fan, and more ordinary users will still stay in Weilai's "just a pure electric vehicle that looks better than other models". But the word "pure electricity" is not widely accepted in the winter of 20 17.

In the heat of half a month after the press conference, everyone tried to find the investment amount of 56 investors (Tencent, Baidu, JD.COM, Xiaomi, Lenovo, CDB, China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, etc.) in Weilai, but at that time, Li Bin only needed one sentence to make Weilai excited. "You can't be absent from such a big wave of change in the entire automobile industry."

This means that every car owner who joins the Weilai family will witness the reform wave of China automobile industry.

Taking advantage of this east wind, Weilai released the 20 18 automobile sales data report in June of 20 19. The data shows that as of June 20 18, 12, 3 1, is the first model of Weilai Automobile? The cumulative delivery volume of ES8 is about 1. 1.3 million vehicles, of which the delivery volume in February of 20 18 was 33 1.8 vehicles.

Weilai won a good start.

Weilai was awarded the title of the first domestic new force to break through 10,000 vehicles, but before that, He also had the audacity to think that no new force in 20 18 could break through 10,000 vehicles.

But I'm sorry, Weilai's 20 18 not only gave this overconfident He Laoshi a scare, but also proved once again that "circle user relationship" played a certain role in Weilai's marketing.

On the afternoon of June 65438+February 65438+May 2008, the second Weilai NIO? The day was held in Shanghai. If there is no accident, NIO will be held every year, right? Will Tianweilai choose a city to bring this gift NIO? As the days go on, NIO is in Shanghai? The world premiere of ES6 was ushered in that day, with more than 65,438+00,000 participants.

At the same time, Weilai also released the world's first power service system NIO? Power. Through the interchangeable power architecture of ES8, the battery of Weilai Power Station can be replaced within 3 minutes; A number of charging schemes such as exclusive charging piles, super networks and mobile charging vehicles have also been released.

The story has developed here, and more and more viewers have some clues. Weilai's marketing path is very similar to that of Tesla. However, it has always wanted to target Tesla.

Maintain user loyalty?

If there is no misunderstanding, Li Bin wants to be a person with personality charm and worldview like Musk, and try to get close to him.

From product marketing to offline experience stores, every user with Weilai models is distinguished by Weilai's "circle powder user" system, which makes them unique in their mental system. They have their own model number, their own fixed customer service specialist, and they are cherished by meticulous care, and all this will become the center of being surrounded by buying a Weilai model.

This improvement, which is similar to the luxury marketing technique, is very useful for Weilai users at least at present. In China, no car company has more than 90% customer stickiness like Weilai. They are closely linked and become employees of Weilai virtually.

The interviewed Weilai car owners have almost the same caliber, and they all spare no effort to praise Weilai and feel that the products have zero bad reviews. He also said that he would actively promote Weilai and let more young people know Weilai.

Like being brainwashed, Wei Lai appeared too many supporters in a short time. In this year's NIO? At the scene of the day, Li Bin made a lot of publicity. Sixty-five users participated in the planning, creativity, directing and performance of this event, and more than 65,438+000 local car owners in Shenzhen initiated free rides, receiving foreign riders at the airport, high-speed railway station and even NIO? G.E.M., the guest performer at the finale of One Day, is also a singer selected by NOMI on demand.

In the past 400 days, a Weilai car owner in Hunan invited 395 people to experience ES8, among which 45 friends paid for Weilai. In Qingdao, Jinan, Hohhot, Shanghai and other cities, car owners spontaneously advertised for Weilai for nearly 10 million yuan;

In Macau, Weilai users participated in the Macau International Auto Show this year 10 at their own expense, and Weilai models landed in Macau for the first time.

If all this is true, Weilai is gradually improving an active C-end user group that new energy vehicle companies dream of.

In the current new energy industry, the output of B-end and C-end products is extremely unbalanced. In order to meet the sales volume, major car companies will choose to divert their products to their own travel companies, which will generate huge sales share in a short time. Such things are not uncommon.

Even if objective sales data is ushered in in a short time, the long-term loss of individual users at C-end makes it difficult for products to circulate in the real user market, let alone brand upgrade.

However, at present, the new energy industry has not really solved the problem of increasing the sales of individual user groups under effective channels. But as a businessman, Li Bin's idea is absolutely excellent. Try to be close to users, form a certain user circle, promote the corresponding products at every different stage, and achieve the most effective sales.

Where else can the money come from?

In the first half of this year, the total loss of Weilai Automobile reached 5.908 billion yuan. Since Weilai went public, its stock peaked at 13.8 US dollars, and now it remains at around 3.04 US dollars. Based on the total share capital, the market value of Weilai has evaporated by nearly 80 billion RMB.

It is rumored that Li Bin's wife, Wang Yizhi, sold her designer bag to save Wei Lai. The layoffs are true, and it is impossible to verify the package sales. However, these dramatic character scenes have also increased the hot list of New Power Automobile Company. More and more viewers hope to find clues from the clues that Weilai will not come soon, so as to satisfy their gossip psychology like watching a family ethics drama at eight o'clock.

But the reality is often straightforward. In the third NIO? A few days ago, Weilai delivered 2,528 new cars on June 5438+065438+ 10, of which 46 were delivered by ES8 and 2,067 by ES6. The overall sales volume ranked first among the new force car-making enterprises on June 5438+065438+ 10. According to the previous annual sales target of 40,000-50,000 vehicles, the completion rate is only 43.45%.

However, as of now, the sales volume of Weilai Super 30,000 vehicles is far ahead of the new car manufacturers. No wonder some media teachers praised, "In the current domestic market, which independent brand has a sales price of more than 300,000 and a monthly sales volume of nearly 2,000 vehicles, Weilai will be miserable? It is worthy of independent brand learning in terms of brand power. "

According to industry insiders, the biggest challenge for Weilai in 2020 is still the funding problem. Weilai's loss in 2020 will continue to expand, and it is expected to reach $6543.8 +0.2 billion. The need for a lot of money is still Weilai's biggest appeal at present. At present, Weilai has further streamlined its business through layoffs, restructuring and divestiture of some non-core businesses before the end of the year.

As of June 30, Weilai had only about 500 million dollars in cash, equivalents and short-term investments, so the company had to take measures to enrich the funds. In September, Li Bin, co-founder of Weilai Automobile, and Tencent, a shareholder, subscribed for $654.38 billion in convertible bonds respectively. Wei Lai said that the bond issuance and its financing projects are proceeding as planned, without elaborating.

At present, the market value of Weilai Automobile is only $2.6 billion. In contrast, a series of actions such as building a factory in China and releasing a new pickup truck have increased Tesla's market value, which now reaches $78 billion. Weilai's series of experience stores, outdoor advertisements and regular experience center activities are also invisible, which makes the capital burn faster.

Still, Li Bin said, "NIO? House is still very important and helps to build a high-end brand image, which is very useful for our brand building and user experience-they make us different. But the cost of continuing to invest heavily in them is too high. "

Li Bin is trying to cut costs to improve his financial situation. "Our efforts to cut costs are still in progress. It can be seen that in the first quarter of 2020, expenditure will further decline. "

With the recovery of demand, the company's efforts to cut costs have begun to bear fruit, and Weilai Automobile believes that its financial situation will improve.

Product strength

Obviously, the financial situation cannot be solved in a short time, so Weilai uses products to make up for it. One car a year, from ES8 to ES6, the way of changing the medicine is obviously not attractive enough in the market, so this NIO? On, Weilai not only upgraded ES8, but also released 100kWh battery and brand-new EC6 (the third model of Weilai).

This year's sense of ceremony belongs to EC6, a model based on ES6, the standard TESMODEL? Y. There are two versions of the new car, the sports version and the performance version. The biggest highlight is the design of sliding back in appearance, and the drag coefficient of the whole vehicle is 0.27? Cd, the size of the skylight has reached 2. 1 square meter. The new car can be booked at present, but the interior details are estimated to be slowly polished.

With the early completion of Tesla Shanghai Lingang Factory, Tesla Model? X will also go offline ahead of schedule, and the new energy industry is in full swing.

Li Bin also responded at the scene, "Model next year? X is coming, don't rush to announce the price, and leave some room for adjustment. "

On February 27th, 65438, Tesla built the first V3 super charging pile in Shanghai Jinqiao Super Charging Station and opened it to the public, which also marked the official entry of V3 super charging pile into the China market.

According to the introduction of Tesla V3 charging pile, it can support the peak charging power up to 250kW, which is more than double that of V2 super charging pile. Under the condition of peak power, the charging capacity of V3 super charging pile can travel about 120km in 5 minutes, and the average charging time of users can be reduced by about 50% in an ideal state.

In weilai NIO? At the scene of the day, all models of Weilai also upgraded new battery packs, perhaps to welcome Tesla.

Weilai battery capacity is increased to 100kWh, which supports power exchange. In other words, after replacing the large battery, the NEDC battery life of Weilai ES6 will exceed 600km；; The NEDC of ES8 has reached 500km.

However, the loudest sound on the scene is the upgraded version of ES8. After all, EC6 will not meet until the second quarter of 2020. This distant window period, Li Bin must find a way to fill it: "A brand-new ES8 is armed to the kernel, and understand it."

The upgraded version of ES8 has changed both the exterior interior and the motor, and the exterior details are more delicate and the three-dimensional sense is strengthened. The touch screen of the interior is upgraded to the same 1 1.3 inch high-definition multi-touch central control panel as ES6, and the instrument panel is upgraded to 9.8 inches.

Although upgrading ES8 is suspected of EC6 exceeding the standard, it is more because of ES8, but the sales volume has dropped seriously.

Since the delivery of ES6 in 20 19, the sales volume of ES8 has plummeted. It is not difficult to see that under the premise of high similarity and not too many surprises, ES6 has seized the market share of the original ES8, and the compact SUV has won an overwhelming victory in front of medium and large SUVs. But for Wei, the user level has not been reasonably distinguished, and there is no advantage for sales volume and brand.

Now that I think about it, the third EC6 model is designed as Coupe, which is intended to refresh the solidified design sense of Weilai SUV and keep the product fresh. At least in the wild, EC6 looks good.

Some people say that Li Bin doesn't know anything about products, but only uses the thinking of businessmen to do the best marketing. Building a tall and bright Weilai Experience Center in the city will cost tens of millions a year, with huge expenses and unprofitable capital. Tesla 16 years to make a profit. In the eyes of users in China, I'm afraid there is no comparability.

However, judging from Li Bin's own interpretation of the automobile market, it seems that the person who over-interprets Weilai is not the user layer he needs at all.

"I am very optimistic about the opportunities for China's auto industry to change in the wave of intelligence and electrification, and there are opportunities in all market segments. So Weilai won't make a particularly cheap car, but we will use it? Batteries? As? Answer? Service? Come and lower the threshold for owning Weilai. "

"Wei Lai won't make a cheaper electric car. A brand has limited bandwidth. The mainstream high-end market of 300,000 ~ 500,000, which has no China brand. This is not right, so we have to do this. In terms of sales volume, Weilai can have a future. "

The battery is here? As? Answer? Service refers to the on-demand upgrade in the "circle user relationship" mentioned above. Weilai belongs to users, but according to the user relationship, you can enjoy different Weilai, just like the means in luxury marketing. You can buy a LV, but we have more limited edition styles. Would you like to have a try?

This is an industry with unlimited business opportunities. So is Li Bin miserable? Not at all.

Text/No.56

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.