This article is from the WeChat public account "tech planet" (id: tech618), author: Qiao Xue, 36Kr is published with permission.
For new cars is an important yardstick, financing, pushing new cars, new ota upgrades, each step can explain the vitality of a car company, if a new car company under the fast pace of the observation cycle stretched to the last 1 year, and then observe the changes, it will be an interesting thing.
Xiaopeng Automobile is one of the significant samples, in 2019, including Xiaopeng's new car-making forces generally encountered a crisis, car owners and the outside world doubted widely, in 2020 everything slowly ushered in a turnaround, and a year later, Xiaopeng established the position of the first echelon, and the advantages of intelligence in the palm of the hand. If you understand the changes in Xiaopeng in the past 1 year, you will find that the doubts that were once there have now been dissolved by time. Someone once said that he felt that Xiaopeng had come all the way smoothly, and He Xiaopeng smiled bitterly, "That was when we cried and you were not present." ”
If you extend the time again, in fact, the appearance of each step now is a guide to the direction that was regressed a few years ago, no one is a prophet, and there is no absolute advantage, but step by step, keeping their own sense of difference and rhythm.
"Don't believe, hard to believe" is the word He Xiaopeng said the most at the event of the 1st anniversary of the delivery of p7.
Night gradually fell on the streets of Chengdu Taikoo Li, Chengdu's young people began to surround this hot land, July 27 Taikoo Li is a little different, far away you can see xiaopeng p7 super fluorescent green peng wing doors ready to go, rows of p7 also create a cool atmosphere.
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On the left-hand side is the arena where hip-hop teenagers play skateboarding, and the xiaopeng prism-like façade wall reflects the bright and dangling light and shadow, standing at the entrance of the alley, as if it is an indicator sign, while the right-hand side is the entrance to chengdu's most popular street.
Xiaopeng's second city flagship store in Chengdu's Daci Temple is a constant stream of curious and exploratory young people who are the most courageous to accept new things and future technology, which is probably a picture that He Xiaopeng could not have imagined a year ago.
The first disbelief came from partners, in the early days of entrepreneurship, He Xiaopeng told the other party that he wanted to make a sports car positioned at 300,000. The other party said in a serious tone, Xiaopeng, no car company in China has succeeded in this segment.
A year later, the delivery volume of the p7 in June was 6565 units, he Xiaopeng proudly and self-sustainingly expressed that it may be a while before the monthly sales of the p7 will exceed the monthly sales of audi a4 in China.
The second level of disbelief comes from the team. In 2017, when P7 was still unknown, the entire Xiaopeng Automobile team was discussing to start making NGP software and hardware. At that time, no car factory in the world designed software, cameras, GPUs, and CPUs on a car, and no one knew how to do it.
He Xiaopeng recalled, "The software team and the hardware team quarreled every day, pulling me to go, still arguing, because I hadn't done it either. As a result, in March 2020, ngp opened the first test, He Xiaopeng pulled the executives of the automotive industry on the high-speed experience, ngp in the high-speed without taking over the effect of stunning a number of executives, but also made P7 become the first i-vista China Intelligent Vehicle Index five-star certification, the first NEDC endurance to break 700km of Chinese intelligent car.
The third layer of disbelief comes from the user, p7 just delivered, such a price at that time the delivery volume has a certain pressure, everyone is playing drums in their hearts, do not know whether the user accepts it, whether it is good to sell. Soon, such worries were dispelled, and the Xiaopeng p7 became the fastest Chinese smart car with a single model delivery of more than 10,000.
It is also this surprise from users that has pushed He Xiaopeng to the gong platform of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange again, and Xiaopeng Automobile has become the first smart electric vehicle brand to be listed in the United States and Hong Kong. In August 2020, when the bell rang on the New York Stock Exchange, the monthly sales of xiaopeng g3 were not much, and the p7 had just achieved scale delivery. In just one year, the advent of p7 has increased Xiaopeng's sales, and it has achieved positive month-on-month delivery growth for 4 consecutive months, and now there are more than 70,000 Peng friends.
In particular, after the launch of the delivery of the lithium iron phosphate version of the model in April this year, Xiaopeng's model matrix has been further enriched. In the second half of the year, Xiaopeng will also have two blockbuster models launched: the Xiaopeng g3's new redesign G3i was officially released in July, and delivery is expected to start in the fourth quarter, and the new third model p5 has been unveiled in April. Recently announced the pre-sale price range of 160,000-230,000, and opened a large pre-sale.
Facing the user's car company, the key to breaking all doubts is to implement a solid user trust, 1 year, Xiaopeng has begun to grow.
"Pulling the wind", is Yan Ru's first impression of Xiaopeng, when traveling in Shenzhen, there was a fluorescent green p7 on the street to drive past, Yan Ru only remembered an "X" shaped logo, thinking that it was a foreign sports car brand, and later checked it to know that it was a new force of domestic electric vehicles.
From no feeling to cognition, it is a process for users, and for Xiaopeng, it is a continuous attempt.
The first step is to continuously enrich the models, from g3 to p7, and the upcoming delivery of p5 and g3i, Xiaopeng's system is getting wider and wider, and the change in models is to anchor more potential users and extend the portrait of the owner.
In addition to the model, let more people know or understand Xiaopeng, or because of Xiaopeng's intelligent ability.
When the owner gets up early to work, he suddenly finds that there is an additional automatic driving function on the car, which can automatically follow the car, change lanes, and overtake, as if replacing a new car; or, after returning home from work and driving into the basement, Xiaopeng has upgraded the vehicle to identify the set parking route by itself and independently remember parking.
Behind the seemingly lightweight, He Xiaopeng bet on "software redefining the car" very early on, and firmly opened the technical route of full-stack self-development. In 2017, Xiaopeng Automobile began to develop xpilot 3.0, focusing on creating a set of autonomous driving products that adapt to China's localized road conditions and driving habits.
First of all, it is the investment of manpower, flipping through the past financial reports found that the leap of Xiaopeng's R & D team is rapid, from dozens, hundreds, in 2020 to quickly reach the scale of 1,000 people, more than 6,000 employees, 39.8% of employees focus on research and development, of which nearly 40% of employees are committed to automatic driving and intelligent operating systems.
R&D expenses are also increasing, with R&D expenditure of 1.05 billion yuan, 2.07 billion yuan, 1.73 billion yuan and 540 million yuan in 2018, 2019, 2020 and as of the first quarter of 2021, respectively. Tech planet has previously compared horizontally in ""three fools to build cars" to chase the Lugang Stock Exchange, not just a matter of money" Horizontal comparison, "Wei Xiaoli" three degree of research and development, but also has the intelligent electric vehicle circle is now "wei hard peng soft" said, xpilot3.0 has reached close to the l3 automatic driving level.
In the 2021 q1 financial report, Xiaopeng's vehicle revenue recognized the xpilot software revenue for the first time, and it is this revenue that helped Xiaopeng Automobile increase its gross profit level. In the third quarter of 2020, Xiaopeng's gross profit margin turned positive for the first time (4.6%), and after increasing software revenue, the gross profit margin in the first quarter of 2021 has reached 11.2%, and Xiaopeng has become the only car company in China that can rely on automatic driving assisted driving software to charge separately. In the market, another car company that makes money by software is Tesla.
Another side of Xiaopeng Automobile's efforts is investment in infrastructure, he is the first new car manufacturer to launch a lifetime free charging service, as of now, Xiaopeng Supercharging has achieved 1400 free charging sites covering 201 cities across the country. It also has the confidence of the ngp hardcore expedition of 3,000 kilometers from Guangzhou to Beijing.
Step by step changes constitute the xiaopeng that is now perceived by users.
When He Xiaopeng was at the Guangzhou Auto Show, he once made a judgment, "2020, 2021 and 2022 are the first stage of the new energy year, more money, more people, more research and development and innovation, is the stage of accumulation and development." ”
Indeed, after that, we saw more Internet manufacturers and cross-border enterprises rushing in, and each one seemed to be driving in a big way. A question immediately arises, in the new energy decisive battle in 2023, can Xiaopeng still have an advantage?
First of all, we must understand, what should new energy compete for?
To borrow a sentence from investor Zhu Xiaohu, smart electric vehicles, are you interested in smart, electric, or car?
The answer is obvious, intelligence will be the future direction of the new car more segmented field, car companies are building systems and ecology to conquer the user's mind.
For example, it is more like Apple users are difficult to switch to Android users, which is why Huawei cut into the new energy market, let the main engine factory tremble, unwilling to use their own flesh to accept Huawei's "soul", the new energy competition of the pile should soon pass, for the intelligent war, it will be a war, there will be no endgame competition, and it will feel more and more strongly on the user side.
At present, Xiaopeng has two points that have a competitive advantage: in intelligent assisted driving, Xiaopeng's first-hand advantage has been shown. When other new forces and latecomers have announced the strengthening of self-research investment, most of the self-research capabilities are still in the "futures" stage, Xiaopeng Motors has taken a step ahead, and its self-developed automatic driving assistance system xpirot 3.0 has not only been mass-produced, but also ahead of the industry level. Of the p7 delivered in the first quarter, 96% of users supported xpilot 2.5 or xpilot 3.0.
And this speed is still accelerating, in the past year, Xiaopeng did 6 large OTA upgrades, an average of once every two months, such a speed allows peers to accelerate learning, He Xiaopeng revealed that a team of self-driving companies that focus on research and development L4 level have bought p7 research.
Another point is that in this year, the way Xiaopeng and users talk and communicate is also changing step by step. The flagship store is an example, whether it is Sanlitun in Beijing or Taikoo Li in Chengdu, Xiaopeng gives each flagship store different characteristics, a bit of urban limited meaning, and will add new products and services every year, this intention is obvious, to brush the sense of existence in the boundaries of young people's favorite places.
If p7 completely opens the door to the intelligent travel world to young people, g3i is even more modified into a cooler façade, contacting young people in a more preferred way, and p5 cuts into the scene of "versatile intelligent space" and opens the exploration of new ways of interacting with smart cockpits and people and cars.
In the early days, Xiaopeng was more like the founder's disposition, a straight man in science and engineering, and immersed in technology, while Xiaopeng at this stage used a way that young people could understand more, close to young people, and integrated into young people.
In the end, Xiaopeng's rhythm control is good, He Xiaopeng said, "The most difficult thing for entrepreneurs is like a conductor of a symphony orchestra, who can control when the violin, when the cello is produced, when it should be quiet, and when it should be noisy." "From the forward-looking intelligent strategy to the rhythm of step-by-step deployment, Xiaopeng is moving fast and seeking stability.
The fastest runner may not be able to run the farthest, do not believe, look back, on the track of new energy, how many once famous but now lonely corpses. The spring and autumn of the newly built car came to the Warring States, and it was a rare and precious thing to maintain a sense of rhythm.