Most of the announcements of Baiteng PR team in the circle of friends stay in spring. In the photos sent at that time, there were several M-byte models in PP stage waiting for testing in the factory, and the lights were still bright. Nowadays, the enterprise is bleak, which makes everyone in the new car-making industry in the torrent feel insecure. Why did Baiteng, who once had a halo on his head and a dazzling array of products, suddenly collapse, and how long will it take for the building to collapse and affect several families?
■ Baiteng: Born on the Avenue of Stars, seriously built a car but lost?
This is not the first time Baten has been on the verge of failure, but it is likely to be the last time. In 20 16, baiteng automobile almost died soon after its high-profile establishment. Originally a hot-hand project funded by Harmony Futeng and joined by a team of star executives, Tencent and Foxconn suffered the first wave of setbacks because they withdrew from investment. At that time, the team was not discouraged, and the new car-making movement was still on the cusp. Dai Lei and Bi Fukang continued to start their business with the investment of about US$ 30 million from Harmony Auto, and finally reached a cooperation agreement with Nanjing Development Zone. The headquarters of FMC company and R&D center settled in Nanjing in early 20 17.
It seems to be an inspirational story. The founding team is full of enthusiasm. When the concept product was launched, it was close to 85% mass production, which was also a full house. In more than a year, it has captured the hearts of more than 50,000 prospective car owners, and Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd., the leader of China power battery, can't help but invest. It is precisely because of high expectations and broken dreams that various interpretations emerge one after another. When communicating with many internal employees and investors of Baiteng, their judgments all point to two most critical life doors: rhythm and financing.
From the product point of view, BYTON's first product? It took M-Byte a year and a half from the concept car debut in June 20 18 to the white production line of the car body. In the meantime, Barton? The main highlights of M-Byte, such as light expression, face and fingerprint recognition, and large-size * * * screen enjoyment, have been used for reference by other new car companies, realizing the product landing. From the white body assembly line to mass production, Baiteng has been planning for another year, and now it is with BYTON? The off-line of M-Byte is delayed again, so it can be predicted that the competitiveness of its products will be reduced when they go on the market.
Slow speed, winning or losing is winning or losing for playing games, and it is a life-and-death test for the new forces that build cars. According to internal staff, there are many reasons for the slow landing of Baiteng products. First, the team mostly comes from traditional autobots, especially many German engineers, who are cautious about automobile products, and cars, headlights and other projects need to be debugged repeatedly. "At the beginning, we also imagined whether to build a product quickly like other new car companies, and then improve it later, but based on our responsibility to users, we finally gave up this plan."
Another employee said that if some innovation needs are abandoned and listed first, it may not be recognized by users. The ending is doomed, but it's just a matter of getting out early and returning late. The big environment is not confident and patient enough for the new forces to build cars.
Second, Baiteng, China, the United States and Germany jointly promote product research and development, in which the German R&D Center is mainly responsible for automobile modeling design; The American R&D Center is mainly responsible for the research and development of cutting-edge technologies such as human-computer interaction, vehicle networking and intelligent driving. Nanjing headquarters is responsible for vehicle technology development, performance testing and manufacturing. Although the layout of the three places in the world has laid the technical advantage of Baiteng, the collaborative promotion of projects is often inefficient, which slows down the progress of product research and development to some extent.
Third, it failed to adjust the strategy in time. Since 20 19, the financing environment has dropped to freezing point. In order to reduce the cost, Baiteng has carried out two rounds of layoffs, but the slimming is not complete. Catch up with the epidemic in 2020, and huge human expenditure will be the last straw to crush camels.
■ If only there were 8.4 billion. I am really poor and need money badly.
On June 28th, CCTV Finance 2 criticized Baiteng for spending about 8.4 billion yuan without building a production car. In fact, so far, Baiteng's accumulated financing is only about 5.4 billion yuan, because its C round of financing started in September last year has not been completed. According to internal staff, FAW Group originally planned to invest 65.438+0.5 billion yuan in Baiteng in the C round of financing, and signed an investment agreement in September last year, but the money has never arrived.
Not to mention that Baiteng actually only got about 5.4 billion yuan in financing, even if it got 8.4 billion yuan, it was still too little. Look at Wei Lai who makes cars next door. It has raised nearly 40 billion yuan, but it was almost not made in April this year because of lack of money. Fortunately, the Hefei government extended a helping hand at the right time ... In addition to Weilai, Weimar has raised about 23 billion yuan, Xpeng Motors has raised more than 654.38+06 billion yuan, and Li has raised more than 654.38+0654.38+00 billion yuan.
Building a car is a money-burning project. Li Bin, CEO of Weilai Automobile, said, don't build a car without 20 billion yuan. He Zeng, the founder of Xpeng Automobile, lamented, "In the past, watching others build cars felt that 654.38+0 billion was too exaggerated. Now I know that 20 billion is not enough. " So Baiteng stopped at the mass production stage because there was no money.
Baiteng is a typical elite entrepreneurial team. One of the founding partners is Bi Fukang, former vice president of BMW Group (who left in April 20 19), and the other is Dai Lei, former general manager of finidi China and senior vice president of marketing of BMW Brilliance. The management team also has former executives such as Mercedes-Benz and Tesla. This product has attracted countless eyes with many innovations. Therefore, Baiteng has no reason not to attract investors. Why can't we raise money?
First of all, there was a power struggle for the founding team in the early days of Baiteng, and then there was a power struggle between shareholders, which led to serious internal friction, lax management, unclear responsibilities and a series of problems, which made many external investors flinch; Secondly, Dai Lei, who has always been mainly responsible for finding money for financing, was born in a traditional car company, with insufficient contacts in the venture capital circle and limited expansion of financing channels. Compared with billions of financing from other car companies, Baiteng's biggest financing is only 3.5 billion yuan; Finally, although Baiteng does not have much financing, there are many places to spend money. For example, the North American team only needs 60 million personnel expenses every month.
Although there are many problems, the outside world still hopes that Baiteng, which seriously builds cars, will succeed, not to mention that it is only one foot away from mass production. How much does this foot need? "Almost 400 million US dollars (about 2.8 billion yuan)." According to the estimation of people familiar with the matter, the financing scale of the Baiteng C round plan is 500 million US dollars, 80% of which is to promote mass production. Dai Lei also said that the company will stop operating due to financial pressure, but will actively promote the financing progress during the suspension period. If it goes well, Baiteng is expected to end the production stoppage ahead of schedule.
■ Is it possible for Baiteng to start again?
At present, Baiteng has stopped operating, and there are only 10 people left in offices in North America and Germany. China's Shanghai and Beijing offices have also been rented out, and the Nanjing factory has also been closed, which makes people who like Baiteng brand and products cry. Dai Lei said that Baiteng will be shut down for half a year. After half a year, will Baiteng be restructured, acquired or restarted?
Although when Dai Lei announced the suspension of production, he was still looking forward to Baten's re-starting six months later, not everyone was as confident as he was. "We are all gone, even if we can restart, will investors be optimistic?"
In fact, even if the Baiteng brand can't start again in the future, it will have other outlets. According to informed sources, FAW, as an investor of Baiteng, will undertake the whole vehicle platform of Baiteng and R&D technology to develop Hongqi electric products if Baiteng goes bankrupt and reorganizes in the future. In addition, there are rumors that Baoneng and Geely are in contact with Baiteng or become their intended buyers. As of press time, Baoneng did not comment on this, and Geely's public relations department responded "I don't know about it".
Summary: As a model of traditional autobots building cars from scratch, Baiteng collapsed before mass production, which is a pity. Although the industry expects Baiteng to start again after half a year, how to seize the opportunity of survival and where to go in the predicament in the face of the test of life and death still needs reflection.
As far as Baiteng itself is concerned, if it can turn losses into profits after half a year, it is obviously necessary to speed up the progress of building cars while broadening financing channels. Because of the epidemic, subsidies and other factors, the window of new entrants is closing, taking a wrong step, and waiting ahead may be an irreparable abyss. However, watching the competitors fall, it is difficult for other start-up car companies outside the venue to chat happily, because such scripts may fall into their own hands and will be repeated one day. (Text/car home? Song)