From knock-off old-man's electric vehicles to industrial giant

Chapter 47 Congratulations on learning how to answer questions quickly!
"Enough of the small talk. Today's main focus is on confirming the new factory plan and approving the first new car with roadworthiness qualifications..." Xu Yi smiled slightly. The internal celebration and motivational meeting had already been held long ago.

Riding on the momentum of the entire company's current high spirits, development cannot stop.

In his view, the achievements in the market for recreational vehicles for the elderly cannot yet be considered a complete victory.

Neither policy factors nor market competition are enough to make them feel at ease.

Today, you've achieved such great sales by focusing on high-quality materials and differentiating your strategy.

But tomorrow, someone else might invest heavily, be willing to use high-quality materials, and lower their profit margins, and be able to build a car that's about the same level as yours.

To put it bluntly, there's not much of a technological barrier to entry for electric vehicles for seniors; their competitive advantage is too shallow.

Even if they've been led astray by their competitors, once those competitors recover and regain their strength, their first-mover advantage will be gone in six months.

Needless to say, policy factors play a role. Even now, during the most relaxed policy period, electric vehicles for the elderly are not available nationwide.

The market share in lower-tier cities and rural areas is ultimately limited.

"The production lines at the new factory are already being set up. We plan to expand the production capacity of the Xingchen 01 and Xingchen 02 by 10,000 units here. With the existing production line equipment and the 30,000-unit capacity of the Luzhou factory, we can achieve a stable production capacity of over 40,000 units, which should be enough to meet the sales targets for the third and fourth quarters."

Zheng Tie immediately responded after he finished speaking.

The new factory area here has many things that are already in place, and it is also a complete automobile production line, so the takeover and transformation can be done very quickly.

A few months ago, Xingchen only had a few dozen offline dealerships recorded internally, but now it has grown to more than a hundred. These offline dealerships all have fixed franchisees and complete signed contracts. Larger dealers will also subcontract the delivery vehicles to more scattered stores or sales channels at a higher price. Their company does not interfere with these internally.

Based on current sales figures, the growth rate has already slowed down. To achieve such high sales volume with just two models is already a market phenomenon.

Further growth can only come from new cars.

However, Xu Yi does not plan to develop more models of electric vehicles for the elderly. In his opinion, the Xingchen 01 and 02 are enough, and the key is to anchor the price.

Holding onto the market anchor points of 20,000 and 28,000 is sufficient.

Developing new car models is nothing more than changing the shell.

"In addition, we have also contacted the supply chain of Shaanxi Automobile Tongjia's headquarters and completely opened up some parts connections, which has reduced the cost of vehicle parts by another 5%. They were already struggling financially, but when they heard about the new cooperation, they were very enthusiastic," Zheng Tie said with a smile.

Strictly speaking, the factory in the High-tech Zone was essentially using Shaanxi Automobile Group's shell qualification.

What's even more coincidentally is that Shaanxi Automobile Group already has a business of manufacturing professional logistics vehicles, namely the kind of enclosed factory logistics transport vehicles that are about four meters long, and the price is also around tens of thousands of yuan. Whether it is parts or manufacturing materials, there are great similarities, and now this part of the channels has been integrated.

“Very good. As long as the market for old-age vehicles is stable, we will have a steady stream of cash flow.” Xu Yi nodded.

The biggest advantage of opening up the market in lower-tier cities for them is their excellent and sufficient cash flow. The low price of their electric vehicles, their high production efficiency, and their rapid expansion and contraction model of "encircling the cities from the countryside" are features that many startup car companies do not possess!
Even looking back in a few years, many car companies burned through billions of dollars, only to be swept out of the market by major manufacturers. A closer look reveals they didn't even earn as much as the leading electric vehicle companies, leaving many investors speechless!
"Now let's talk about the new car project..."

Speaking of it.

All the executives in the conference room couldn't help but breathe slightly faster.

"With our current funds, experience, and scale, we have more than enough capacity to develop a car with a market price anchored at around 10 to 15 yuan. This is also the standard starting point for many startup car companies."

Raising funds to build a factory, applying for or borrowing qualifications, and then producing a car priced at around 10 to 15 yuan can be considered the "standard starting point" for emerging car manufacturers in recent years.

Whether manufacturing gasoline-powered cars, electric cars, or hybrid vehicles, most manufacturers anchor their prices within this range. The reason is simple: this price range represents the largest market for family cars.

With a starting price of around 100,000 yuan, the entry barrier isn't too high, the supply chain is relatively complete, and most importantly, the core technology isn't so tightly controlled. For family cars priced around 100,000 yuan, the general public's requirements are high cost-performance ratio and durability.

Even Xingchen Motors had similar plans.

Once you move up to the 200,000 yuan range, you've entered the realm of joint venture luxury cars. You need brand endorsement and "core competitiveness." At the very least, you need a few decent selling points and core technologies; otherwise, consumers will basically not buy it.

Startup car companies often lack these conditions.

Furthermore, by setting the price in the range of 10 to 15 yuan, local resources can be utilized to facilitate government procurement, unit vehicle procurement, and collective procurement of commercial vehicles such as taxis. Contracts can be signed in advance, and local subsidies for new energy vehicles can be added on top of these subsidies, which can often be combined as a form of local support.

It can help automakers absorb the initial production volume.

However, if you manufacture a car that starts at 200,000 yuan, the subsidy will not be as high, and it will be difficult to go through the path of collective procurement for company vehicles.

……

"The market for family cars is certainly very good, but right now, I don't think it's suitable as our first car to launch..."

Xu Yi continued.

"Because we haven't accumulated enough experience or a solid foundation yet, does everyone still remember our internal slogan at StarCraft?"

The executives were bewildered: "A slogan?"

hiss--

Did they have any internal slogans before?
Xu Yi: "That's right, we don't fight battles we're not sure we can win! In my opinion, anything without a 200% chance of winning is an absolute gamble."

"To everyone in the R&D department, I ask you, what were your feelings when you were building the first Star 01?"

The words fell.

Wang Jingming and his R&D colleagues were taken aback.

Noticing everyone's gaze, Wang Jingming could only bite the bullet and say, "My feelings... well, to be honest, I feel like this little gadget is too easy to develop, and the competitors aren't exactly top-tier either. It feels like launching it will be a complete rout!"

To be honest, they did gain a strategic advantage.

No one expected that the market for electric vehicles for the elderly would bring them such great success at this point in time. The key was the ingenious design of the vehicle, which was groundbreaking in the entire industry.

Xu Yi: "That's right, we want to go on a killing spree!"

"We previously used 'old people's electric vehicles' to achieve our strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside. Now the question is, now that we've conquered the countryside, what's left?"

Yu Nian hesitated before speaking: "The city...?"

"Congratulations on learning to answer first!!" Xu Yi clapped!
　Considering that the Xingchen 01 and 02 are two-door vehicles, the dimensions of the old man's car mentioned earlier have been revised to 3.1 meters and 3.2 meters in length (of course, there are many cases of old man's cars being made into trucks of four or five meters in size, but this is not very common in the early stages of market development)...

　　Thank you so much for the generous donation of Qidian coins!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)