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Recently, there are media reports that Zhang Lei, vice president of digital cockpit and software development of Xilai Automobile, will resign at the end of the month. Zhang Lei's position in Weilai will be taken over by Wu Jie, former head of software systems, and will be in charge of system Application and Framework Department, forward-looking Intelligent Systems Department, Software quality Engineering Department, Navigation and location Services Department and other departments.

According to the data: Zhang Lei joined Weilai Motor in September 2019 to take over the previous position of Zhuang Li. The main scope of the work is responsible for automotive digital cockpit business, directly to Li Bin, CEO of Xilai Automobile. Zhang Lei himself previously worked as the chief architect of Huami Technology and has rich experience in the industry. Zhang Lei returns to China half the time every year and guides him remotely the rest of the time, a person familiar with the matter told the media. At the same time, the person familiar with the matter also revealed that Zhang Lei's departure is related to the recent contraction of the team in the United States and other factors.

It is worth noting that Xilai has not only shrunk the American team, but also announced in November last year that it would lose about 10% of its jobs in the domestic market. On November 3 last year, Li Bin, CEO of Xilai, issued a full letter confirming that about 10 per cent of the jobs were planned to be cut, and the specific adjustments would be completed in the same month.

Li Bin said that the main purpose of the layoffs is to ensure long-term investment in core key technologies, to maintain the leading edge of technology and products, to ensure that sales and service capabilities can cope with fierce market competition, and to ensure that nine core products of three brands are listed on schedule. On this basis, it will merge repetitive departments and posts, change the inefficient internal work flow and division of labor, and abolish inefficient posts; at the same time, it will improve the efficiency of resources, postpone and cut investment in projects that cannot improve the company's financial performance within three years.

Of course, the adjustment of Xilai's planned layoffs at that time had something to do with its poor sales and increased losses. For this reason, Xilai Motor has to take measures to reduce cost and increase efficiency.

The data show that from 2018 to 2023, the net losses of Weilai were-23.328 billion yuan,-11.413 billion yuan,-5.611 billion yuan,-10.572 billion yuan-14.559 billion yuan and 20.72 billion yuan respectively, and the cumulative loss in six years was as high as 836.2 billion yuan. In terms of sales, a total of 160038 cars were delivered in 2023, although sales were higher than in 2022, but still fell short of the official annual target of 250000. In 2024, the sales of Lulai cars from January to February are not satisfactory. According to the data, the sales from January to February are 10055 and 8132 respectively.

Because of poor sales, Ulay also announced at the end of March that it would lower its sales target for the first quarter and is expected to deliver about 30000 vehicles in the first quarter of this year. Xilai sold 11866 cars in March, barely reaching the official sales target for the first quarter. From January to March, the total delivery volume of Xilai was 30053.

Or in order to reduce costs, Weilai launched the 2024 version of worry-free service products in January, which binds insurance to service fees and adopts the car insurance + service charge model. Compared with the previous service version, this service product cancels the maintenance points and reduces the value-added service vouchers. At that time, it also made some car owners have the idea of shrinking the version.

In this regard, Li Bin once responded in the studio: "this year, we need to be careful, and the general direction of Weilai this year is cost management." before the acquisition of an insurance agency, after converting all the insurance rebates into the cost, the light version and the happy version can make some money, while the premium version of the top box is not necessarily, the previous service must be at a loss, if the user base is large, it is indeed difficult to sustain. "

Regarding Zhang Lei's imminent departure, some industry insiders said that it is very normal for senior executives to leave in car companies, especially the personnel changes in new energy car companies will be more frequent. Because, new energy vehicles or due to performance and other reasons, will carry out a series of personnel, organizational adjustments, in order to enable the company to better survive in the fierce competition. As for the layoffs of Lai Automobile, in fact, the authorities hope to improve organizational efficiency and the benefits of resources through personnel adjustment, so as to achieve the role of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

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