$NIO Inc. (NIO.US) $It's hard to hide anxiety.

C-dimensional

Author Cui Liwen

At the moment, in the face of a new round of "gloom", although the pace of development has been forced to slow down, it is hard to hide the anxiety, but because there is more and more abundant "food" in hand, the darkness is after all short-lived and not as terrible as it used to be.

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Recently, while looking at Weibo Corp, I came across such a paragraph: since 2022, the reason why the world has continuously experienced the baptism of war, the raging epidemic, and even the crazy fluctuations of the stock market is a back-and-forth cycle every seven years. If you still remember, similar things happened to the whole market in 2015 and 2008 respectively.

According to his conjecture, in the next seven years, we still need to be prepared in advance to deal with sudden shocks, and must not be taken lightly.

In my eyes, I still think that similar views, more through the result deduction process, although there are certain rules to follow, but still slightly emotional, and lack the support of effective arguments.

Coming back to the question thrown at the beginning of the article, the answer focuses on: "do not believe" accounts for a large proportion.

In other words, instead of calling it "reincarnation", it is better to simply regard each individual as a variety of challenges encountered in the process of continuous growth.

However, some happen to be in a specific period of time, once again very coincidentally. In contrast, how to sum up experiences and lessons and review the gains and losses is the more important thing.

As for the root cause of spending a certain amount of space laying the background, we still want to better draw out today's protagonist, NIO Inc., a new power car-building that has long been questioned and criticized, flowers and applause, which has been established for nearly eight years.

In the magical 2022, due to the sudden change of the industry environment, as well as a lot of force majeure, a sense of anxiety of deja vu, seems to have welled up again.

I wonder how it will deal with it this time.

　　01

BaaS, is it broken?

At the end of 2019, when Li Bin was given the title of the most miserable person in the car circle by the media, there was actually not much objection. After all, no matter from the enterprise survival level, product word-of-mouth level, or financing progress level, Ulai is undoubtedly gradually moving towards the edge of the cliff.

If you are not careful, you may fall into the abyss.

Fortunately, maybe fate should not have been like this. With the help of the "Knight in White" and his own efforts to die, NIO Inc. still struggled to survive that dark time.

In the end, when their own vitality gradually recovered, the resources in their hands became more and more abundant, and many of the ideas that had already been conceived in their minds finally had the environment and conditions to gradually land. Among them, it must include the BaaS battery rental service, which will be launched on August 20, 2020 Beijing time.

At this moment, I still remember clearly Li Bin's sentence at the press conference: "We began to prepare for BaaS in 2015, and now it feels like we have been in love for five years and have finally made an official announcement."

What is the charm of "it" that makes the founders of the company think about it? In a nutshell, it is an indispensable part of NIO Inc. 's power exchange mode to form a closed loop.

According to the plan at that time: rent 70kWh battery pack, the car price is reduced by 70, 000 yuan, the monthly rent is 980 yuan; the rental 100kWh battery bag, the car price is reduced by 128000 yuan, and the monthly rent is 1480 yuan.

By contrast, due to the soaring price of raw materials for power batteries this year, NIO Inc. was forced to raise the monthly rent for 100kWh battery packs to 1680 yuan, while the monthly rent for 70kWh or 75kWh battery packs remained unchanged.

Seeing this, I can't help but want to talk about why there is still a huge controversy nearly two years after the launch of BaaS.

Because, just a few days ago, as NIO Inc. gave them the opportunity to take "regret medicine" according to the needs of some users, questions about the rationality of BaaS began to emerge crazily.

Before that, the first thing to note is that in the view of many car owners who support BaaS, because of the existence of tram separation, the battery cost of 70, 000 yuan will be subtracted from the car purchase cost, resulting in a much lower threshold for down payment.

At the same time, with the reduction of the cost of the whole vehicle, the insurance fee is also reduced. The depreciation of used cars caused by the decay and aging of power batteries, as the main pain point of pure electric vehicles, can obviously be alleviated after the use of BaaS.

In addition, after the battery is handed over to the professional asset company for maintenance, it also extends the service life of the corresponding model to a certain extent.

Accordingly, in the eyes of consumers who are not optimistic about BaaS, even if the corresponding threshold for car purchase can be reduced a lot, it is simply calculated that within six years, regardless of whether the vehicle is open or not, the rental fee and service charge need to be paid on time every month, and the preferential amount of 70,000 yuan is equivalent to returning to NIO Inc. six years later.

Starting from the seventh year, if you continue to use the vehicle and still need to rent the battery, then the rental fee incurred will not be as cost-effective as the original direct buyout.

What I would like to express is that for anything, if you look at it from a different point of view, you will come to a different conclusion.

The greatest significance of BaaS is to provide one more choice for all potential consumers. As to whether it is cost-effective or not? It depends on the specific needs and actual situation of each car owner.

For the industry as a whole, the arrival of BaaS will undoubtedly play a positive role in promoting the low-cost purchase and high-frequency use of electric vehicles. For the field of power exchange, it is also a good attempt to explore the boundaries and cognition of potential car owners from the perspective of user operation.

However, according to the current actual situation, according to the feedback of many car owners, choosing the pain point after BaaS is precisely focused on not as NIO Inc. originally advertised, "there is no need to bear the cost of battery attenuation, the vehicle is more valuable."

On the contrary, in the process of selling second-hand cars, it is found that due to the recognition of new energy vehicles in the whole market, it is generally lower than traditional fuel vehicles, coupled with the use of car-electricity separation scheme, it is more difficult to sell and less able to maintain value, which has become a common phenomenon.

That's why some users have a need for a "buy-out".

Finally, after listening to the opinions of many parties, NIO Inc. launched the "repentance medicine" mentioned above. According to official sources, the program was officially launched on April 25.

The details are as follows: it takes 70, 000 yuan + 3000 yuan service charge to buy out 75kWh battery, and 128000 yuan + 3000 yuan service fee to buy 100kWh battery. Among them, 3000 yuan service fee includes power battery storage and logistics, disassembly and assembly, testing and so on. If the user does not need to replace the new battery, the service charge of 3000 yuan can be waived.

And it should be noted that because the BaaS business is used first and paid later, the previous rent generated is non-refundable, that is, all rents from the pick-up date to the buy-out date are BaaS fees that have been generated. In other words, the previous monthly rent can not offset the buyout cost.

Once again, such a decision has inevitably sparked controversy. Especially for those users who have been using BaaS for a certain number of years and want to buy out, it is even more "dilemma".

However, as far as I am concerned, I do not think there is anything wrong with this approach. Because it's like a tenant who suddenly wants to buy the house he has rented for a long time. If it is reasonable, the seller will not waive the total contract price he has to pay when he buys the house according to his previous rent accumulation.

"leasing" and "buying and selling" should not be confused.

At the same time, as a bystander, after witnessing a series of twists and turns that have taken place in BaaS, I still want to emphasize that as a brand-new business model, although there is no problem with the initial vision of the top-level architecture, there are still many areas that need to be improved and constantly revised, considering the current situation of the entire industry and the variables encountered in the implementation process.

In addition, as a "user enterprise" deeply imprinted in DNA, car owners try their best to meet their needs as long as they have needs. Most of the time, what NIO Inc. does is not wrong, but remember not to become an "abusive good person" who is morally kidnapped by some groups.

　　02

200000 vehicles that arrived late

"2022, according to NIO Inc. 's original plan, should have been a year that bloomed faster and broke through many milestones. However, I did not expect that with the sudden change of the general environment and the emergence of some force majeure, many established plans and communication rhythms have been helplessly disrupted. "

In fact, just two days ago, with the Antarctic Star Blue painted ET7 slowly driving down the final assembly line at the Jianghuai NIO Inc. Hefei manufacturing base, this new power car-building ushered in another important milestone of its own-200,000 new cars off the line.

However, compared with 384 days, the flow of people when the 100th new car went offline in the same workshop was crowded and bustling, limited by the raging epidemic, and there was a trace of desolation by strong comparison.

There are no media, no guests, no car owners, and even Li Bin and Qin Lihong, who are still "trapped" in Shanghai, are unable to witness and celebrate. Feeling helpless, the words at the beginning of this paragraph have become the most appropriate description of NIO Inc. 's current state of mind.

Fortunately, I still remember clearly that in the exclusive interview before the 100,000th new car went off the line last year, Li Bin modestly said: "compared with many successful established fuel car companies, intelligent electric vehicles are still in a very early stage. So in the face of the 100000 milestone that has already arrived, there are some waves in my heart, but the whole is still relatively calm, and the happiest moment may be the millionth."

Indeed, for such a new power with greater ambitions to build cars, 100000, 200000, 500000 or even 1 million vehicles, as long as there is not too much deviation, the final arrival is a natural process.

The only variable that exists may be speed. For example, it took NIO Inc. three years to reach the first 100000 and one year to reach the second 100000.

So, I can't help but wonder, will it only take half a year to reach the third 100000?

It is a bit regrettable that only according to the current performance in the first half of the year, the high probability can not give an affirmative answer.

Because, limited by the intermittent supply chain, NIO Inc. delivered only 25768 new cars in the first quarter. It is also an indisputable fact that the freshness and attractiveness of "866" for end-users is weakening.

More anxiously, with the only factory shutting down for several days this month and Shanghai, the absolute market segment, still in a quiet period, delivery performance throughout the second quarter is also not optimistic.

At the same time, the postponement of the Beijing auto show delayed the launch of the first SUV ES7 from the NT2 platform to the end of May, along with the upgrade of smart cockpit hardware.

To sum up, although I don't want to admit it, if we split this year into two, for NIO Inc., the first half of what should have been a good warm-up and laid a solid foundation ended up more helplessly.

In the second half of the journey, when everything gradually recovers, this new power will really start the battle in the sense of building a car. So next, I would like to talk about the three biggest expectations in my heart, or the things that NIO Inc. urgently needs to correct his name.

For one thing, ET5 must become a "popular style".

When Tesla, Inc. 's domestic Model 3 was officially offline at its Shanghai factory on January 7, 2020, apart from Musk, what was impressive was the view that many people believed in: its arrival will mercilessly crush all domestic pure electric cars of the same class. Under the suffocating Red Sea, it would be wiser to make a breakthrough with the help of the SUV plate.

But it turns out that what the former really subverts is the traditional fuel car market occupied by Passat, Camry and Accord. When Model 3 killed all directions, XPeng Inc. P7 and BYD Han were able to harvest a considerable market share.

So for NIO Inc., since ET5 has come too late, under the background that product power and performance-to-price ratio are well balanced, not losing or even partially surpassing the first three, there is no reason not to give a similar report card, and the monthly delivery volume of more than 10,000 seems to be the "passing line" to measure its performance.

Looking to a deeper level, compared with other competitors, NIO Inc. has long had the advantages of brand premium and average price, but the lack of a real sense of "popular style" must also be admitted.

Second, NAD must fight a "turnaround".

For a long time, limited by the hardware constraints of the current "866" driving assistance, NIO Inc. NOP in the actual experience side, even since its launch more than a year ago, the corresponding software algorithm team has tried their best to iteratively upgrade through OTA to optimize their corresponding upper limit and ability to deal with complex scenes, but horizontal comparison is currently leading the industry, and XPeng Inc. NGP and Tesla, Inc. NOA are also making continuous progress. Can still feel certain flaws and gaps.

So with the birth of the three new cars from the NT2 platform, in the successful possession of ultra-sensitive system Aquila and supercomputing platform Adam blessing, respectively matching 33 high-performance sensing hardware, four pieces of NVIDIA Corp Orin chips with a total computing power of 1016 TOPS, to make up for the once-criticized "deficiency", there is no reason not to fight a complete "turnaround" through the NAD self-driving assistant system launched in the fourth quarter of this year.

At that time, XPeng Inc. city NGP and Tesla, Inc. FSD, will also be their strongest competitors.

Third, the exchange power station must be built to Wolf Castle.

In fact, as early as 2021 NIO Day, when Li Bin announced this year's European expansion plans for several countries, including Germany, it was already very much expected.

After all, there is no need to say much about the significance and importance of entering the "stronghold" of Volkswagen and BBA as a Chinese intelligent electric car company.

At the same time, just a few days ago, there were foreign media reports that NIO Inc. was also looking for interested car companies in Europe, and did not rule out the possibility of opening up the export of power exchange patents.

As a result, we can't help sighing that, for a long time in the past, more joint venture brands entered the country with a superior attitude and chose to exchange technology for the market, then now, with the oncoming tide of electrification, independent brands also have the hard-won opportunity to go abroad to their territory to do similar things.

Now, a second-generation power station and Wolfsburg, which represents German brand totems, can be rooted in the same land, which can prove a lot of things. Therefore, what NIO Inc. needs to do is to ensure that the whole process of "going to sea" is foolproof.

As for the end of the article, I would like to emphasize that it is not limited to NIO Inc., several leading new forces have climbed out of the life-and-death situation in 2019, slowly return to the right track in 2020, and then reap a huge bloom in 2021.

At the moment, in the face of a new round of "gloom", although the pace of development has been forced to slow down, it is hard to hide the anxiety, but because there is more and more abundant "food" in hand, the darkness is after all short-lived and not as terrible as it used to be.

In short, we should still fully believe that after the mud, it is a smooth road.

Responsible Editor: Li Siyang