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Edit | Yu Jie

Production | automobile production

"Xpeng Motors is going through a challenging period on the road to achieving its long-term goals."

At the third quarter financial report meeting of Tucki held on165438+1October 30th, He Xiao Peng did not shy away from the difficulties faced by the company.

5438+ 10 In June, Xpeng cars only delivered 510/car, falling out of the top five of the new forces.

However, at the financial report meeting, He Xiaopeng said, "Although it was affected by the climbing of G9 production capacity, the delivery volume of Xpeng motor in June was not less than 5,800+065438+10."

Some positive signals can also be seen from the third quarter financial report. For example:

The total revenue was 6.82 billion yuan, up 65,438+09.3% year-on-year, of which the vehicle sales revenue was 6.24 billion yuan, up 65,438+04.3% year-on-year.

Gross profit margin was 65,438+03.5%, higher than 65,438+00.9% in the second quarter.

The net loss was 2.38 billion yuan, an increase over the same period of last year, but it was 65,438+02% lower than the 2.7 billion yuan in the second quarter.

The cash reserve is RMB 406,543.8+0.2 billion. How do you think this fund can support the business development of Xpeng Motors in the next few years?

He himself, Xiao Peng, still expressed his confidence in the future at the financial report meeting, and also had a clear idea to solve the current predicament.

Judging from the communication of the financial report meeting, He Xiaopeng summed up at least three points on how to "spend the winter": namely, paying more attention to the core strategy and automobile business; Optimize cost control and accelerate product platformization; Fully promote the landing of the city NGP.

Issue 1 [He Xiaopeng himself will focus more on the automobile business]

User demand is a high-frequency word in the financial report meeting.

It seems that the "secondary listing" of Tucki G9 really left a profound "lesson" for Xpeng.

In this financial report, He Xiaopeng particularly emphasized the need to listen to users' needs more effectively, simplify the choice of product configuration and enhance the attractiveness of product software and hardware.

Of course, the G9 SKU modification event is only one aspect. It can also be seen from some OTA "accidents" in the past that accurate grasp of user needs is a relatively weak link of Xpeng Motors.

On June 5438+1early October this year, Tucki P7 upgraded the sound effects in Dana's car through OTA. But the effect was counterproductive, the community vomited, and finally had to change it back through OTA; Tucki G9 has the function of simulating the sound of V8 engine, but many users have said that the effect is average after trying it out, and there is no momentum of large displacement engine at all.

Small things seem harmless, but this not only reflects the lack of details in the user experience of Xpeng Motors, but also reflects the deep-seated internal management problems.

One of the important purposes of the organizational changes that Xpeng Automobile is currently promoting is to grasp the needs of users more accurately.

At the financial report meeting, He Xiaopeng said that in the future, he would pay more attention to the strategy, product planning and R&D of Xpeng Motors, and greatly reduce his participation in eco-enterprises such as Tucki Tian Hui and Tucki Penghang.

"We want customer value to drive the whole process of product definition, R&D and sales." He said to Xiao Peng.

As an important measure of reform, Henry, the co-founder of Xpeng Motors, resigned as the executive director a few hours before the financial report meeting, and continued to serve as the president of the company, and will concentrate all his energy on products in the future.

In addition, Xpeng Motors has also adjusted the organizational structure of vehicle management.

According to He, in the future, each platform will have a large matrix product manager who will be responsible for the end-to-end management decision of the platform model from design, research and development to final service.

The specific effect of this change remains to be tested. However, as before, the phenomenon that multiple departments turn to pay a return visit to customers for a small problem and eventually become "harassment" should not happen again.

Second place [accelerating product platformization]

"The company's current cash flow exceeds 40 billion yuan." This point was repeatedly emphasized at this financial report conference.

In the current depressed economic environment, holding a large amount of cash flow in your hand is naturally more emboldened.

He said that thanks to the previous production capacity layout, the capital expenditure demand of Xpeng Motors will drop significantly in the next few years compared with this year. Therefore, this 40 billion cash is enough to support the business development of Xpeng Motors in the next few years.

In the next few quarters, even in a few years, it will be the basic tone of Xpeng Motors to continuously strengthen cost control and improve operational efficiency.

In this process, it is one of the most important measures to share more platforms and modules among models through platformization.

In the recent organizational restructuring, Xpeng Motors reorganized its products and decided to set up three product matrices: E, F and H..

In fact, platformization is a very common means in the automobile industry. However, unlike Weilai and Ideal, this concept has always been weak in Xpeng Motors.

At present, four production cars sold in Xpeng Motors are often criticized as disorganized, product structure is chaotic and lack of continuity.

In this regard, Xpeng Motors once explained: This is to hope to have successful products in every market segment, so as to maintain a more flexible mechanism and avoid being bound by the platform.

From a post-employment perspective, this strategy is not successful. Discontinuous products are not conducive to the shaping of brand image, and more importantly, they will drag down the operational efficiency of enterprises.

For example, at present, the common practice in the new energy automobile industry is to simplify the battery type specifications, because this part is the most expensive and has the longest development cycle.

Ideal and Weilai both do this. From Li ONE to L series dolls, the ideal battery pack is always the same size. Although there are many Weilai models, the battery pack only has 1 specification and 2 batteries.

Tucki, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. In the early G3 and P7 models, 6-7 battery packs were very common.

This can of course guarantee the supply, but in this process, engineering development, sample procurement, verification and testing, etc. , all need a lot or even repeated investment.

Some auto industry analysts even think that the complicated battery pack has dragged down Tucki's gross profit margin to some extent.

In order to avoid the above disadvantages and maximize the sharing of resources such as technology and supply chain, Xpeng Motors will complete the product platformization in the next few quarters.

"At present, the e platform has been completed, and the first model G9 is expected to become the top three of 300,000 pure electric SUVs. The F platform and the H platform are scheduled to be completed next year. " He said to Xiao Peng.

"Vehicles on the same platform will share a very large proportion of power, intelligence, chassis, electronic and electrical architecture, and corresponding supply chain and manufacturing capabilities. After the new product comes out, the research and development cycle will be shortened, the cost will be greatly reduced, and the software and hardware quality of the whole vehicle will be more stable. "

No.3 [XnGP is in urgent need of landing]

Most of the recent good news from Xpeng Motors comes from smart driving.

On September 17, Tucki NGP was fully opened in Guangzhou, and Tucki P5 took the lead in assisting drivers to enter the city with lower hardware cost.

10 10/3 1 day, Tucki G9 got the qualification of Guangzhou self-driving road test as a zero-modified production car, which is the first time in the industry.

Few people question the hard power of Xpeng Motors in intelligent driving. However, when the delivery volume is declining, the voice of questioning Xpeng Motors' "strength is useless" is endless.

For example, consumers' demand for smart driving is not so strong at this stage. For another example, although Xpeng Motors' intelligent driving is ahead, it has not yet reached the level of forming a competitive barrier.

However, these doubts did not seem to change his mind about Xiao Peng.

In 20 17, the first major event after he became chairman and CEO was to go to North America to prepare a self-research team for intelligent technology.

In Stanford's recruitment speech, he said: "There is no future just for electric cars."

At last night's financial report meeting, He Xiaopeng said: "The era of smart cars will begin in the second half of 2023, and Xpeng is accelerating the development of the next generation of full-scene intelligent assisted driving function (XNGP), which is planned to land on a large scale in the third quarter of next year, supporting at least dozens of cities."

In his view, the landing of XNGP will be a turning point for intelligent assisted driving to truly become a high-frequency just-needed function.

One of the reasons is that at present, in the G9 model orders, a considerable proportion of users have chosen the MAX version that supports XNGP before OTA.

In addition, He believes that in the future, with the progress of technology and the maturity of supply chain, the hardware cost of XNGP will continue to decline, thus accelerating the popularization of this function to users all over the country.

And from the first quarter of next year, Xpeng Motors will launch three new models based on the new platform, all of which will be equipped with XNGP function.

In a word, He firmly believes that the launch of XNGP can bring differentiated competitive advantages to Xpeng cars, and drive the increase of sales volume and average selling price.

In the long run, making profits through software is definitely an important part of any future vision.

"Only those who master the core technology and finally achieve large-scale gains in hardware and software can finally win in the long-distance running." He Xiaopeng emphasized this point at the earnings conference.

In a word, XNGP is the most important trump card in Xpeng Motors' hands. According to He's judgment, this card will really exert its power from the second half of next year.

Fourth place [written at the end]

To some extent, the new forces are crossing the river by feeling the stones, and setbacks and adjustments are inevitable. Temporary sales can be analyzed objectively, but it is not enough to evaluate the success or failure of an enterprise.

At this financial report meeting, He expressed many expectations. Including but not limited to:

The delivery volume of 65438+February rebounded obviously, and the total delivery volume in the fourth quarter is expected to be between 20,000 vehicles -2 1 10,000 vehicles; G9 will become the top three SUVs with more than 300,000; In 2023, it will achieve performance growth higher than the industry average. ...

Affected by this news, Xpeng Motors rose more than 47% to close at $65,438 per share +00.8 1.