Our reporter Gong Mengze

Recently, on the first "NIOIN2023 NIO Innovation and Technology Day", Li Bin, founder and CEO of NIO Automobile, and the team spent 3 hours to systematically describe the full stack layout of NIO technology, the technical progress of intelligent driving, and introduced the first domestic full-domain vehicle operating system Tianshu SkyOS and the first self-developed chip product ─ LiDAR main control chip "Yang Jian". And it released its new NIOPhone mobile phone.
In the communication session after the meeting, Li Bin said in an interview with a reporter of Securities Daily that the reason why NIO launched a series of new achievements such as mobile phones, chips and global operating systems in one breath is to show technical strength on the one hand, and more importantly, to make the experience of NIO users better and create better intelligent electric vehicles.
There are views in the outside world that due to the excessive scope of Weilai's operation, the company's continued losses have been caused, and Li Bin has been advised to focus on the main business and save money. Mr. Li seems to have his own ideas. "I actually have a lot more information than most people, and I use a lot of different references when making decisions." Li Bin told reporters that although Weilai still has losses at present, the intensity of the company's research and development investment will not be reduced, and it will maintain the level of 20% (about 3 billion yuan) of revenue each quarter.
In Li Bin's view, this research and development investment scale is within the scope of NIO, and it is also the basic guarantee for NIO to participate in the next stage of fierce competition for intelligent electric vehicles. "Automobile is a long-term investment, and the underlying logic of NIO is to exchange long-term gross profit for short-term high-investment research and development." We will continue to improve efficiency and maintain pace under the premise of such R&D investment and personnel scale."
Make mobile phones, send chips
Weilai technology day amplification
At the first NIO Science and Technology Day, NIO introduced the layout of technological innovation - "NIO technology full stack", and released a number of new achievements such as self-developed chips and vehicle full-domain operating systems.
It is understood that the "WEilai technology full stack" includes: chip and on-board intelligent hardware, battery system, electric drive and high voltage system, vehicle engineering, vehicle full range operating system, panoramic interconnection, intelligent driving, intelligent cabin, intelligent energy and other 12 key technology fields. Li Bin said that what is presented behind the full stack technology is the value system of NIO's continuous innovation, which is to start from the interests of users, the user experience of the whole life cycle, the global systematic efficiency, and the continuous leading innovation.
In addition, the debut of the vehicle global operating system Tianshu SkyOS, LiDAR main control chip "Yang Jian" caused industry concern. Weilai also announced the ADAMCCC, a cross-domain converged supercomputing cluster that has been mass produced, which can realize the computing power call between the ADAM Weilai supercomputing platform and the 8155 chip, and realize the sharing of intelligent driving, cockpit and vehicle control computing power, further improving the user's intelligent cockpit experience.
Nio also announced that it will enhance pilot-assisted NOP+ to enter urban areas from high-speed to provide users with point-to-point intelligent driving experience for global traffic. According to the plan, by the fourth quarter of 2023, WEilai will open a total of 60,000 kilometers of urban pilot routes; By the second quarter of 2024, a total of 400,000 kilometers will be opened.
At this technology day, the most interesting thing is NIOPhone, NIO's first mobile phone, which starts at 6,499 yuan. Under the unfavorable conditions of continued expansion of losses in the second quarter, under the great pressure of being questioned about "indiscriminate spending", Weilai still made the mobile phone.
Perhaps in order to resolve the concern that "car companies making mobile phones is not doing business", Li Bin repeatedly stressed that the reason for NiO to make mobile phones is not because mobile phone companies are building cars, nor is it because NiO cars do not make money to use mobile phone profits, but NIO users need a mobile phone that is seamlessly connected with NiO cars. Nio's own corporate positioning and main business have not changed, that is, to do a good job in intelligent electric vehicles, and the launch of NIOPhone is just to make the car better and make the user experience of NIO better.
"We know exactly why we want to do smartphones." Li Bin said that a number of e-commerce platforms had found NIOPhone, hoping to get the right to start Niophone, but NIO had declined. At present, NIOPhone's online sales channel is only Nio App. It is obvious that the potential users of NIO smart phones are basically locked into NiO owners, so NIOPhone is a car-centric mobile phone.
Li Bin responded to "reckless spending" :
It's clear where the boundary is
As a new power car manufacturing enterprise, the important assessment index of its success is whether it can achieve profit as soon as possible and predictably. The reality of NIO is that the amount of losses in the second quarter of 2023 further expanded, with a net loss of 6.056 billion yuan, a significant increase of 119.6% year-on-year.
When the reporter asked how to see the performance risk and operating boundaries of NIO today, Li Bin believed that the operating boundaries can be divided into several dimensions such as cash, corporate profit and loss, and gross profit margin. "The first thing NIO needs to improve is gross margin. We hope to return to double-digit gross margins in the third quarter. Second, there is the prioritization of R&D projects, including the pace of investment in fixed assets. The bottom line is cash flow management." Li Bin said.
As for the low performance, Li Bin prefers to treat the loss as an investment. In order to emphasize "not spending money in a mess," Li Bin said with a smile that all the content released on science and Technology Day was originally planned to be unveiled in two conferences, and then changed to one release because "you can save a lot of money."
"In general, there is some truth to it. Having gone through 2019, it's clear to us that the boundaries of the company should be maintained." Li Bin frankly said that NIO has embarked on a normal track, behind the long-term research and development investment and many technical achievements, is the value driven technology innovation system of NIO, which is also a necessary condition for the long-term development of an intelligent electric vehicle company based on global operations.