"Uncertain" is precisely the current state of the future, and "wanting to gamble" is Lu Qun's current state of mind.

　　"Building a car can make a person successful, or it can make a person fall into the quagmire."

　　At this moment, after many years of ups and downs and various twists and turns, Lu Qun, the founder of Great Wall Huaguan and Qiantu Motors, has a deep understanding.

　　Because he was born in the Department of Automotive Engineering of Tsinghua University, unlike most of the founders of other new forces who have a background in marketing or the Internet industry, the former has been dealing with "technology" for nearly 30 years.

　　Looking at his resume, it is not difficult to find that the most conspicuous parts are listed: 1,638 patents have been applied for patented technologies that independently control intellectual property rights, including 733 invention patents. It has applied for 11 international patents, including 8 invention patents, and has 11 software copyrights.

　　However, these honors, which should be worthy of showing off, did not make such an effective endorsement for Lu Qun's car building road. On the contrary, the rapid rise of Li Bin, Li Xiang, and He Xiaopeng has formed a very strong contrast compared with the rapid development of "Wei Xiaoli" in the same period.

　　What's more serious is that in early 2020, with a sudden epidemic, the general environment of the industry has changed abruptly. In addition, there were large deviations at the financing level, misjudgment at the strategic level, and new products at the product level were less than expected.

　　Under the internal and external troubles, the future is like those second-tier echelon members who are not strong in resisting risks or have fatal shortcomings since entering the game. They are forced to enter the darkest moment.

　　What followed was the frequent negative events.

　　The employees were accused of arrears of wages on a large scale, many suppliers came to ask for money, the exhibition store in Sanlitun, Beijing was closed, the delivery center in Jingang was empty, and even Lu Qun himself was included in the list of restricted high consumption by the court in the same year.

　　There are all kinds of signs to prove that this new force is only one step away from falling off a cliff. As a bystander, I gradually don't have much expectations for the "future" of the future.

　　But what is very interesting is that in the past six months, with the news, the plot of the above story seems to have ushered in a "reversal".

　　Lu Qun's "dream of building a car" has not yet been completely extinguished.

　　future, resurrection

　　In fact, as early as August 2020, when the future had encountered great difficulties, Lu Qun said very sincerely in an exclusive interview with the media: "The future is not dead, nor will it die."

　　Later, he also added: "I think you should still have enough confidence and patience for the future. No matter what, the future will come step by step and live tenaciously."

　　But the status quo of the industry is that, along with the intensifying wave of electrification transformation, high-volume leaders continue to emerge. It is true that the future is not dead, but after more than a year of silence, it has become difficult to be remembered, and "forgetting" has become something it must accept.

　　Even during this process, Lu Qun was trying his best to "save himself", trying to pull the company out of the quagmire. But in the end, the results were of little benefit.

　　As for the "reversal" mentioned above, it still needs to start from the early December last year, when its official public account sent three tweets without warning.

　　In the specific content, Qiantu announced that it will develop the first metaverse racing game based on blockchain technology, and at the same time combine online games with offline events to achieve a racing experience that integrates virtual and reality.

　　At the same time, Creative Cloud will provide the cloud base, digital content assets and related interactive technologies required by the event for the future metaverse racing game; Jingang Holdings will provide the racing venue and the modification and maintenance team, and the future will provide the vehicle modification plan and modification parts. , and finally achieve the goal of the three companies to jointly create offline GT events.

　　In a tweet a few days later, Qian Qian said again: "Long time no see, I'm back again... Set a flag for myself, I have to work hard, publish a lot, present beautifully, and turn around beautifully."

　　In all fairness, with the very limited information, I am not sure what exactly I want to do behind the various psychedelic operations of the future. Standing at that node can only be described as being confused. However, with the announcement of the resumption of production of its only model on sale, the electric sports car K50 known to most people, the context of the story gradually became clear.

　　Soon, it was April 14th, Beijing time. Qiantu officially released the customized version of K50 for T-round financing, and stated that it will start the T-round financing in 2021, which will be open to the Tsinghua Alumni Association, and the investors are mainly Tsinghua alumni.

　　During the just-concluded May Day holiday, it was officially announced that Beijing Great Wall Huaguan Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. and SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp. signed a formal merger agreement.

　　Great Wall Huaguan is expected to complete the reorganization, merger and listing by the end of December 2022. At that time, Qiantu will go to overseas IPO as an important part of Great Wall Huaguan's assets. The pre-money valuation was $1.25 billion.

　　Seeing this, I can't help but think of a passage mentioned by always love: The reason why "Wei Xiaoli" can stand out and quickly become the top echelon of new forces is that they have clearly considered the construction of offshore structures since their establishment, and successively It has a great relationship to go public in the US stock market, and then be able to hold more funds to "feed back" the company's development.

　　Indeed, car building is still essentially a game of capital before it realizes "self-hematopoiesis". After going around in circles, Lu Qun undoubtedly wanted to use the "backdoor" listing method to raise more trump cards for the resurrection of the future, and this was obviously a life-and-death gamble.

　　As for the outcome, there is huge uncertainty.

　　future, stranger

　　In fact, there may not be too many people paying attention. Just one day after the official announcement of the above news, Qiantu was on its official Douyin account and held a release event called "Chunjiang Plumbing".

　　Lu Qun, who was on the platform, announced on the one hand that the K50 will start a "privately customized" service; on the other hand, he emphasized the decision of Great Wall Huaguan to go to overseas IPO at the end of the year.

　　But in my mind, I can't help but be full of huge questions about the above two aspects.

　　First of all, it must be recognized that although the current Chinese new energy market is still suffering from the impact of the epidemic, lack of cores, and soaring prices of raw materials for power batteries, the growth trend is still very gratifying. Starting in 2021, the entire market has expanded much faster than anyone imagined.

　　Not surprisingly, it is very likely that the cumulative sales volume and penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles in 2022 will exceed 5.5 million and 25% respectively. For all the players on this track, at first glance, it seems that they have greater opportunities and opportunities than before.

　　The real situation is that, as the consumption structure becomes more mature, the crazy involution of the top leaders, and users gradually understand what an excellent smart electric vehicle is, the competition in the product dimension has already become intensified.

　　The sense of design of the interior and exterior of the vehicle, the maturity of the electronic and electrical architecture, the experience of the intelligent cockpit and the assisted driving system, including the performance of the energy supplement system and service system, good is good, bad is bad.

　　Taking this as a yardstick, and looking at the future of resurrection, it is completely possible to draw a conclusion: the K50 currently on sale has no advantages at all.

　　The data will not lie. In the past year and a half, the cumulative sales of this model were only a very unsatisfactory 131.

　　Although it has a supercar-like appearance, an all-aluminum body and some carbon fiber coverings, its 380-kilometer NEDC comprehensive cruising range, 4.6-second zero-to-hundred acceleration capability, combined with a terminal price of nearly 700,000 yuan, are already available today. Not too bright.

　　As for the "private-to-customize" approach that Lu Qun said, there is a lesson in the industry for a long time. On the K50, it also stays more at the interior and exterior decoration level, and essentially still maintains the dilemma of "changing the soup without changing the medicine".

　　As for the next model K20, pre-sale may start this year according to the future plan. But only from the current known positioning of its two-seater coupe and its more "peculiar" design language, there is a high probability that it will become a niche existence that can gain a certain amount of attention at the beginning of its listing, but cannot follow it.

　　From the beginning to the end, this new power car manufacturer has failed to come up with a "mainstream product" in the true sense. As a result, I can't help but feel deeply worried about its capital performance after listing overseas at the end of the year.

　　After all, with leaders like Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli" as models, investors' standards for new car companies are becoming more and more stringent.

　　After all, no one is a fool. The most basic basis for judging whether it is worth "betting" is that it needs to be proved by its own gold content through continuous "selling cars".

　　As a lesson from the past, FF Faraday Future, founded by Jia Yueting, also experienced a near-death experience. Last year, it also achieved its listing on Nasdaq through a "backdoor" approach.

　　Then, in the face of the sudden changes in the U.S. stock market environment, the shorts suddenly went short, the chaos and disputes within the management, and the various episodes that continued to occur during the mass production of FF 91, the total market value has plummeted from the initial $4.535 billion to $4.535 billion. At around $800 million today, it faces the risk of being forced to delist because it has not handed over its financial statements for the current quarter on time.

　　Similarly, Great Wall Huaguan was listed on the “New Third Board” as early as 2015 after the establishment of Qiantu. After that, the performance situation was not ideal. In 2016 and 2017, it lost 98 million yuan and 226 million yuan respectively, and it expanded to 606 million yuan in 2018. Finally, on February 20, 2019, it announced the application for termination of listing, and withdrew from the "New Third Board" on April 19 of the same year.

　　It is by no means alarmist, precisely because of the above-mentioned lessons from the inside and the outside, the new round of listing process of this new force's car manufacturing always makes people feel full of risks and challenges. Next, Lu Qun and Qian Qian faced a very unfamiliar and tortuous road.

　　At the end of the article, even if I am pessimistic about the situation and prospects of the two, I still want to send them a passage I saw by chance: "I will not die if I say anything, because I can't die and I don't want to die, so I know that life is I have to walk up the waves of desperation. Just because I still want to bet, the future is uncertain in the next life. "

　　Indeed, "unpredictable" is precisely the current state of the future, and "wanting to gamble" is Lu Qun's current state of mind.

　　When opening the bow, there was no turning back and arrows, so he could only bite the bullet and move forward...