AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/17 Report--

Do you still remember Lei Jun, who shouted in March last year: "Bet all your reputation and fight for Xiaomi cars"? On the evening of May 16, Xiaomi Chairman and CEO Lei Jun posted on his personal micro blog: "In addition to being an IT blogger, I am also preparing to be a car blogger in my spare time." When talking about the reasons why I am a car blogger in my spare time, Lei Jun said: "Because I like it!" There are also many fans among my fans, so we have topics to talk about." In addition, it is understood that Lei Jun has begun to pay attention to car test drive, modification, racing, car-related movies and books and other topics.

In fact, Lei Jun will put forward spare time to be a car blogger, in fact, it is not an accident, although as a car blogger, Lei Jun has just started, but for the automobile industry, as early as before, Lei Jun had said that his choice to build a car is due to a certain understanding of the automobile industry. Lei Jun said he had a strong interest in electric vehicles since 2013, visited Tesla CEO Musk in Silicon Valley, and participated in nearly ten companies in the field of intelligent electric vehicles, so he chose to build cars. On October 19 last year, Lei Jun said bluntly on Xiaomi Investor Day: doing cars is not for "the limelight". At present, electric vehicles have been transformed from machinery industry to information industry, and some peers are already doing it. Xiaomi will be eliminated if it does not do it. Xiaomi, from smart phones to smart homes and smart offices, belongs to a fully intelligent ecosystem. If it is well integrated with electric cars, it will have strong expandability.

Looking back on the progress of Xiaomi car building, although Xiaomi car officially entered the bureau to build cars for more than a year, but Xiaomi car building plan has been in full swing. On March 30,2021, Xiaomi Group announced at the press conference that it officially entered the field of car building and planned to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary responsible for intelligent electric vehicle business, with an initial investment of RMB 10 billion yuan and an estimated investment of USD 10 billion in the next 10 years. Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi Group, will also serve as CEO of intelligent electric vehicle business. At the same time, Lei Jun promised: "I decided to personally lead the team, this will be the last major entrepreneurial project in my life, I am willing to bet all the accumulated achievements in my life, bet all the reputation, fight for Xiaomi car!" In September 2021, Lei Jun said on Weibo that Xiaomi Automobile was officially registered. The company was named Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan. Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi, served as the legal representative. On October 19,2021, Lei Jun said on Xiaomi Investor Day that the progress of Xiaomi car building and team work far exceeded his expectations, and Xiaomi car is expected to be officially mass-produced in the first half of 2024. On November 27,2021, Xiaomi Automobile decided to settle down in Beijing Economic Development Zone to build factories and realize the annual output plan of 300,000 vehicles in stages, among which the production capacity of Phase I and Phase II is 150,000 vehicles respectively. At present, Xiaomi car is still in constant layout.

As we all know, car building is an industry with high capital threshold and very "burning money". Previously, Li Bin, founder of NIO, once said: "The capital threshold for car building needs to be reserved. A few years ago, I said 20 billion yuan. Now, if there is no 40 billion yuan, it may not be able to do it. It is not that there is no opportunity (less than 40 billion yuan), but the risk will be much higher." And for Xiaomi car, BYD chairman Wang Chuanfu also publicly ridiculed: "Now there are not many enterprises with the advantage of car building, Lei always invested 100 billion yuan, may lose money and waste time."

However, in spite of this, Lei Jun still has great confidence in Xiaomi's car building, even bluntly: "We can afford the measures that may be encountered on the road to build a car." According to relevant reports, Lei Jun once said at an internal meeting that Xiaomi's first car sales will reach 100,000 units in the first year, and the pace of pushing a new car every year for the next three years will be maintained, with a total sales volume of one million. What is the concept of sales reaching 100,000 units? Here, we may take the delivery data of the new domestic car-making force brand "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021 as an example. The data shows that in 2021, the delivery volume of Xiaopeng cars was 98155, becoming the annual delivery sales champion of the new force brands. Wei Lai cars and ideal cars delivered 91429 and 90491 respectively. The delivery volume of the three new force brands increased significantly compared with 2020, but none of them exceeded the threshold of 100,000 vehicles. The first year of Xiaomi's first car will reach 100,000, which is almost the result of three years of cultivation by the current new car company. Of course, finally Xiaomi car sales in the first year can reach 100,000, at present still need more time to verify, after all, Xiaomi car will not be officially mass production until the first half of 2024, the market is changing rapidly, no one can predict what kind of changes will occur in the market in 2024.

On March 22, Xiaomi Group released its annual performance for 2021. According to the data, Xiaomi Group's total revenue in 2021 was RMB 328.3 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 33.5%, and the adjusted net profit was RMB 22 billion, with a year-on-year growth of 69.5%. In addition, since the announcement of the vehicle-building plan in March 2021, Xiaomi intelligent electric vehicle business has made more progress than expected. Up to now, the R & D team of automobile business has exceeded 1000 people. In the future, Xiaomi will continue to expand R & D in core fields such as autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit. It is expected that it will be officially mass-produced in the first half of 2024.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat