Xinte Auto Returns: What Will It Take To Compete With Wuling And Euler?

There is no shortage of stories on the road to new cars. In the past week, the "joys and sorrows" of the new forces of China's car making continued.

Two traffic accidents occurred in Weilai automobile within two weeks, causing the driver to die. Although the final responsibility for the accident is waiting for the traffic police department to confirm, it has again triggered extensive discussions in the industry on the function, definition, promotion and use of "automatic driving" and "auxiliary driving".

After experiencing the multiple tests of "spontaneous combustion", brake failure and "broken axle", ideal automobile (02015. HK / Li. NASDAQ) officially landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on August 12, becoming the second new Internet vehicle making force to realize dual listing of us and Hong Kong stocks after Xiaopeng automobile.

However, Evergrande motor, which is also listed in Hong Kong stock market and has the same long-term goal, has changed from "buy buy buy" to "sell sell". However, what it sells is not cars, but shares.

Nowadays, Evergrande's life is on the verge of suspension, but the pace of cross-border car making by mobile phone, home appliances and Internet giants has not stopped. The final landing place of Xiaomi automobile in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Hefei, Xi'an has aroused reverie. Although new forces of car building have exploded frequently in the past two years, they have not stopped local governments' enthusiasm for smart electric vehicles.

On August 12, Xinte automobile, which has been out of the public view for a long time, started a new round of "charge". It announced the completion of a new round of financing participated by Shanghai Hemu Technology Co., Ltd. at the same time, it launched a new electric travel brand "electric house" and the first A0 class pure electric vehicle "young guangxiaoxin".

However, this "new special" is not another "new special". It is a new automobile manufacturing force after the introduction of Chongqing Changshou District related industry funds and the reorganization.

"The new new special automobile has been reorganized in 2021 to create a brand-new Chongqing new special automobile. Today, we start from scratch, reconstruct our new energy mode, and become the current emerging vehicle manufacturing force." On August 12, Hu Jun, the managing director of Chongqing Xinte Automobile Co., Ltd., said that different from the current new forces of automobile manufacturing turning to self built factories, Chongqing Xinte still adheres to the OEM mode and chooses to go to battle with light equipment.

In addition, at the press conference, Chongqing Xinte automobile announced the completion of a new round of financing, and Shanghai Hemu Technology Co., Ltd. became a new investor. According to qixinbao, Shanghai Hemu Technology Co., Ltd. was established on June 15, 2021 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, and the investment scale of this time is as high as hundreds of millions of yuan.

However, the time window for car making is about to close. In the face of financial pressure, the siege and interception of traditional car companies, and the high-level fighting of cross-border car manufacturing, can this new car manufacturing force, which was established in 2017, stand out from the tight encirclement?

Farewell to Gui'an

"The automotive industry has changed more in recent years than in the past 30 years. The future competition in the automotive industry will be the competition between intelligence and technology, the competition between Internet and automobile life experience, and the competition between travel radius and travel mode."

In September 2017, with the judgment and Thinking on the future development of the industry, Xinte automobile was founded in Gui'an new area, which integrates the advantages of data and intelligent resources of China's national big data center, and serves as the co-founder and CEO of Suntech.

As one of the key new energy projects incubated by the government of Gui'an new area of Guizhou Province, Xinte is an important link in the whole industrial chain of China's first new energy vehicles being built in Gui'an new area. In 2017, Gui'an new area development and Investment Co., Ltd., the shareholder of Xinte automobile, invested 7 billion yuan for Xinte and other enterprises to build the whole industry chain of new energy vehicles, including four complete processes of "punching, welding, coating and total".

On January 6, 2018, Suntech also reached a strategic cooperation with FAW on R & D and production of new energy vehicles.

It is understood that dev 1 is positioned as a micro pure electric vehicle, with a price of 719-77900 yuan after subsidy, and the NEDC's driving range is 305 km. The total delivery volume in 2018 will reach 4000 units.

However, not all the new forces have developed smoothly in accordance with the established route of mass production, delivery, upgrading and landing in the capital market. Starting from 2019, the problems covered by the rapid development of Xinte are gradually exposed. With the shutdown of Xinte automobile factory in Guiyang and changes in the management of production qualification of passenger cars by the state, the sales volume has also declined.

"All new forces, like us, have weaknesses in production and manufacturing, including supply chain integration capability and platform supply chain capability, as well as the short board of cost. This is an unavoidable problem for every new force. " In 2019, Xianyue said in an interview, "with the positioning of Xinte, we still hope to take a fast, small and refined development route. We are not going to be a large company. We hope to go out of a way that is in line with Xinte's own."

From the vanguard's point of view, travel license is a window resource. In the face of market challenges, Suntech's strategy is to slow down the production pace and layout the travel market, and has won the online car Hailing operation license in dozens of cities across the country.

In June 2019, new special automobile released its travel platform "new electric travel" in Beijing, and in August launched a Class-A pure electric vehicle mev100 for online car Hailing market, which was jointly built with FAW.

It is worth noting that prior to this, Suntech has cooperated with many car sharing platforms and aimed its products at the online car Hailing market. In December 2018, the "new electric travel" platform passed the online system certification of the Ministry of communications. Within a few months, the platform realized the layout of Chengdu, Guiyang and Chongqing as the core markets.

However, first Vietnam did not seem to be able to lay out many layouts of Suntech. After that, Suntech never announced new models and new strategies.

Until August 2020, Xinte automobile completed the reorganization and renamed as Chongqing xintechangshou New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. Gui'an new area development and Investment Co., Ltd. and Xianyue exit, Chongqing Changshou District related industrial funds take over the project and introduce a new management team.

It is understood that Hu Jun, who once served as the general manager of SAIC GM Wuling sales company and the executive vice president of Chery Jaguar Land Rover marketing and service organization, officially joined the company and became the new managing director; Liu Yang, who was responsible for product development in Chery Jaguar Land Rover, served as the president of the Research Institute; Liu Hongwei, one of the leaders of Chery sales company, served as the chief marketing officer.

Binding Chongqing Hu Jun to join

Since its establishment in September 2017, after a series of tests, such as OEM query, qualification test, delivery problem, channel contraction and so on, Xinte automobile has gone through all the "pits" of the new forces of car making, and is moving towards the "crossroads".

"In the past, Xinte launched products in 2018 and had a certain sales volume. After that, due to some problems in operation, product and cost control, they had no choice but to withdraw from the market." On August 12, Hu Jun said in an interview with the 21st century economic reporter that this time, Xinte automobile chose to go to the battle with light equipment -- integrating industrial chain resources with dock mode, becoming the representative of "new and new forces" in car manufacturing, and bringing pure electric travel products and services with high cost performance to users.

Among them, in the R & D end, independent and joint R & D are parallel. Chongqing Xinte will master the core electronic control architecture, automatic driving technology and big data application development, while in other fields, it will maximize the advantages of resources in the mature industrial chain.

At the manufacturing end, the substitute factory can be selected flexibly according to the market distribution, regional sales ratio and factory capacity conditions. It is understood that in January this year, Chongqing Xinte automobile announced that it has reached a deep strategic cooperation with Chongqing Automobile Co., Ltd., which will contract for new products.

In terms of channels, some are offline stores and the other is online DTC system. Offline cooperation with dealers is adopted, but it will not blossom everywhere like the traditional main engine factory, and it is more inclined to the regional agent mode.

"Take the region as the scope, select one or several dealers with the best ability to become our partners, and the partners act as agents for one or several prefecture level cities. We plan to cooperate with 50 dealer partners within the year, covering about 100 prefecture level cities and more than 150 stores. " Hu Jun said in an interview with reporters.

At the user end, the DTC mode of brand face-to-face users is established, and the user demand is analyzed with big data technology to realize full digital marketing and service.

"Under the precise product positioning, the whole operation is lighter and more efficient, so as to provide products and services with high cost performance to users in a real sense." "These are the new developments and changes of Chongqing Xinte automobile," Hu said

It is worth noting that, in terms of products, different from the new car manufacturing enterprises focusing on high-end brands such as Weilai and ideal, Chongqing Xinte automobile aims at the third and low-line urban users with the continuous growth of pure electric travel penetration rate, and even is willing to deeply plough in this field and carry forward the market.

According to the new special official, China's new energy vehicles will grow explosively in the future. In the first half of this year, the sales of A0 + A00 pure electric vehicles increased by 126% over the same period last year. The growth rate of micro / small electric vehicles is the highest. Meanwhile, the sinking market is a blue ocean.

"There is certainly room for development in choosing the micro electric vehicle market. It is relatively easy to enter this market and the product is not difficult, but the market performance is particularly good. Therefore, there is still a large space for the development of small pure electric intelligent vehicles in the future." On August 16, Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the chenglian Federation, said in an interview with reporters.

As a matter of fact, since this year, the mini electric vehicle market has been booming. According to the data of the passenger Association, the sales volume of Wuling Hongguang Mini EV reached 27300. From January to July this year, the cumulative sales volume of Wuling Hongguang Mini EV reached 217000, ranking first in China's new energy vehicle sales. In addition, the sales volume of Chang'an new energy and Euler brands, which mainly focus on A0 and A-class electric vehicles, reached 8700 and 7300 respectively in July.

At the press conference on the same day, the first pure electric vehicle "young guangxiaoxin" of Chongqing Xinte Automobile Co., Ltd. was put on the market, and two models of S400 and L400 were launched, with the guiding prices of 59800 yuan and 65800 yuan respectively. New positioning A0 pure electric scooter, standard configuration 402 km long endurance.

In the future, Chongqing Xinte automobile will also launch A-class model products and A00 class products, and the first A-class car products will appear next year.

"The manufacturer is not the end of Chongqing Xinte Automobile Co., Ltd., and the all stack pure electric intelligent travel service provider is our future." Hu said.

In the face of a large number of online car Hailing operation licenses obtained by the early new special, Hu Jun said that there will be a layout in the future.

"The nationwide travel operation license is also an advantage foundation. In the commercial field, logistics, agriculture and operation have the demand for intelligence and low cost, which is an important business area for our future layout." Hu Jun told reporters.

Obviously, the resurgent new special automobile hopes to learn from the model of SAIC GM Wuling, but Wuling's model is hard to copy. Wuling, which has strong brand endorsement, huge channels covering prefecture level cities, continuous marketing innovation and product innovation, as well as the support of the whole group in terms of profits, has strong brand endorsement, and has a huge channel covering prefecture level cities, Similarly, Euler and Chang'an also have such advantages.

For Suntech, it is hard to compete with Wuling and Euler in the A0 class micro / small electric vehicle, which is a small profit segment.

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