Complete the final puzzle on the road to car making, NIO will independently build cars.
"From a manufacturing perspective, if we manufacture entirely independently, manufacturing costs will decrease by 10%." Li Bin, founder of NIO, responded to the news of acquiring some factories in Jianghuai during the third quarter financial report conference call held on December 5th. On that day, Jianghuai Automobile announced that NIO had acquired two asset packages of Jianghuai Automobile for a total price of 3.158 billion yuan. This means that NIO has gained the ability to independently manufacture cars.
On December 4th of the previous day, NIO appeared in the "Vehicle Production Enterprise Credit Information Management System" of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This is interpreted by the industry as indicating that NIO may have obtained the qualification for independent production. Two consecutive news reports have confirmed that NIO may begin to "walk independently" in the field of car manufacturing.
Subscription, NIO, an independent car manufacturer, has arrived
According to the announcement released by Jianghuai Automobile, NIO has become the transferee of the first and third package of assets, with transaction prices of 1.666 billion yuan and 1.492 billion yuan respectively, totaling 3.158 billion yuan. Among them, the first package of assets involves the inventory, fixed assets, and construction in progress of the third factory of the passenger car company, while the third package of assets involves the structures and equipment of the new bridge factory of the passenger car company.
In fact, the industry was not surprised by NIO's acquisition of some factory assets in Jianghuai. On October 19th of this year, Jianghuai Automobile announced that it plans to transfer some assets through listing, including inventory, fixed assets, construction in progress, buildings and land use rights of the third factory of the passenger car company, as well as the structure and equipment assets of the new bridge factory of the passenger car company, including the NIO model factory.
At that time, the industry speculated that NIO might subscribe to the assets listed and transferred by Jianghuai to bid farewell to the "OEM" model. Now, NIO has finally taken control of production and manufacturing in its own hands.
If the acquisition of some factory assets in Jianghuai has enabled NIO to acquire the ability to independently manufacture cars, and it appears in the "Vehicle Production Enterprise Credit Information Management System" of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it reveals that NIO may have obtained the qualification for independent production.
On December 4th, on the official website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the "Credit Information Management System for Vehicle Production Enterprises" displayed the company name as NIO Automotive Technology (Anhui) Co., Ltd., with Qin Lihong as the legal representative, and the catalog number 214. This number corresponds to the catalog number in the "Road Motor Vehicle Production Enterprises and Products" enterprise declaration model publicity details. For example, the catalog number of China FAW Group is "1", and Tesla corresponds to "194".
Although NIO stated that "there is currently no information available for release," several company executives, including NIO's head of intelligent driving, Huang Xin, and others, made statements on the interactive platform that "we will witness history today and Weibo will temporarily suspend updates," which indirectly confirmed this news.
"What can be certain now is that NIO has obtained independent production qualifications. NIO's failure to make a clear announcement is low-key," Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Conference, told a reporter from China Times.
It is reported that there are three ways to obtain production qualifications issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, namely cooperating with qualified car companies for OEM, acquiring qualified enterprises, and independently applying. Among the new forces in car manufacturing, Ideal, Xiaopeng, and Lingpao have successively obtained independent production qualifications through acquisitions, while NIO has been cooperating with Jianghuai.
The transformation of NIO is likely to have occurred before the listing of Jianghuai Automobile. At the beginning of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on carrying out pilot work for commissioned production of new energy vehicles, which clearly requires that both the commissioning party and the entrusted party under the new energy vehicle OEM mode must have production qualifications in order to carry out OEM production. That is to say, even for contract manufacturing, dual qualifications are required, and only factories with qualifications are no longer feasible.
On October 28 of the same year, the Equipment Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Regulations on the Administration of Production Access Permits for Road Motor Vehicles (Draft for Comments)", which deleted the description that "R&D and design enterprises that meet the prescribed conditions are allowed to apply for road motor vehicle production enterprise and product access by borrowing the production capacity of production enterprises", and appropriately raised the threshold for automobile production access.
It is obvious that NIO has chosen to independently apply for production qualifications. "This is a natural thing, the factory belongs to oneself, and the qualifications have been obtained. In the future, NIO products will no longer have to stick the Jianghuai Automobile tail logo," automotive industry analyst Zhong Shi told a reporter from the Huaxia Times.
The announcement shows that this transaction will adopt a one-time payment method, and the transferee will pay the transaction amount within 5 working days from the effective date of the transaction contract.
Upward, will embark on a new journey
The acquisition cost of 3.158 billion yuan is a significant expense for NIO, but in the long run, independent car manufacturing is the right path.
According to statistics, from 2018 to 2022, NIO paid approximately 223 million yuan, 441 million yuan, 532 million yuan, 715 million yuan, and 1.127 billion yuan in OEM fees to JAC Motors, respectively. That is to say, within 5 years, NIO has paid a total of 3.038 billion yuan in contract manufacturing fees, which is close to the cost of this acquisition.
"Acquiring some assets of Jianghuai and independent production will improve future financial data," Cui Dongshu told a reporter from Huaxia Times. Meanwhile, Li Bin also revealed during a conference call, "From a manufacturing perspective, if we were to manufacture entirely independently, the manufacturing cost would decrease by 10%."
According to NIO's financial report, in the third quarter, NIO's revenue was 19.07 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.6%, and the gross profit margin of the entire vehicle was 11%, a year-on-year decrease and a month on month increase; The net loss was 4.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%, and the month on month loss narrowed, a decrease of 24.8% compared to the second quarter. It is worth mentioning that NIO's cash reserves in the third quarter were 45.2 billion yuan, an increase of 13.7 billion yuan from the previous quarter.
For the fourth quarter of this year, NIO expects its new car delivery volume to be between 47000 and 49000 units, a year-on-year increase of 17.3% to 22.3%; The expected revenue is between 16.079 billion to 16.701 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 0.1% to 4%.
In 2023, accompanied by NIO are not only flowers, but also mud. For over a month after announcing its layoffs, NIO was once shrouded in negative news such as "huge losses" and "on the brink of bankruptcy". NIO did not respond too much to this, but instead focused on business development and staged a low-key and high-profile "self rescue" through a series of actions. Not only has it completed the acquisition of some factory assets of Jianghuai Automobile and obtained independent production qualifications, but it has also signed cooperation agreements with Changan Automobile and Geely Holding on battery swapping business, forming a "battery swapping alliance" and forming its own battery swapping "circle of friends". Li Bin said in a conference call, "NIO battery swapping will enter a more stable and profitable stage."
At the same time, Li Bin also revealed during a conference call that the first car of the second brand Alps has completed trial production, and the high-end market will accelerate its transition to the pure electric market in 2024. "At the upcoming NIO Day, NIO will release a flagship model, which is a true epitome of NIO's technological innovation and will become a global benchmark for intelligent electric vehicles."
In addition, Li Bin stated that the charging pile business has basically reached a breakeven point, and there are also investors interested in NIO Power's independent financing. The possibility of NIO Power's independent financing cannot be ruled out in the future.
As of December 6th, NIO has established 2200 battery swapping stations worldwide, with a total of over 33 million battery exchanges; 3485 charging stations, 20455 charging piles, and 960000+third-party piles connected. Meanwhile, in terms of sales network, NIO has 468 NIO centers and NIO spaces in 152 cities, and 314 service centers and 62 delivery centers in 217 cities.
Boots landing, NIO, which independently builds cars, will embark on a new journey. On December 6th, NIO Vice President Shen Fei posted a poster on the interactive platform with the words "Up A New Journey".