With over 10 billion investment, Weilai China headquarters settled in Hefei

On February 25, the JAC NIO EC6 mass production project started at the JAC NIO factory in Hefei. This will be the third new NIO vehicle produced by JAC NIO’s factory.

At the same time, the 2020 Hefei City Major Industrial Project Centralized (Cloud) Signing Ceremony was also held at the JAC NIO factory. Among them, the NIO China headquarters project was finally settled in Hefei, with an investment of more than 10 billion yuan.

This means that the previous cooperation between Yizhuang Guotou and NIO may have fallen through.

The Blood and Tears History of NIO’s Financing

From last year to this year, counting the history of NIO’s financing is like a tragic comedy that is constantly exposed and denied.

At the end of May last year, during NIO's 2019Q1 financial report conference call, NIO revealed that NIO Automobile announced that it would open a new entity "NIO China", Beijing Yizhuang International Investment Development Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Yizhuang Guo"). Investment") will invest RMB 10 billion in cash in "Nio China".

Yizhuang SDIC subsequently confirmed the news and told the media that Yizhuang SDIC will assist "Nio China" in building or introduce third-party partners to jointly build NIO China's advanced manufacturing base and production company Second generation platform model. The parties are continuing to work towards finalizing the final binding transaction documents.

On July 24, 2019, NIO Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. was registered and established in Yizhuang. This is seen as a solid move for NIO China to settle in Yizhuang, Beijing.

But after that, there was no news released by both parties.

New news about Weilai’s financing is also constantly being exposed.

In October last year, it was reported online that NIO was negotiating with Wuxing District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province for a financing of more than 5 billion yuan. NIO will build a factory in Wuxing District with an annual production capacity of 200,000 vehicles. At the same time, relevant documents from Huzhou City and Wuxing District discussing the NIO project were also circulated on the Internet, emphasizing that the introduction of the NIO smart vehicle project is both a major opportunity and a certain risk. It was later denied by the Wuxing District Government.

Weilai revealed that it is indeed conducting financing negotiations with multiple parties.

On January 15, 2020, some media revealed that GAC will invest approximately US$1 billion in NIO and is in the process of raising funds. Subsequently, Guangzhou Automobile Group issued an announcement saying: "The two parties have discussed Weilai's financing plan, but it is still in the early stages."

The latest rumor is that Geely Automobile will invest US$300 million in Weilai Automobile. , and is expected to become the third largest shareholder of Weilai.

Judging from the news that NIO China has settled in Hefei, it may be Anhui Province or Hefei City that finally lends a helping hand to NIO.

Quoting local media reports in Anhui, the eight projects signed this time have a total investment of 102 billion yuan. Among them, the investment of 4 projects including Weilai's China headquarters exceeds 10 billion yuan, and the largest investment scale reaches 400 billion yuan. billion.

This means that Weilai may use this Weilai China project to obtain more than 10 billion yuan in financing. Of course, the additional conditions must be local to Hefei.

From an industry perspective, the eight signed projects focus on high-end cutting-edge industries such as new energy vehicles, integrated circuits, medical health, industrial Internet, and equipment manufacturing.

Local media commented that this is highly consistent with Hefei's key development of industrial clusters such as integrated circuits, new energy vehicles, biomedicine, and high-end equipment manufacturing. It is also important for my country's communications industry and high-end smart electric vehicles to achieve independence. Controlled development and coping with international competition are of great significance.

The cooperation between NIO and JAC is expected to continue

This move will also consolidate the cooperative relationship between JAC and NIO.

Starting from 2016, the two parties will comprehensively promote cooperation in the new energy vehicle and intelligent connected vehicle industry chain. These include: deepening the construction of advanced manufacturing bases based on technological innovations such as the Internet and the Internet of Things, and forming highly intelligent, highly automated, and highly integrated manufacturing system capabilities. Optimize and integrate supply chain system resources, strengthen technical cooperation on core key components such as batteries, motors, electronic controls, and automotive electronics, and create a world-class supply chain capability system.

According to the announcement at the time, the overall cooperation scale was approximately 10 billion yuan.

Subsequently, the intelligent high-end electric manufacturing base jointly built by JAC and NIO started construction in October of the same year and was officially put into use in the second half of 2017.

JAC NIO Manufacturing Base is located in Hefei Economic and Technological Development Zone, covering an area of ??approximately 839.6 acres and a total construction area of ??23 square meters. According to the plan, the annual production capacity of this manufacturing base can reach 100,000 pure electric vehicles.

In the three years since its establishment, this high-end manufacturing base has become a model project for Hefei City and Anhui Province. It has received many national leaders and visiting groups at home and abroad. Even Volkswagen Group CEO Diess praised it after the visit. Don't stop talking.

After NIO’s China headquarters lands in Hefei, it means that NIO’s second-generation platform models may also be produced in Hefei. Weilai did not disclose whether it will continue to be produced in the Jianghuai factory or build a new factory. Cheyun speculates that there is a high probability that it will continue to cooperate with JAC in production and manufacturing.

Previously, Li Bin, the founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai, once expressed to Cheyun that he was very grateful to JAC. When Weilai only had a few PPTs, he was willing to believe that Weilai could produce Real money and silver to build a new factory with NIO.

JAC executives also told Cheyun that JAC needs to actively learn from new car manufacturing companies with innovative thinking and Internet genes like NIO at this moment of transformation in the automotive industry. Weilai has indeed sold more than 30,000 cars worth more than 400,000 yuan in two years. This is what Chinese independent brands need to learn.

At present, Weilai has not confirmed the financing news. It is reported that NIO will announce the latest financing progress in its financial report.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.