A week’s car talk | Geely established the "extreme krypton" brand, Xiaomi or teamed up with the Great Wall to build electric cars.

        Event review:On March 23rd, Holdings Limited released the 2020 annual performance conference. At the meeting, in addition to the regular disclosure of revenue, profit and sales volume, the company also solemnly announced the establishment of the extreme brand, which will create a brand-new intelligent pure electric vehicle focusing on the high-end market.

        Details decoding:

        The brand is jointly invested by Geely Automobile Group and Geely Holding Group (including employee investment platform and user rights platform), of which Geely Automobile holds 51% and Geely Holding Group holds 49%. The new company plans to inject RMB 2 billion in cash, with Chairman of the Board of Directors and An Conghui as CEO.

        The registered place of the joint venture company is in the British Cayman Islands. In response, Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holding Group, said that the company will seek overseas listing in the future, and the current equity design is also to maintain flexibility for introducing strategic investors.


Previously exposed brand LOGO

        Why release a brand new brand at this time? Because in this year of 2021, Geely will enter the era of "4.0 comprehensive architecture system to build cars", and the establishment of Extreme Krypton Automobile is an important expression of this strategy. All the achievements and accumulation in the fields of intelligent interconnection, safe travel, new energy and autonomous driving may be concentrated in this brand new brand.

        At the product level that everyone is most concerned about, according to the official, the first model of Extreme Krypton is based on the vast intelligent architecture of SEA, and will be booked and delivered in the fourth quarter of this year.


ZERO

        In the next five years, Krypton plans to introduce at least one brand-new product to the market every year. If Kykrypton is successfully listed in the overseas capital market, it will provide it with new financing channels, thus supporting the investment source of Kykrypton and even Geely Automobile in the future transformation.

        It is also worth mentioning that Geely reiterated the Blue Plan and proposed the Blue Action II based on the Blue Action I proposed in 2015. The former focuses on expanding the share of energy-saving and new energy vehicles, which is still borne by Geely Automobile Group; The latter focuses on intelligent pure electric vehicles and will actively participate in the competition in this market, which is also the extremely historical mission.

        Event review:On March 26th, according to people familiar with the matter, Xiaomi was discussing the use of one of the factories in China to produce its own brand of electric vehicles. In this regard, Xiaomi Company said in response to media verification: Everything is subject to the announcement. Automobile-related staff also said that the exact news has not been obtained yet, and all news will be subject to the announcement.

        Details decoding:

        Xiaomi has been rumored to build a car for a long time, but there has never been a real hammer. But in fact, Xiaomi’s response to the rumors of building a car is a very interesting thing.

        Last year, Xu Jieyun, deputy director of the General Office of Xiaomi Group, firmly rumored at the Weibo: "Just master a principle, but everything that Xiaomi wants to build a car is fake news."

        Time came to February 19 this year, and LatePost reported that Xiaomi had decided to build a car and regarded it as a strategic decision, but the specific form and path have not yet been determined, and there may still be variables. Even a person familiar with the matter pointed out that Xiaomi’s car will be led by Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group.

        On February 21st, Xiaomi Group issued an announcement entitled "Clarifying the Report on Entering the Electric Vehicle Industry" on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, officially responding to the rumors of building cars. The original announcement shows: "The Group has noticed some recent media reports that the Group intends to enter the electric vehicle manufacturing industry. Xiaomi said that the group has been paying attention to the development of electric vehicle ecology and continuously evaluating and researching the situation of related industries. Xiaomi’s research on electric vehicle manufacturing business has not yet reached the formal project stage. "


Imaginary map of Xiaomi automobile

        On March 24th, at the press conference after the release of Xiaomi’s annual results in 2020, Wang Xiang of Xiaomi Group responded to Xiaomi’s car-making. Wang Xiang said that the company has sent a report to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. At present, there is no internal project for the production of electric vehicles. This is the information that can be disclosed at present.

        Counting the recent "everything is subject to the announcement", it can be said that Xiaomi’s reaction to the rumors of building a car has become less and less strong. But even so, it can’t be proved that this is a certain thing. After all, Dyson said that he would build a car, but he didn’t make it later.

        Event review:On March 24th, China executives announced at the Weibo that the price of Model Y on sale would be raised by RMB 8,000, which will take effect from now on, and the customers who have ordered it will not be affected by this price adjustment. Among them, the domestic long-life version rose from 339,900 to 347,900 yuan, and the high-performance version rose from 369,900 to 377,900 yuan.

        Details decoding:

        Previously, the continuous price reduction was called "leek harvester". However, this is Tesla’s first active price increase since it was made in China, which broke the iron law of only reducing prices but not increasing prices several times before.

        The news of the price increase came unexpectedly, which made people unprepared. The relevant person in charge of Tesla said in response to this price increase that it was mainly affected by the rising production and manufacturing costs of the company.

        As we all know, the power battery accounts for the largest proportion in the composition cost of electric vehicles, and the price of raw materials upstream of the power battery is currently rising.

        According to CCTV Finance Network, as of March 12, the average price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate market was 83,500 yuan per ton, which increased by 6,000 yuan per ton in a week. Looking ahead, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen from 40 thousand yuan per ton in December last year to more than 80 thousand yuan per ton now, which is equivalent to doubling the price in four months, and it will be raised almost every other day.

        Not only lithium carbonate, but also the prices of other lithium raw materials needed in lithium batteries continue to rise. Since January of this year, the price of lithium hydroxide has increased by 35%, that of Ferrous lithium phosphate has increased by nearly 20%, and that of cobalt in ternary lithium batteries has increased by more than 40%.

        If the price increase of Model Y is due to the increase of production cost, then why didn’t the price increase share 75% parts with Model Y?

        While the outside world was wondering, Tesla raised the price of some Tesla Model 3 models in official website on March 25th. According to official website data of Tesla USA, the prices of the standard battery life upgrade version and the long battery life full-drive version of Tesla Model 3 have been raised by $500, and the current prices are $37,990 and $46,990 respectively.

        As for the domestic market, the relevant person in charge of Tesla China said that at present, Tesla has no price increase plan for other models sold in China, including the domestic Model 3.

        Event review:On March 20th, at the China Development Forum, Musk, who participated in the event through remote video, gave an assurance that Tesla would never provide the US government with the data collected by its vehicles in China or other countries.

        Details decoding:

        On March 13th, Musk posted a message on Twitter that he would take back the trial rights of some car owners’ FSD beta version, because these car owners don’t like watching the road very much when turning on the autopilot function, which poses a safety hazard.

        When the tweet was sent, there was something wrong with the user. On Twitter, I asked Musk if Tesla’s in-car camera could monitor the owner. Musk answered directly, yes! I never thought that this understated answer made Musk have to wipe his ass hard after a few days.

        On March 19th, in China, far away from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, some troops posted a notice saying that after investigation and actual testing, Tesla brand cars were equipped with a series of technical devices that could expose the target position, such as omni-directional cameras and ultrasonic sensors. In order to ensure the absolute safety of military secrets, Tesla was forbidden to enter the relevant areas.

        In this regard, Tesla China immediately clarified that all Tesla vehicles in the China market did not turn on the in-car camera, and did not involve the test of FSD Beta.

        Then, as the boss of the company, Musk couldn’t sit still. When talking about artificial intelligence and data security at the China Development Forum meeting held on March 20, he took the opportunity to make the above commitments. Obviously, Musk is worried that more units will join the ban on Tesla according to the actual situation, which will have a vital and irresistible impact on Tesla’s brand strategy.

        Facts have proved that Musk’s worries are not superfluous. According to online news, some local police stations have asked Tesla owners to drive to designated places for inspection, and some military hospitals have posted notices prohibiting Tesla from entering.

        Event review:On March 25, the official announced that due to the shortage of supply, Tank 300 suspended the notice of receiving orders. From 24: 00 on March 28, 2021, WEY APP will suspend receiving new orders.

        Details decoding:

        According to the statement, as the average daily order of tanks has remained high for 300 days, the monthly order volume has continuously exceeded 10,000 units. Due to excessive accumulated orders, the waiting period for delivery of many tank vehicles has reached more than three months.

        In order to fundamentally solve the problem of long waiting period and provide a better car buying experience, the government decided to "stop production and upgrade" the factory to provide guarantee for subsequent production increase.

        After the transformation, more than 50 production line robots will be added to improve the production rhythm and break through the bottleneck of production capacity. The "production stoppage and upgrading" is expected to start from March 29th, and the production line transformation and commissioning is expected to be completed on April 10th.

        In addition, Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motor, said at an industrial forum on March 21st that WEY’s tank series will develop as an independent brand, becoming the fifth independent brand of Great Wall Group after WEY and Cannon, and this brand mainly focuses on off-road vehicles. Previously, the new brand LOGO has been announced.