AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/16 Report--

At the 2019 New Energy vehicle Consumer Forum held today, Li Bin, founder and chairman of Xilai, responded to rumors of layoffs for the first time. In addition, Li Bin also explained the questions raised by the outside world about the amount of money spent on NIO Day.

Previously, because of continued losses and difficulties, Xilai announced a "cost-cutting" plan. It was also revealed by a number of former employees of Xilai that it was laying off staff one after another. One former employee said there were about 8400 employees in the company at the end of July. This figure is 1400 less than the number of employees disclosed by Li Bin, CEO of Xilai Motor, in March this year (about 9800).

On August 1, Qin Lihong, president of Lai Automobile, also responded: "this year, we have been doing local optimization and improving operational efficiency, which is also what we should do at this stage." He also said that at its peak, the number of employees did not exceed 10000, but now the total number of employees is more than 8800, so the actual reduction is about 1000.

In response to the layoffs, Li Bin responded again on August 16: "before 2019, the main work of Lai Automobile is to launch models as soon as possible and then deliver them to users." Starting from this year, Lai Motor will mainly focus on the company's economic operation, improve operational efficiency and develop the next generation of products, so it needs to make adjustments to this. "

In addition, on August 14, Li Bin, founder of NIO Automobile, released an internal email announcing that Zheng Xianchong, co-founder and executive vice president of NIO, would be "retired" from now on. At the end of June, Zhuang Li, vice president of software development (China), left, causing a shock. "executives queued up to leave" or it is true.

With the cold winter of the car market, the decline of subsidies has become stronger, the new power car-building enterprises are facing the test. Outsiders have also raised questions about the amount of money spent on NIO Day, and in response to this question, Li Bin said that in fact, NIO Day does not spend more money than a high-end brand opening conference. "the cost of the venue is actually good compared to the organization cost of the whole event, and it may feel that it costs more money, but in fact it is not as exaggerated as people think."

In addition, Li Bin also said, "I think after the subsidy has gone downhill, a good user experience and the satisfaction of good electric vehicles is a very important thing that the new and old forces can really win the favor of consumers. And I think it's the most important thing."

Although, due to the recall program, reduced subsidies for electric vehicles, and falling passenger car sales and other problems, the delivery of new cars in Lulai was low in July. But Li Bin said that by the end of July this year, Xilai had delivered about 18600 ES8 and 1073 ES6. It will take a turn for the better in August, with Ulay's target delivery volume of 2000-2500 vehicles in August.

According to July delivery data, NIO delivered 837 vehicles in July, including 673 ES6, 5 high-performance advanced electric SUV, 164ES8, 7-seat high-performance high-quality electric SUV and 6-seat models. As of July 31, 2019, the company's ES8 and ES6 delivered a total of 19727 vehicles, of which 8379 were delivered in 2019.

We can see that the growth of ES6 in July was significantly higher than that of ES8, and even affected the sales of ES8, resulting in a sharp decline in sales of ES8 in July. It can be understood that the ES6 should be a volume-driven car. However, as Li Bin said, there are still great difficulties in reaching sales of 2000 vehicles in August.

Analysts believe that high subsidies for electric vehicles have given birth to an unhealthy consumer market for electric vehicles. With the sharp decline in subsidies, sales of electric vehicles have tended to be rational since July this year. The overall growth rate of electric vehicles in the second half of 2019 may not be as fast as that of last year.

If NIO wants to reach the delivery volume of more than 2000 units per month, it will mainly rely on ES6 sales in the future. In addition, with the acceleration of domestic Model 3, NIO will suffer a greater impact.

According to the survey, Zilai has lost more than 20 billion yuan. the latest data show that the total revenue of Lvlai in the first quarter of 2019 was 1.63 billion yuan, down 53% from the previous quarter; the net loss was 2.6 billion yuan, of which car sales were 1.54 billion yuan, down 55% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Xilai expects a decrease of about 30.5% to 20.7% in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter.

At the same time, the share price of Xilai also plummeted, forcing the company to sell its FE Electric Formula fleet, lay off staff and sell related assets to save costs.

However, at a time when ES8 is in trouble, Xilai now pins most of its hopes on ES6. However, in today's overall environment decline, and accompanied by a variety of adverse factors, the road is still very difficult.

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