Original title: Targeting definition of cyberpunk, new forces dare to face it?Source: Sina Auto Original
The hot topic in the console game circle recently must be “Cyberpunk 2077”. The exquisite graphics and the vision of the future world are reflected in the game, and just like GTA, the open game experience is what players want to feel most. , The most important thing is that a concept car that can drive to the future world will be more than GTA expects. So, what is cyberpunk and what does it have to do with Tesla Cybertruck? Can our new car-building forces face smarter and more technological cyberpunk?
How to define cyberpunk? Literally, it is a combination of low-end life and advanced technology. Cars are undoubtedly the best carrier to control the term. Since their birth, cars have not been free from the position of transportation from the AB point. Sila, NIO, etc. have been promoting future travel, but so far, self-driving, online car-hailing or public transportation, no matter how strong the black technology is to bless this product, now we only see that it is still helping us from Traffic travel at point AB.
Levels below L5 cannot be called autonomous driving, but can only be regarded as assisted driving. At present, brands such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Weimar are impacting the loading of L4 assisted driving. In addition to these new car-making forces at the forefront, traditional car companies are desperately loading L2 assisted driving in vehicles, trying to play the “automatic driving” card in order to win more sales, or not to break away from the “new four”. The outlet of “Hua”.
It is worth mentioning that vehicle companies equipped with self-developed automatic assistance in the true sense are even rarer, and more OEMs have to rely on large-scale technology companies such as Baidu, Ali, and Huawei to conduct research and development of autonomous driving.
On the whole, this is just like the current Chinese game industry, where mobile games are at their peak, but few Chinese game companies are among the console games that truly demonstrate independent animation and technological level. This is because the number of console game players in the Chinese market is less than 1.6%. The market is still in the blue ocean, which is the same as the current market for highly intelligent electric vehicles.
Compared to Tesla, which does everything by hand and develops it by itself, most of our own new car-making forces are still doing the work of buying and buying. Epistar, sensors, radars, cameras, etc. are all integrated with cutting-edge technology manufacturing. This is consistent with the development of console games. Although it is a difference between software and hardware, it is also a product of innovative culture and technology. For a long time, console games, like Hollywood special effects, are industrial products that incorporate top art and technology, and require companies to have a very deep accumulation of experience.
Having said that, what are the characteristics of the current car that can represent cyberpunk?Let’s set a few[賽博朋克]index of. According to public data, the development time of Cyberpunk 2077 has taken 8 years, and the research and development expenses and promotion expenses have reached 1 billion yuan. In terms of profit, it only paid back and started to make profits on the first day of launch. This has been in the past 3A games. Is extremely rare. So what are the new car-building forces in these aspects?
Development time
As we all know, the development cycle of a complete car is getting shorter and shorter, which is different from games that create the ultimate screen and interactive sense, but the same is that both cars and games can be upgraded through software OTA to achieve higher product quality. However, the main pole of the game story and the core components of the car will not have major changes. In this research and development process, we saw that Weilai Automobile’s first model ES8 took three years (2014-2017). With the expansion of the factory and the complete supply chain, Weilai basically uses one new car a year. Create the image of the leader of new domestic car-making forces.
Xiaopeng Motors’ first product, the G3, took four years to go on the market (2014-2018). After finishing the supply chain and factory manufacturing process, two years after the G3 was launched, the more futuristic P7 went on the market. It has not reached the speed of Weilai one year, but according to the current market feedback of Xiaopeng, it is good.
In keeping with the pace of the new products of Weilai and Xiaopeng, it took three years (2015-2018) for Weimar Motors from its establishment to the launch of its first model EX5. Although it was basically the same time as ES8, its positioning was large. There are differences. Weilai focuses on high-end users, while Weimar has defined a basic user group of 150,000-200,000 yuan in the three new car-making forces. In the next two years, only one brand new model and Two upgraded version models.
So who is more attentive in the research and development of these three brands, or is more in line with the look of future cars that people want? Obviously NIO is better. From the product itself, the Mobileye EyeQ4 chip equipped with simultaneous mass production is the systematic NOMI Pilot; the innovative artificial intelligence partner NOMI; and the industry has become the system’s power exchange mode; later The rental battery packages; power-up packages, etc. are all at the forefront of the industry. Although compared with the higher-tech side of cyberpunk, these NIOs are still slightly “homely”, but at present, Tesla is Some places are not comparable.
R&D expense profit
Seeing the public data on the cost and profit of “Cyberpunk 2077”, many people must sigh for the new power of car building. Since Tesla has been established, the continuous profitability in the first three quarters of 2020 has made Tesla While it is expected to become the first profitable year, it also makes Tesla the first new car-making force to officially start making profits. In China, although NIO only took eight months this year, its stock price has soared by more than 20 times, and it has surpassed BMW, GM, Ford, and Benz all the way, ranking fourth in the global market value of auto companies and the first in the market value of Chinese auto companies. Throne.
However, in May of this year, NIO’s annual report submitted to the US SEC showed that the brand has not been profitable since its establishment and has only recently begun to generate revenue. From 2016 to 2019, Weilai’s cumulative net loss reached 28.5 billion yuan, and the cash flow from operating activities during the same period was negative.
However, in the third quarterly report of this year, Weilai’s sales gross margin turned positive for the first time, and its cash reserves exceeded 20 billion yuan. In the third quarter earnings conference call, Li Bin expressed his confidence in realizing a positive cash flow from operating activities in 2020.
In addition to the gradual establishment of Weilai’s profit and financial status, Xiaopeng and Weimar have no obvious “recovery” in both aspects. Public data shows that Xiaopeng Automobile’s third quarter loss amounted to 1.149 billion yuan this year. . In addition to operating and R&D, the losses are mainly related to equity incentives after the listing, of which 922 million are accumulatively awarded to employees of the company’s stock option incentives and credited to the completion of the IPO.
Weimar is not on the market, so no specific financial report status can be seen, but from the sales of Weimar Motors in November, we can see that Weimar is steadily climbing. In November, Weimar’s sales were 3,018 vehicles, a surge of 174.6% year-on-year and achieved Compared with the “nine consecutive increase”, as of November 2020, the cumulative sales of Weimar EX5 this year have reached nearly 20,000. It is conceivable that Weimar’s current operating status is relatively stable.
However, although Xiaopeng and Weimar have visible “progress”, in the long run, it will take a long time for the two car companies to achieve full profitability. Looking at Tesla’s gross margin of around 23.5%, they still need to struggle for a while.
In terms of research and development expenses, for the first quarter of 2020, Tesla’s research and development expenses are equivalent to RMB 2.26 billion. The quarterly R&D expenses of Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal are 520 million, 310 million and 190 million in turn, making a total of 1.02 billion, which is only 45% of Tesla. Although the quarterly investment is not as good as that of “people,” a single brand has invested a lot in research and development in the Chinese auto market.
Weilai Qin Lihong said in an interview in June this year that in more than five years, Weilai has invested nearly 20 billion yuan in product development.
In 2018, 2019 and the half-year period ending June 30, 2020, Xiaopeng Motors’ research and development expenses were RMB 1.05 billion, RMB 2.07 billion and RMB 630 million, respectively. Among them, in 2019 and the six months ending June 30, 2020, research and development expenses accounted for 89.2% and 62.9% of the company’s total revenue, respectively.
Regarding Weimar, apart from the Weimar Automobile’s global R&D headquarters, which was planned and constructed with a total investment of 5.5 billion yuan, it is difficult to find the words Weimar’s real money and silver used in research and development in a few words, not only did not disclose the amount of research and development expenses and Usefulness, it was also revealed in April this year that the supplier owed 100,000 yuan in R&D expenses. In September of this year, Weimar received a D round of financing of 10 billion yuan and announced that the financing will be mainly used for smart technology research and development, brand building, digital marketing and channel expansion.
In summary, we see that the development time and cost of a game have reached 8 years and 1 billion yuan. These are only software requirements. It is difficult to imagine that a car containing software and hardware wants to reach the height of cyberpunk. How much money will be “burned”. From the game “Cyberpunk 2077”, we know that there are prerequisites to achieve this extremely advanced level of technology. The most important thing is the chaotic and disorderly market form. Now the global automotive industry Isn’t the change exactly?
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