Reporter’s visit： With negative news plagued, will NIO’s future be good？

NIO NIO HOUSE located by the West Lake in Hangzhou

　　"I’m so nervous, several employees in our department have left, I don’t know if I will be laid off…" During this time, Xiao Guo, an employee working in the after-sales services center of Yuhang NIO, was very depressed.

　　It has not yet officially entered autumn, but NIO, which claims to be "China Tesla", has entered an eventful autumn.

　　In recent months, NIO, which has been mired in various negative news such as layoffs, falling sales, battery spontaneous combustion, recalls, service higher than technology, and the issuance of convertible bonds for self-rescue, has not had a good time.

　　There are voices questioning whether NIO, which has accumulated financing of nearly 30 billion yuan, is out of money? Too much attention to service, is the technology not too good? The price is so high, is most of it paying for the service?

　　A few days ago, a reporter from Qianjiang Evening News visited the NIO NIO HOUSE located by the West Lake in Hangzhou.

　　The exhibition hall "full of air" is opened by the West Lake

　　The annual rent is as high as tens of millions

　　On a weekday afternoon, the weather was hot and humid. Walking straight along the lakeside road by the West Lake, among the many luxury brands, stood a three-story transparent glass house, which was very eye-catching. The top of the building was embedded with the NIO logo.

　　After the reporter came to the store and registered on the grounds of "wanting to see the car", a specialist introduced the reporter one-on-one skillfully.

　　NIO HOUSE is nicknamed "Cow House" by the owner, with three floors up and down. The first floor is the exhibition hall, which displays the two main cars ES8 and ES6, as well as a concept car. The exhibition hall is open to everyone, and the second and third floors belong to the "VIP area". You need to scan the owner’s QR code to enter.

　　The reporter learned that the price of ES6 ranges from 360,000 to 500,000 yuan, and ES8 ranges from 460,000 to 580,000 yuan, taking the high-end route. With such a central location, beautiful scenery adjacent to West Lake and a total area of 1200 square meters, NIO looks "full of trench".

　　It is understood that the annual rent of this cow house alone is as high as 10 million yuan.

　　In the huge exhibition hall, in the past hour, only three or four customers came, apart from the reporters.

　　The staff said, "At most, we can receive more than 2,000 people a day here. Today, due to working days and road renovations, the line of sight is blocked, which affects the flow of people."

　　Staff told reporters that in 2018, NIO’s total sales in Hangzhou exceeded 1,000 vehicles, "at this price, it is already a relatively good sales volume."

　　After the reporter explained his identity, the smile of the docking staff gradually solidified, and then opened the distance between the words, "We have a speaker system, and we need to make an appointment."

　　Seeing that it was about to reach an impasse, a NIO executive who did not want to be named happened to come to the store. After learning about the situation, he brought the reporter to the VIP area on the second floor for an interview.

　　"Now everyone has made demands on NIO as a mature company, which is actually unfair." In the executive’s opinion, many of the doubts from the outside world are "smear" caused by "big trees attract wind", and many are people who do not understand the situation.

　　Known as "Haidilao in the automotive industry"

　　The service is very useful to car owners

　　Contrary to all kinds of negative voices, it is the strong support of car owners for NIO. Hangzhou car owner Ali is a typical representative of NIO’s "car owner support group".

　　At the end of 2018, Ali took his daughter-in-law to the cow house to see the new car conference of NIO, and persuaded his daughter-in-law to buy the ES8, 7 seats that have been planted for one year, the benchmark version, and paid about 430,000 yuan in full.

　　A Li calculated the account for the reporter: the purchase tax and license fee of gasoline vehicles exempted from new energy vehicles, as well as the national new energy vehicle subsidy and the local new energy vehicle subsidy in Hangzhou, saved nearly 140,000, that is to say, if it is the same price oil car, it will take 570,000 to buy.

　　Before buying NIO, Ali thought about it for a long time and sold his family’s oil car – the BMW he bought for 550,000 in March 2015 and sold for 300,000 in December 2018.

　　"Gasoline cars will only depreciate more and more in the future. Even if I save more money when I drive a gasoline car, the monthly fuel cost will be 1,500 yuan, and when I drive a tram, no matter how I drive, the average monthly electricity cost will not exceed 200 yuan. I picked up the car for half a year and drove 18,000 kilometers, but I hardly found any problems."

　　In Ali’s opinion, selling the oil car to buy NIO is not an "impulsive consumption", but the result of careful consideration. So far, he is quite satisfied, especially the "Haidilao" service of NIO in the automotive industry is impeccable.

　　"Each car owner will build a special group for you. In addition to the car owner, there are five or six specialists in it, who are online 24/7. If you have any questions or needs, you can contact them at any time, and someone will reply and help you deal with them."

　　This was nothing. Ali told reporters that once the tire blew up on the curb. After he reported in the group, the service specialist drove a mobile service vehicle to the scene within an hour. If it was a simple flat tire, the tire could be replaced on the spot.

　　"The service specialist called me a special car to take me to the unit, and then within 24 hours, a scooter full of fuel was driven. It was a Mercedes-Benz GLK260, and the market price was 400,000 to 500,000. During the three or four days since the car was repaired, the scooter can be driven casually. There are also services such as one-click call mobile plus tram, free power exchange nationwide, long-distance charging path planning, and so on."

　　For a "dad" like Ali, NIO’s various activities at the cow house every week, such as flower arrangement, handicraft, painting and other courses, have also become a good place for parents and children to "walk their babies".

　　"If one day, NIO really goes out of business, it doesn’t matter. We have enjoyed the services we didn’t enjoy when we bought an oil car at the same price before, and we have enjoyed it at NIO. This money is worth it."

　　Ms. Huang, who already has a NIO at home, also said that she plans to buy a second one and a NIO.

　　It can be seen that NIO has indeed been effective in making great efforts to "please" car owners, maintain their reputation, build a car owner community, and develop into an ecosystem.

　　The official announced the layoff of 1,200 people

　　After running wildly, start to "improve efficiency"

　　However, the layoff wave is already a fact of DingTalk on the board.

　　On August 22, NIO founder Li Bin sent an internal letter announcing that NIO will once again lay off employees. By the end of September this year, NIO will reduce 1,200 jobs worldwide, and the adjusted staff size will be around 7,500.

　　The letter states that in order to ensure the survival and development of the company, NIO must timely adjust its awareness and plans, further control expenses, improve operational efficiency, and focus resources on its core business.

　　"There will be no quick wins, no miracles, our journey is a marathon on a muddy track," Li Bin said.

　　Quite a bit of tragic inspiration.

　　The executive told reporters that NIO delivered two production cars less than five years after its establishment, which was fast and fast, and there would be a price, but in order to create a "time difference" with other traditional car brands to make electric vehicles, it had to do so.

　　"For example, the motors for mass-produced cars were developed by four teams at the same time in the early stage. Which one is better, the other teams will give up their own plan to support that one, and use this way of spending money and stacking people to grab time. We spent an extra 300 million and got back half a year, but correspondingly, it will definitely cause redundancy of personnel."

　　Downsizing is a normal "survival of the fittest," the executive said, "and we’ve been hiring."

　　Regarding battery life and battery spontaneous combustion, the executive said that there were four vehicles involved in battery spontaneous combustion, with no casualties, but a total of 4,400 vehicles were recalled.

　　"In terms of probability, the spontaneous combustion rate of electric vehicles is much lower than that of fuel vehicles. Even if the electric vehicle battery burns, there are three to five minutes for the owner to escape from the internal short circuit to the combustion time. And the battery life problem, like a mobile phone, will decrease as the temperature decreases. Later, we will replace the original 70-degree battery with an 84-degree battery, and the battery life will be stronger."

　　Regarding the second-quarter sales volume being much lower than the first quarter, the executive told reporters that NIO’s cars are all pre-sold, and all manufacturing industries have a process of ramping up production capacity.

　　"For ES6 orders, we started pre-selling on December 16, 2018. By the end of June this year, 100 units had been delivered, and 600 units were delivered in July. The delivery volume in August will be even higher, so we can’t just look at one quarter’s data."

　　As for the most criticized "only if the technology is not up to standard, will we force the service", the executive said that NIO can provide all the data to compare with Tesla, and will not feel guilty, "We are Tesla’s performance, but only half the price."

　　The executive told reporters that NIO spent a lot of energy on external publicity services in the early stage, which caused many people to be preconceived and the service was overestimated. "It’s like having a classmate around you who is very good at Chinese and mathematics, but he won the grand prize in Chinese, and everyone will ignore that he is actually very good in mathematics."

　　So, is NIO really out of money?

　　The executive told reporters that NIO listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year, which means we have broadened our financing channels and strengthened the company’s ability to withstand risks.

　　NIO, known as "China’s Tesla" and carrying the high hopes of car owners, what will the future hold? (Reporter, Gao Jiachen, Text/Photo)