After several rumors, a letter to the users confirmed the “bankruptcy” rumor.
The product, which was supposed to be delivered in December, has now turned into a small car model.
For consumers, it is only reasonable and legal to refund the deposit within 48 hours. Giving away a car model can be considered a compensation for their expectation. What’s more, Souyue also prepared a 200 yuan Starbucks consumption card, allowing you and your friends to elegantly chat about this interesting but soon-to-be-closed company.
Let’s get to know him again
Li Yinan’s entrepreneurship and experience have always been mythologized by the media. I do not deny that he has some talents that are commonly recognized, but the experience of the era is that both losers and winners are often too authoritarian.
We will discuss the authoritarian part later. In the first half of this section, I would like to review with you who exactly is Li Yinan, known as the “Huawei Prince”, and what are his myths.
On the market, the most widely circulated photos of Li Yinan should be the one with a smiling face and the one with glasses and a gentle look.
In fact, Li Yinan, who was born in 1970 in Changsha, Hunan, is now 52 years old, only one year younger than Xiaomi’s Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong.
He was admitted to the Junior Class of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (now Huazhong University of Science and Technology) at the age of 15, and in terms of traditional learning ability in China, he should be considered more talented than ordinary people.
He graduated with a master’s degree in Optical Engineering in June 1993. However, in the second year of his postgraduate studies, he entered Huawei for an internship and then embarked on a rapid promotion process that all working people envy.
Due to his professional ability, he was appreciated by Ren Zhengfei and quickly promoted to an engineer within a few days. A few weeks later, he overcame technical difficulties and was promoted to a senior engineer. Half a year later, he was promoted to the deputy general manager of the central research department due to his outstanding work.
Two years later, Huawei’s C&C08 digital program-controlled switch with 100,000 ports was successfully developed, which was of great significance to Huawei’s communication empire and laid the foundation for it.According to reports, Ren Zhengfei even borrowed high-interest loans and was determined to create this thing. Li Yinuo was appointed to oversee the team who worked for nearly half a year in a rundown building in Shenzhen’s Bao’an Hao Ye Village until they finally succeeded.
Shortly thereafter, the national Village-to-Village Connectivity program was proposed and orders began to soar.
Li Yinuo made phased contributions to the development of this equipment and was subsequently promoted to CEO of Huawei’s Central Research Department and Huawei’s Chief Engineer. Four years later, Li became Huawei’s Vice President.
It should be emphasized here that Li Yinuo was Huawei’s youngest Vice President, only 27 years old at the time, hence the nickname “Huawei Crown Prince” or “Huawei Prince”.
Around 2000, Huawei began to encourage internal executives to start independent businesses.
As a Huawei “old-timer,” Li Yinuo responded by setting up “Gateway Technologies,” initially simply as an agent for Huawei’s communication products such as routers. Gateway Technologies was virtually identical to Huawei in terms of personnel, organizational structure, and even products, hence it was also known as “Little Huawei.”
In 2001, Li Yinuo officially left Huawei and Gateway Technologies, and began releasing communication products that were in direct competition with Huawei. At this point, the relationship between Ren Zhengfei and Li Yinuo suffered a crack.
Under Li Yinuo’s leadership, Gateway Technologies grew rapidly, achieving sales of 1 billion yuan in 2003. Meanwhile, Huawei’s “Anti-Gateway Office” was officially established.
In 2005, Gateway Networks was acquired by Huawei, and Li Yinuo returned to Huawei as its Chief Telecommunications Scientist. However, he did not enter the core decision-making level of Huawei, which laid the groundwork for his eventual departure from Huawei.
In 2008, Li Yinuo left Huawei to join Baidu, and became its CTO, leading projects such as “Aladdin.”
In 2010, Li Yinuo joined 12580 Infinite Information, a company owned by China Mobile, and became its CEO.
In 2011, Li Yinuo became a partner at GSR Ventures, but his investment in Huazhong CNC was deemed insider trading, and he was ultimately sentenced to prison.
In 2014, Li Yinuo founded Niu Electric Technology in the transportation and travel industry. However, shortly after, he was convicted and sentenced to prison. This had nothing to do with Huawei’s suppression, and many media reports were illogical speculations.
The clue about Li Yinuo’s car-making aspirations can be traced back to 2014 when, eight years ago, he had an idea to create a car, and estimated that $3 billion could be raised to complete the project.From November 2018, Niu Chuangxin Energy started its preparation for car manufacturing. On December 15th in the following year, it officially announced its English name “NIUTRON” and Chinese brand “自游家” (meaning “self-exploring home”) and released its first product, the high-end SUV NV under the 自游家 brand. The vehicle is scheduled to be launched and available for pre-order in the first half of 2022, with deliveries beginning in September of the same year (delayed until December).
Previously, I reported on this story: Li Yinan’s Car Manufacturing Diary: No Storytelling, Delivery Next Year
What has been developed?
On October 8th, 2022, the 自游家 NV was officially announced, including both extended-range and pure electric versions, with prices ranging from 278,800 to 318,800 yuan.
Previously, we reported on this development: Starting at ¥288,800 for the extended-range version and ¥278,800-318,800 for the pure electric version! 自游家 NV officially launched!
The main parameters and features of the vehicle are as follows:
- Measuring 4,915 mm in length, 1,962 mm in width, and 1,755 mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,910 mm;
- The CLTC extended-range version has a total range of 1,257 km, and the pure electric version has a range of 150 km;
- The pure electric long-range CLTC version has a range of 560 km, and the standard range CLTC version has a range of 440 km;
- All versions are equipped with an intelligent dual-motor four-wheel drive system, with 0-100 km/h acceleration in 5.9 s;
- The extended-range version uses a 1.5T four-cylinder five-in-one range extender and can use gasoline of no less than 92 octane;
- The extended-range version has a maximum motor power of 270 kW and a maximum torque of 526 N·m;
- The pure electric version has a maximum motor power of 280 kW and a maximum torque of 452 N·m.- Trunk capacity is 788 L, and the rear folding capacity reaches 1,730 L. The pure electric version has an 80 L front trunk.
- The seat ventilation and heating are standard for the whole car, while the front seats are equipped with massage function. The steering wheel is heated, and the front passenger seat can be folded down to 167 degrees, and the leg rest can be flattened.
- The car interface adopts Smart Stacks building block interactive design. NIUTRON OS is displayed on the screen as CarPlay. Control applications run independently and do not interfere with each other.
- 220V external power outlet is standard for the entire series. It supports 3.3 kW outdoor power supply and 6 kW emergency power supply.
- Both front and rear double-layer laminated glass are standard, and the pure electric models are equipped with a heat pump air conditioning system.
We also have experience with this car in static form: What’s different about this “Big Bull”? | ZYGOS NV Static Experience
Here, I only express my personal feelings. From the product positioning, ZYGOS NV targets the niche market of people who love camping.
In recent years, outdoor camping has become popular. Why is it considered a niche market?
Putting aside the mask situation, camping is still an interesting trend for people, but the main function of vehicles is still daily commuting and daily usability, including space, endurance, and intelligent performance.
Ironically, in these aspects, ZYGOS NV cannot keep up with the new forces that iterate rapidly nowadays, and even their first-generation products are not as good as theirs.
The insistence on this niche positioning, as well as the lag in the main aspects, are related to the “autocracy” I wrote about in the previous section.
Autocracy and professionalism helped Li Yinan achieve great success in the first half of his life. However, the insistence and stubbornness on cars are reflected in their products that have not yet been mass-produced.
I still look forward to the market verification of my “autocracy” judgment after this car is mass-produced, but for now, it seems that ZYGOS is quietly withdrawing.## Why did Xiaoyoujia fail?
Even though there is a market for niche products, they do not always succeed. It is not enough to have money and a factory to produce cars in China, as qualification is required to manufacture vehicles, which is the last bottleneck to mass production.
New domestic players in the automobile industry can obtain a car manufacturing qualification via two routes: subcontracting, such as Nio and JAC, or purchasing an existing one. In the past, Xiaoyoujia aimed to purchase Lifan’s qualification.
Unfortunately, Xiaoyoujia made a poor choice in teaming up with another company that also lacked a production qualification- Bigo or Zotye, a subsidiary of Zhongtai. Not only did Zotye make Porsche designers blush, but it was also the root of Xiaoyoujia’s demise.
Zotye, originally named Jiangsu Jintan Changdang Lake New Energy Technology Co., Ltd, was established in December 2014. In July 2018, Wu Xia, the son of Wu Jianzhong, then-chairman of Zotye Automobile, took over Zotye’s bases in Jintan and Fuzhou, renamed it to Zotye Automotive Co., and became a subsidiary of Zotye. However, at that time, Zotye did not have a manufacturing qualification.
In the same year, Zotye Automotive acquired Jiangxi Jiangling Motors Group Light Vehicle Co., Ltd and obtained a manufacturing qualification for traditional and new energy vehicles.
At the beginning, it seemed like Xiaoyoujia had a fair shot. However, it soon encountered a crisis when its financial chain was broken in early 2020. In April 2021, it entered into bankruptcy restructuring proceedings, and its debts are rumored to be nearly 10 billion yuan.
At this point, there was still hope as long as Xiaoyoujia paid the money so that Zotye could produce cars for them. However, there were already reports in 2019 that Zotye Automotive had stopped production. In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a statement requiring new energy vehicle enterprises that had been idle for more than 24 months to undergo MIIT’s review before restarting production. Enterprises that cannot maintain the access prerequisites or have already gone bankrupt may have their qualification revoked.
From today’s perspective, Zotye undoubtedly has not undergone the review and does not have a production qualification. Xiaoyoujia was most likely unaware of this, as it continued to expand its stores aggressively in the past few months.Who should take the blame for this? I won’t say more, we all know it.
Closing Words
What is dignity?
Returning the deposit to consumers is the right thing to do.
In the rumors of the past few days, Youaijia is also going to compensate employees with N+1 for termination.
In an interview in May of this year, a media outlet asked what to do if you can’t stick with it. Li Yinan said:
If you can’t go on, you can’t go on. It will definitely be difficult, you can only go home and cry, what else can you do? Suicide? This is not the first time I have experienced a company going bankrupt. But at least we have to leave the last bit of money, pay severance pay, N+1, and meet legal requirements. If I can’t make any more money, I can just stop. I will pay the suppliers back first.
That’s dignity.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.