If you don't want to suffer for a lifetime, you have to suffer for a while.
Recently, NIO has made a lot of moves. First, the price of the model, the cancellation of the free battery replacement rights, layoffs, and then the opening of battery swaps, the trial of the dealer model, and the latest news to obtain independent car manufacturing qualifications.
Behind these actions, ** Yu Weilai's anxiety about future survival. Compared with Ideal and Xiaopeng Motors, NIO's performance in sales has lagged behind significantly, and its financial performance is also unsatisfactory.
In April this year, Li Bin, founder and chairman of NIO, said at a face-to-face event in Beijing that the fortune in the first half of 2023 will determine the company's medium-term direction, and if the work is not effective, 2024 may become 2019 again.
It's just that perhaps Li Bin didn't expect that although NIO began to grow against the trend in the middle of the year, the magnitude of its growth still could not resolve the crisis that went back to 2019.
However, time waits for no one, and as the competition in the industry becomes more and more hot, NIO can no longer hesitate to get the ticket for the next few years.
How can I catch up?Li Bin's words in a recent internal letter may be the answer: "If you want to qualify for the finals, you must further improve the efficiency of execution and ensure that there are sufficient resources for key businesses." ”
NIO.
NIO has not yet waited for the outbreak period
This year, NIO has been stuck in a trough for a while.
In March this year, NIO delivered 10,378 new vehicles, and sales in the first quarter were 31,041 units, a year-on-year increase of 205%。
Regarding the average monthly performance of only 10,000 vehicles, Li Bin at that time joked: "Assuming that the sales volume is still 10,000 units per month, Qin Lihong and I (co-founder and president of Weilai) will have to look for jobs." ”
Although this is Li Bin's self-deprecation, the situation is indeed not optimistic. In the first quarter financial report, NIO's revenue was 1067.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 77%, down 335%；Net loss of 47400 million yuan, an increase of 165 year-on-year9%。The gross profit, gross profit margin, and vehicle gross profit margin are all the lowest in the past three years.
In the second quarter, NIO's monthly sales were even less than 10,000 units. In April, NIO's sales fell below the 10,000 mark, with only 6,658 units, down 35% month-on-month8%。On the contrary, Ideal delivered a total of 25,681 new cars in April, setting a new record for monthly delivery.
And in May, NIO's sales continued**, with only 6,155 units delivered, and deliveries were below 7,000 units for two consecutive months.
In June, NIO's sales finally stopped falling, and its monthly sales returned to 10,000 units, reaching 10,707 units.
However, NIO is obviously not out of the crisis, and in the first half of this year, NIO lost more than 10 billion yuan, becoming the largest loss-making car company in China.
According to Weilai's semi-annual report, in the first half of this year, Weilai's revenue was 194500 million yuan, down 3 percent year-on-year74%, with a net loss of 1092.6 billion yuan, an increase of 139 percent year-on-year1%。
Li Bin had no choice but to say that the previously set node of breaking even in the fourth quarter of this year will definitely be pushed back from the current situation, hoping that it will not exceed one year.
However, for the planning for the second half of this year, Li Bin still bluntly said, "I am confident that the sales volume will achieve 20,000 units per month in the second half of the year." In July this year, NIO's deliveries hit a record high of 2050,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 1036%。Since then, however, NIO has not touched the sales volume of 20,000 units. In the first 11 months of this year, NIO delivered a total of 14 new vehicles20,000 vehicles, distance 24The annual target of 50,000 units is still far away.
On the contrary, the sales performance of Ideal, Xpeng, Wenjie and Leap, which are also new forces in car manufacturing, is even better.
In October and November this year, Li Auto delivered more than 40,000 vehicles for two consecutive monthsAnd the sales of Xpeng Motors have also exceeded 20,000 units for two consecutive monthsWith Huawei's energy, the sales volume of Wenjie is also rising rapidly, and the sales volume reached 1880,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 12787%；It was followed by Leap, with sales of 1850,000 units, a 130% y/y increase. So far, NIO's delivery volume has fallen to the fifth place among the new car-making forces.
On December 5, the third quarterly report released by NIO showed that NIO's net loss was 455.7 billion yuan, an increase of 10 percent over the same period last year8%, but the good news is that it was 60 percent in the second quarter of this yearThe loss of $5.6 billion narrowed significantly.
NIO.
You can't make money, you can only save money
Recently, some institutions have counted NIO's losses from 2018 to the first half of 2023, and found that in the past five and a half years, the cumulative loss has been 76.4 billion. If you add the loss in the third quarter, the total has reached 80.9 billion yuan, of which in the first half of 2023, the net loss has exceeded 10 billion, more than double the loss of 4.5 billion yuan in the first half of 2022.
In the face of widening losses, NIO tried to increase sales to spread the losses, but it is clear that despite the use of price cuts and new car launches, NIO's sales have been tepid. On the contrary, its R&D expenses and operating costs are rising.
According to the financial report, in the third quarter of this year, NIO spent 241 in three aspects: cost of sales, R&D investment, and selling, general and administrative expenses900 million yuan. Among them, the cost of sales and the two major expenses of selling, general and administrative expenses increased unabated year-on-year. R&D investment increased by 3 percent year-on-year2%, down 91%。
In response to the year-on-year increase in cost of sales, NIO said that it was mainly due to the increase in vehicle deliveries, the provision of energy solutions, the sales of used cars and the sales of accessories, which was partially offset by the decrease in the unit cost of batteries.
In addition, NIO's total R&D investment in the first three quarters has reached 945.9 billion yuan, far exceeding the R&D investment of many new power car companies. However, for high-investment R&D, Li Bin believes that "this R&D investment is within the tolerance range of NIO, and it is also the basic guarantee for us to participate in the increasingly fierce competition of smart electric vehicles in the next stage." ”
However, the results are obvious, and the cash flow in the hands of NIO is difficult to support the continuous high investment, so there are many doubts in the industry: can NIO survive next year with such losses?
Faced with doubts, Qin Lihong personally retorted, "NIO will not go out of business, and there is absolutely no possibility of bankruptcy." ”
Still, judging from NIO's recent actions, it is also trying to save money to cope with the next competition.
On November 3, Li Bin issued an all-staff letter to NIO employees, emphasizing that in the past two weeks, NIO has formulated a specific plan for organizational and business optimization according to business priorities, and confirmed that it will reduce the number of positions by about 10%.
It is worth mentioning that the day before the release of the all-staff letter, in response to the report on the layoffs of Weilai, Weilai also refuted the rumors.
In addition to layoffs, on November 4, Yi Gaitian, CEO of NIO in the United States, revealed that due to the high cost, NIO, which originally planned to consider building factories in three states in the United States, will abandon building factories in the United States and continue to produce in China and then export to the United States.
In order to save money, NIO has also begun to experiment with the dealer model. On November 15, it was reported that after Xiaopeng Motors and Leapmotor, NIO and its sub-brand "Alps" recruited dealers nationwide.
At the end of last month, NIO offered the biggest money-saving magic weapon - "open battery swap".
On November 21 and 29, NIO signed cooperation agreements with Changan and Geely on battery swap business, both of which aim to promote cooperation in the establishment of battery swap standards, the construction and sharing of battery swap networks, the research and development of battery swap models, and the establishment of an efficient battery asset management mechanism.
Li Bin also previously revealed that he will discuss cooperation with 4-5 car companies in the future. This also means that more car companies will join NIO's battery swap circle of friends in the future.
This is undoubtedly good news for NIO, which continues to lose money. You must know that NIO's battery swap business has been in a state of loss for a long time. According to the data revealed by Shen Fei, senior vice president of NIO, "the break-even line of NIO battery swap stations is about 50 to 60 orders a day, and the current average daily order volume of NIO battery swap stations is 35 to 36 orders, and more car brands need to join to reduce losses." ”
NIO.
High-end and alive, NIO is desperately looking for a balance
As we all know, high-end services have always been the foundation of NIO's life, but with the introduction of the above-mentioned money-saving schemes, this will inevitably affect its high-end services.
Both want high-end and want to survive, how can NIO find a balance between the two?To this end, NIO has made many efforts.
On the one hand, NIO has invested in many projects. At NIO's Innovation and Technology Day, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, presented the "NIO Technology Full Stack", which consists of 12 technology stacks, including chips and on-board intelligent hardware, battery systems, electric drive systems, vehicle engineering, operating systems, mobile Internet, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, smart energy, intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and global digital operations.
In addition, NIO is involved in industries such as battery swapping, investment in power battery companies, and the insurance industry.
All in all, NIO's purpose is to create an "ecological chain", and at the same time, it will also make consumers feel the high-end manufacturing of NIO. That's where BYD and Tesla succeed.
However, Weilai's many projects have also caught it in the whirlpool of high investment, as mentioned above, Weilai's R&D investment in the first half of this year has exceeded the sum of the R&D investment of Ideal and Xpeng Motors.
The balance that NIO has found is to downsize some projects or postpone project investment.
In order to maintain the progress of multiple projects, NIO increased the number of employees to 270,000 people, which is much higher than the number of employees of Li and Xpeng Motors. According to the layoff plan, NIO will reduce the number of positions by about 10%, which is expected to reduce employee compensation expenses by 1.1 billion yuan based on the average salary of NIO.
Previously, a ** quoted NIO insiders as saying that some non-critical businesses will have a large proportion of layoffs, involving batteries, chips, and mobile phone departments.
At present, the battery department has been the first to lay off employees, according to **, the NIO battery project is currently adjusting and optimizing the positions, mainly involving mass production and industrialization of employees.
It is understood that as early as June 2022, Li Bin revealed that NIO had set up a battery R&D team of more than 400 people, involving full-stack links such as battery cells, battery materials, and battery packs. The battery team mainly develops three types of batteries: lithium manganese iron phosphate batteries, 46 series batteries, and 150-degree batteries. As a power battery known for its high performance, the 46 series battery is in line with NIO's high-end brand positioning, and if it can be successfully launched, it will undoubtedly improve the brand's image. Unfortunately, all three batteries, including the 46 series, have been postponed.
However, in the internal letter, Li Bin also emphasized the "three guarantees": first, to ensure long-term investment in core key technologies, and to maintain the leading edge of technology and products;Second, to ensure that the sales and service capabilities can cope with the fierce market competition;3. Ensure that 9 core products of 3 brands are listed as scheduled.
This means that NIO will continue to invest in key projects to maintain its competitiveness and maintain its high-end image.
In addition to high R&D investment, NIO also uses projects to maintain its high-end image, such as free battery swaps and the construction of NIO houses, mainly to provide exclusive high-end services to NIO users. However, with the cancellation of free battery swap rights, the opening of battery swaps and the choice of a test dealer model, will this high-end service affect the user experience?
Obviously, NIO is also trying to avoid this problem. It is understood that in the dealer model of NIO testing the waters, the cooperation method of NIO experience stores is only site rental, the sales team is still controlled by NIO itself, and the after-sales maintenance service is authorized by dealers. And it is understood that Xpeng, Tesla, Zeekr, etc. are interested in trying this model.
In terms of battery swapping, Li Bin emphasized: "Next, we will continue to promote the construction of an exclusive battery swap network for NIO users, continue to improve the power supply experience of NIO users, and will work with partners to start the construction of a battery swap network for multi-brand sharing." ”
In addition, the latest news came out that NIO may have obtained independent production qualifications. In the eyes of the industry, if the production qualification is obtained, NIO will no longer be "controlled by others", which will greatly promote its independent development, and there will be no need to post the car tail label with the words "JAC" in the future.
At this point, NIO's reflection has gradually become clear. Closed down, no matter how much you do, you can only become someone else's wedding dress, and if you want to live, you must not only give up your subordinates, but also protect your inside.