Ding Lei, founder and chairman of Human Horizons.
I saw him rise up a tall building, I watched him feast guests, and I saw his building collapse."
Seven years ago, when the LeTV empire collapsed and the auto business ended dismally, when Jia Yueting gave up everything and went to the United States alone, people often lamented the collapse of LeTV cars and Jia Yueting's unrealistic dream of building a car.
Today, FF founded by Jia Yueting has been resurrected in stages through backdoor listing, but Gaohe Automobile, which has a chaotic relationship with FF91, has fallen into a huge life and death crisis.
On the first day after the start of the Spring Festival in the Year of the Dragon, Gaohe Automobile rushed to the hot search due to the news of "6 months of shutdown and shutdown", this new power brand has been reported several times in the past year, and the news of shutdown, reduction of staff and salary cuts has been reported several times, until the negative news has completely broken out in recent days.
The company did not notify, everyone took the news as a notice, and no one came to work in the company today", an employee of Gaohe Automobile's Shanghai R&D Center told the company, "The company has not had any official explanation and explanation until now, and everyone is at a loss."
According to the relevant **, the workshop is currently empty, no workers come to work, and the machine is also in a state of shutdown.
This panic and anxiety have also been transmitted to stores around the country, a retail store employee revealed to the titanium **app, "because of the shutdown of the factory, it is now impossible to continue to buy a car, for the owner of the car that has been booked, the deposit of 5000 yuan will be returned, and the company will adjust the retail structure, most of the stores will be withdrawn, only the delivery center and after-sales service will be retained", the words reveal the regret for this brand.
Even, some employees within Gaohe have also begun to initiate job search information in the circle of friends. When the company asked him "whether he had suffered layoffs", the internal employee denied the layoffs, and only expressed that he was seriously looking for a job.
However, the information from all directions has confirmed the fact that Gaohe Automobile has declined, shopping malls such as battlefields, the first second is still lively and jubilant, the next second has been a door, although such a bridge we have seen more than once in the new energy vehicle industry, but this sudden shutdown of production, for the employees of Gaohe Automobile and the existing owners and users, it does not seem so decent.
When Gaohe Automobile was established, it can be said that the time and place were favorable, and the senior management of the founding team generally had the background of traditional car companies, and there were also big financiers and state-owned assets behind it, so it can be said that it was in place in many aspects such as R&D, first-class chain, and resources.
Hiphi X's annual deliveries were among the best in the field of pure electric vehicles, and they often dominated the list of pure electric vehicle sales champions of more than 500,000 yuan, so why was Gaohe Automobile, which was once widely favored by the outside world, fall to the point of shutdown, and which step did it go wrong?
Founded in 2017, the founder and chairman of the board of directors is Ding Lei, who is different from the helmsman of the new power brand we are familiar with, Ding Lei has not been active in the public eye like Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng.
Since graduating from the Department of Physics of Fudan University in 1988, Ding Lei has been working in the SAIC Volkswagen system, from the earliest engineer, head of the quality team, executive director of the purchasing department and other positions, until he has become the general manager of Shanghai General Motors and the vice president of SAIC Motor Group.
Until the beginning of 2011, Ding Lei changed from business to politics and became the head of Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Management Committee, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech is a first-class directly affiliated enterprise, and Ding Lei's transfer has also risen one level at the administrative level, from the person in charge of the enterprise to the first administrative post, thus opening the road to politics.
In August 2013, Ding Lei was appointed as the deputy head of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, and concurrently served as the director of the Management Committee of Zhangjiang Park, with jurisdiction over the Economic and Information Commission, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, the Science and Technology Commission, Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Jinqiao Economic Development Zone, etc. During his tenure, he not only participated in the construction of China's first free trade zone, but also led the introduction of Tesla in Shanghai.
In July 2015, Ding Lei resigned, and returned to the business world from **, and what moved him was the founder of LETV who was suffocated by his dreams, Jia Yueting, after joining LETV Automobile, Ding Lei served as the co-founder of LETV Super Automobile, global vice chairman and CEO of China and Asia Pacific, and became the core key figure of LETV Auto at that time. Following Ding Lei's pace, Fu Zhenxing, chief engineer of electric vehicle R&D, Zhang Hailiang, vice president, and Niu Shengfu, head of R&D of SAIC Volkswagen, also joined LeTV one after another.
Everyone knows the ending later, after the rout of LeTV across the board, Ding Lei is also looking for a new way out, so he has Gaohe Automobile.
Ding Lei has more than 20 years of experience in the automotive industry, starting from the grassroots little by little, in research and development, manufacturing, procurement, strategy, international cooperation and other key links, have a deep industrial accumulation and operation management experience, although not as responsive as Lei Jun made a car, but whether it is resources, identity or status, Ding Lei's appeal in the automotive industry is not smaller than that of any new force at the helm.
It is precisely because of this that Ding Lei was able to quickly set up a new team after getting rid of the LeTV quagmire, and the core team of Human Horizons at the beginning, including Chen Weixu, who had worked for Ford and GM, Murphy, who had participated in the creation of the joint venture SAIC-GM, and Wei Yanqin, who had worked for SAIC and BAIC, etc., many of whom were senior automotive veterans with more than 20 years of experience, who were born from old car companies, embraced the most cutting-edge ideas, and tried to create a new luxury brand with the wave of intelligence and electrification.
According to people familiar with the matter, the titanium ** app,After parting ways with LETV Automobile, Ding Lei got a full set of design data for FF91, so there was a fact that the appearance of Hiphi X, Gaohe's first car, was very close to FF91Looking back at this point in time,FF91The overall design concept was still quite avant-garde a few years ago,Its design has also been praised by Li Xiang,It's just that LETV Automobile failed to complete the mass production that year,The next step in Ding Lei's super execution has been implemented。
Making cars is an extremely money-burning business, Li Bin once said that to become a competitive and sustainable new car company, at least 40 billion yuan of capital reserves are needed, Lei Jun is also ready to invest 10 billion US dollars in high-profile car manufacturing, Ding Lei's first priority is to find money, the first olive branch is Ding Lei's dealer brother who fought the world together during his tenure at SAIC.
Through the equity infographic of Human Horizons Holdings, it can be found that two of them account for a total of 30%, and the joint shareholding is second only to the founder Ding Lei, these two people are Li Guanbin and Li Guanwen, their father Li Xuhua, is the chairman of Shenzhen Manjinghua Investment Group, which is a comprehensive investment group founded in 1998, according to the official website, it currently covers urban renewal, land development, cultural operation, asset operation management, and automobile five major business sectors.
Human Horizons invests in *** enterprise structure (**Tianyancha).
In the past 20 years, Man Jinghua has gained a firm foothold in Shenzhen with a lot of real estate projects, and is the largest landlord in Shenzhen.
After years of operation and development, Manjinghua has created an automobile dealer brand "Anhua Automobile", and formally established "Anhua Automobile Group" in 2015, which is 54% owned by Manjinghua, and currently has more than 30 automobile 4S stores, with authorized Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Roewe and other brands, is the earliest and largest dealer of SAIC in South China.
Combined with Ding Lei's experience in the SAIC system in the early years, it is not difficult to think of Man Jinghua's strong support for Human Horizons.
The essence of business is profit-seeking, and the support of Man Jinghua Zhenjin is naturally not just out of emotion, because Man Jinghua also sees the heat of new energy vehicles and wants to do something in the automotive field. In addition to Human Horizons, Man Jinghua also invested in Fangyuan Environmental Protection, a manufacturer of lithium batteries and cathode materials that went public in 2021.
Since Man Jinghua is not a listed company, there is no public information to disclose the cumulative investment amount of "Man Jinghua" in Human Horizons, but in terms of the speed of burning money to build cars, it is at least billions of scales, and the financing process of the new power car companies that have been listed as a reference, whether it is Xiaopeng, Ideal or Leap, the financing before listing has exceeded 10 billion yuan.
Some people in the industry believe that the titanium analysis is theThe downturn in the real estate industry in the past two years will more or less have an impact on the performance of Man Jinghua, as an important capital behind Human Horizons in the early days, this negative impact has also been invisibly transmitted.
In addition to the financial support from Man Jinghua, Ding Lei's political and business background also allowed Human Horizons to get support from Shanghai Bank of Communications in 2021, according to the cooperation agreement, Bank of Communications Shanghai Branch will provide 5 billion yuan of comprehensive credit support to Human Horizons and its affiliates within the group, which is also one of the few official financing information announced by Human Horizons at present.
New energy has been put forward to the height of the national strategy, in the new forces of the wave of car manufacturing swept the entire land of China in the past few years, excellent new energy car companies have always been an important target of local industrial investment, Gaohe Automobile behind the Human Horizons also has local support.
Three months after leaving LeTV, Ding Lei registered and established East Coast (Shanghai) Equity Investment Management *** hereinafter referred to as: East Coast), the company's main investment directions include new energy transportation products and technologies, intelligent driving and human-computer interaction technology.
The other investor of the East Coast is the actual controller behind the management of the investment rights of Shanghai Fengshi shares, Lu Changqi, the two are both Fudan alumni, Ding Lei is the executive vice president of the Shanghai Fudan University Alumni Association, and the main body of the company called the East Coast has also become an important carrier for the association between Gaohe Automobile and Yancheng state-owned assets in the future.
East Coast (Shanghai) Equity Investment Management***Equity Information (**Tianyancha).
In August 2017, Human Horizons Holdings was incorporated, with the support of Yancheng City and the organization of East Coast, Human Horizons Holdings, Jiangsu Yueda Automobile Group, hereinafter referred to as "Jiangsu Yueda"), Yancheng State-owned Assets Investment Group, signed a cooperation agreement and decided to establish Human Horizons (Jiangsu) Technology Company.
The actual controller of Jiangsu Yueda is Yancheng state-owned assets, just as Hefei is to Weilai, Yancheng state-owned assets also play a vital role in the development of Gaohe Automobile, Yancheng started by industry, is an important industrial city in the north wing of the Yangtze River Delta, new energy vehicles as an important industrial field, belongs to a global general economic pillar industry, if the development is good, it will become a key project to ensure local GDP, it has a very obvious driving role in the entire regional industrial chain, so it has always been the focus of investment promotion.
Shareholder structure of Human Horizons (Jiangsu) Technology Company (**Tianyancha).
In addition to the establishment of a joint venture company to support the support of real money, there are also various supports in policy, and even the most difficult new energy vehicle production qualification to obtain is also solved through Yueda Group.
In June 2019, Human Horizons signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Yueda Group and Dongfeng Yueda Kia, and Human Horizons leased the first factory of Dongfeng Yueda Kia Automobile Co., Ltd., which was used to produce Gaohe brand cars after transformation, which solved the problem of production qualification that is difficult to buy with money.
With this layer of local "bottom-up", it can be said that it has brought a strong confidence to the early development of Gaohe Automobile, and also brought more trust endorsement to Gaohe Automobile at the level of further financing.
At the beginning of 2022, Shenzhen Capital Group is also extremely optimistic about the future development of Gaohe Automobile, and has invested in its parent company, Human Horizons, the amount is unknown, Shenzhen Capital is the largest venture capital institution in China, with a total scale of 466.8 billion yuan, and has participated in the investment of many excellent enterprises such as CATL, Western Superconductor, Weichai Power, etc., and Human Horizons is also displayed on its official website as an excellent case.
The official website of Shenzhen Capital Group.
In addition to Yancheng state-owned assets, Human Horizons also signed a cooperation agreement with Qingdao City**, two Qingdao local state-owned enterprises Changyang Group and Qingdao City Investment, together with Laixi City** to provide more than 5 billion yuan of investment for Human Horizons to build cars, as well as the long-discontinued BAIC New Energy Laixi plant as a production base, at the same time, the Chinese headquarters, R&D center and sales head office of Gaohe Automobile have also officially settled in Qingdao.
To sum up,In the 2017-2020 stage, in addition to Man Jinghua, the investors are local state-owned assets represented by Jiangsu Yancheng ** and Yueda Group, and from 2021 to 2022, they are state-owned capital represented by Shenzhen Venture Capital and Qingdao State-owned Assets, so the background can be called luxurious.
It is with the blessing of the above capital that Gaohe Automobile, which has hardly been publicly financed since its establishment, has been able to operate step by step, and has launched three production cars in a few years, in chronological order: Hiphi X, Hiphi Z, Hiphi Y, the first two are positioned in the pure electric market with a price of more than 500,000 yuan, and the third car Hiphi Y is priced lower, with the goal of boosting sales.
Some industry insiders said in the analysis of the titanium app,The three cars launched by Gaohe are indeed innovative in terms of product ideas, even if it tells a story to the capital, at least this story is not the sameYou can say that many of its products have many functional gimmicks that are greater than practical, but Gaohe can never be classified as PPT car-making, it is like a clear stream, bringing some unique product ideas to the increasingly homogeneous new energy market, and even in a sense, the brand concept represented by Gaohe is also a milestone in China's history, and its past is worthy of being affirmed.
At that time of the new energy investment boom, standing on the tuyere could raise a sum of money to continue his life, but now that the wind has stopped, the capital environment no longer allows blood transfusion through financing, and the money that cannot be financed to continue his life is the test of the basic business operation logic. The industry insiders sighed to the titanium industry.
In the high-end market, Weilai has seized the label of BBA in the era of electric vehicles, before the advent of Weilai ET5, the average price of Weilai exceeded 400,000, and now with the continuous price reduction, Weilai mainly occupies the pure electric market in the range of 30-400,000, which is also the core range of traditional luxury products.
Three production models of Gaohe Automobile.
Compared with Weilai, Gaohe no longer has a first-mover advantage, and set the target at 60-800,000 in the early stage, directly benchmarking the ultra-luxury brand Porsche, in fact, the sales of Gaohe's first car are not bad, and the annual sales of 4,349 units have been achieved in 2022, exceeding the 3,292 units of Porsche Taycan, and it is still in the market of more than 500,000 units, which shows that its products and brands have experienced market verification.
But the crazy involution of China's new energy vehicle market, is seriously squeezing the living space of luxury brand electric vehicles, the first war has swept to various market segments, 300,000 new energy vehicles have been able to meet the psychological expectations of 90% of users, high-end models are becoming more and more difficult to sell, even BBA's pure electric vehicles do not hesitate to damage the brand to play six or seven discounts**, even Porsche's value preservation myth has been ruthlessly broken, a fledgling new brand Gaohe, why do you think your brand premium can reach the level of Porsche?
What's more, the high merger has not really established its core competitiveness, and the new energy brands with good growth momentum have almost maximized their advantages. When it comes to Huawei, everyone thinks of assisted driving and HarmonyOS car machine; When it comes to NIO, everyone thinks of service and battery swapping; When it comes to BYD, everyone thinks of blade batteries and Yi Sifang; When it comes to ideals, "daddy car" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
On the other hand, in addition to the crazy and cool way of opening the door, if you have not actually experienced its products, it is difficult for you to have a clearer label cognition of Gaohe, to put it bluntly, it has not established its own moat in the era of smart electric vehicles.
The automobile industry is a typical need to have a "long-termism" mentality to operate the industry, as a veteran of the automobile circle Ding Lei must know, even if he dares to sell more than 1 million now, behind it is also supported by BYD's 20 years of technology accumulation in the field of new energy, if the brand positioning and the current market situation deviate, it is easy for the company to fall into danger.
Under the century-old transformation node of the automotive industry, there are almost only two practical ways to survive, the first way is to enjoy the shade with your back against a big tree, you need to have a strong enough background background, preferably a leading car company, able to continuously transfuse the electrification business through continuous profits, and have enough patience to bear the current losses until the return to the normal marketization stage.
The second way is to establish their core advantages at the fastest speed with the help of capital, so that their products can be competitive in the market, achieve profitability through stable sales increase, and have the ability to self-hematopoiesis, so that they can have a chance to live.
Most of the new forces, including Gaohe, are in this way, but since 2021, after BYD's strong rise, the capital market has not been optimistic about the investment of new energy vehicle brands at all, and the new forces are only competing for self-hematopoietic ability.
When it comes to self-hematopoiesis, ideals can be described as exemplary. The current L7, L8, and L9 sequences are essentially the same car, but according to the space size and some configuration differences, three market segments are differentiated. It breaks the traditional car companies have always been conventionally distinguished by the difference in hardware specifications, the upper boundary and the lower boundary of the platform model in the user side of the difference perception is not so strong, more in the experience and demand is divided, and there will be L6 and other models next, will increase the scale by another order of magnitude.
Hiphi y
The HiPhi X and HiPhi Z are priced to determine that they will not be mass-market models, but the third car, the HiPhi Y, has such characteristics, and it is also the same platform as the HiPhi X and HiPhi Z.
The HiPhi Y is a high-volume model with a price range of 339—45.Between 90,000 yuan, the advantage is almost zero, there is no obvious hard injury from the product itself, and the first business is also a very mainstream manufacturer, but these cannot make up for the weakness of the overall operation of the brand, Hiphi Y has the best monthly sales of more than 1,000 units, if it can continue to stabilize sales, or appropriately take some way to exchange price for volume, it is able to ensure a certain cash flow to maintain normal operation.
It's just that the highly involuted Chinese auto market has not given it any chance, the time node of Hiphi Y launch is still too late, there are too many models of the same level to choose from on the market, and powerful players abound, aside from Tesla and BYD, such as the new force's Zhiji LS6 has achieved monthly sales of more than 10,000 at the highest time, and the highest monthly sales of the M7 have even exceeded 30,000.
Based on the products of Gaohe Automobile, it is generally believed in the industryIts defeat was somewhat predictable, as the decline in sales of the Hiphi Y had already begun to manifest itself, and Gao He no longer had enough ammunition to fight the war.
New energy car manufacturing, is a competition of thousands of horses across the single-plank bridge, Gaohe not only from the melee of the year, but also achieved the large-scale mass production of three models, which itself is already commendable.
Compared with Weimar, which left the market last year, the overall situation of Gaohe is actually much better, the brand level has the assets of high-end brands, the platform has a car manufacturing platform that has been able to build three production cars, although there are not many users, there are still certain users, such a company will not disappear overnight, and there are several ways to pull it out of the ICU room.
In June 2023, the Saudi Ministry of Investment and Human Horizons signed an agreement worth SAR 21 billion ($5.6 billion) to establish a joint venture to develop, manufacture and sell vehicles to promote electric vehicle manufacturing in Saudi ArabiaHowever, it turned out that the cooperation did not follow, and the funds did not actually arrive.
Minister of Mineral Resources Bandar Hulev visited Gaohe Automobile.
The next time, highDing Lei, the helmsman of He, is looking for "life money", but in combination with the current market investment environment, whether it is foreign capital or state-owned assets, they have become extremely cautious, and many institutions have closed the investment window for new energy brands of vehicles.
In contrast, the local state-owned assets to save the power may be greater, the Yancheng state-owned assets and Qingdao state-owned assets behind the high-end have injected painstaking efforts into the development of high-end automobiles, and paid money out of the policy, although it is an indisputable fact that the high-end shutdown is a fact, but as a community of interests, if the assets of the high-end automobile can be revitalized for its own benefit.
At that time, Weilai, which was on the verge of despair, was a strategic investor composed of a number of state-owned assets in Hefei raised up to 7 billion funds to pull Weilai back from the edge of the cliff, of course, state-owned assets also have corresponding conditions, including requiring Weilai to sell no less than 20,000 vehicles annually within 2 years, and submit an IPO within 48 months after receiving all investment, etc., which was also considered by the outside world to be a so-called gambling agreement at that time.
AbsolutelyThere is another possibility of saving Gaohe, which is to be acquired by other large automobile groups as a "high-end new energy sub-brand", and many ultra-luxury brands have historically been maintained by relying on the profitability of the group's volume productsThis seems to have become a law of survival for high-end brands, but this process requires the car company to endure long-term loneliness.
Whether it is a state-owned investment, or a large car company entering the game, or the two capital models joining forces, Gaohe has some possibilities to return. A person familiar with the matter told the titanium ** app, "There may be big capital in the future, or there may be large state-owned enterprises in the north to take over." ”
When LeTV's car fell,Ding Lei can also choose to retreat bravely,But this time,Ding Lei seems to have no way out,Gaohe Automobile and Human Horizons,It is likely to be the last entrepreneurship of this car veteran,As for whether his political and business background can rescue Gaohe Automobile from the brink of dying and struggling,3 months later or 6 months later,We may have a clear answer。
Today, the automotive industry has experienced a stage of ultra-high-speed growth, maybe it's time to face some hard days, into 2024, the competition will only be more cruel, perhaps this cruelty, itself is the norm of market-oriented competition.
The current market has become less and less tolerant of new EV manufacturers, and the core of the competition is the ability to resist risks. NIO, Li and Xpeng are seeking to go public to resist risks, and the strategic cooperation between Leap and Stellantis and Xpeng and Volkswagen is also resisting risks.
Only by trying to survive is the right solution, and as for which way to use, it is not a shame. During World War II, Lamborghini focused on tractors and Ferrari switched to aircraft engines, which did not prevent them from becoming a world-famous sports car brand.
Gaohe is not the first new power brand to face difficulties, and obviously it will not be the last, who will become the next new energy car company to leave, we don't know, but the problems faced by Gaohe and Weimar are enough to warn the players who are still on the table.
(This article was first published in Titanium**, written by Li Yupeng, edited by Zhang Min).