The front foot is still considering pulling the goods from Labrador and seems to be joining the car making army.

　　Recently, Huolala officially submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with securities firms including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Securities, and JPMorgan Chase as co sponsors for the company's IPO. It is worth noting that Huolala officially mentioned the vehicle manufacturing project in the prospectus: the company is utilizing its existing experience in vehicle rental and sales services to explore new business opportunities, such as the development of electric commercial vehicles.

　　In response to this news, Huo Lala did not deny it, but stated that "they are carefully evaluating and discussing the relevant content". Zhou Shengfu, the person in charge of Huolala, previously stated: "Our definition of a car is an electric and intelligent car. Linking the two makes people fantasize about the road of making cars with goods.

　　The Car Making Ambition of Huolala

　　After the millennium, "cross-border car manufacturing" has always been a hot topic in the automotive industry.

　　Twenty years ago, a group of home appliance companies such as Midea, Chunlan, and Oaks attempted to enter the automotive industry but failed. With the rise of a new cross-border car manufacturing trend, related companies have once again entered the industry.

　　From Xiaomi and Baidu, which have already announced the production of cars, to Huawei and Tencent, which are still hesitant, to players from all walks of life who are still waiting to see their changes underwater... At the forefront of the new four modernizations of automobiles, the traditional pattern of the automotive industry is being broken and reshaped. Even the "new forces of car manufacturing" that emerged a few years ago are no longer new forces. Now, the automotive market is attracting the attention of a large number of enterprises.

　　On the one hand, cross-border giants are hindering their own industries from entering the stock market and looking for a second growth curve; On the other hand, they stand at the forefront of the new energy era, aiming to enter the automotive manufacturing industry, enter the automotive supply chain, and become the force shaping the new pattern of future automobiles.

　　The same applies to the manufacturing of cars by freight drivers.

　　Founded in 2013, Huolala is an online freight platform engaged in intra city/cross city freight, enterprise version logistics services, moving, less than truckload, car rental and sales, and after-sales market services. Due to the intensive business in transportation, the business volume during the three years of the epidemic was extremely unstable, especially in the early stages of the epidemic. At one point, the business volume decreased by 93%, with a single volume of only 7% before the epidemic.

　　Therefore, under the impact of low fault tolerance in the freight market, it is difficult to carry out cargo pulling business. It has been announced that it will launch errand running business and car manufacturing to start the second business curve. And making cars is the top priority for the next step of freight transportation.

　　Zhou Shengfu once said, "If internet companies have been building cars to meet their own needs in the past few years, then the next five years will be to meet the needs of consumers. In the next five years, the automotive market will also experience significant changes." From his expression, it can also be seen that Huolala has the ambition to squeeze into the car making market in the future.

　　In fact, this is not the first time that it has been passed on for shipping, pulling, and making cars.

　　As early as May 2021, there were reports that Huolala would launch a car manufacturing project, but no official confirmation was obtained from Huolala. At that time, technology companies such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and 360 entered the automotive industry, among which Xiaomi officially became a new automotive brand.

　　At that time, Huolala launched positions such as new energy truck vehicle product experts on the recruitment platform, recruiting talents in the manufacturing of new energy trucks. Regarding the speculation from the outside world, Huo Lala responded at that time: "The company will continue to recruit and reserve talents, but there is currently no publicly available information regarding the car manufacturing matter

　　At the same time, in July last year, the management committee of Chongqing High tech Industrial Development Zone announced that Huolala planned to establish an automotive China headquarters within the direct management park of Chongqing High tech Zone with a total investment of 10.5 billion yuan. The layout and construction includes a complete vehicle research institute, an intelligent networking center, a supply chain and large manufacturing collaboration center, etc. This move further confirms the car manufacturing plan of Huolala.

　　As for the form of participating in car manufacturing through cargo pulling, it is widely believed that it will be achieved through cooperation with car manufacturers.

　　The cake made of cars is not easy to eat

　　Firstly, it must be acknowledged that the new energy market has been thriving in the past two years. Sales in China continue to be popular, and expansion abroad is also very rapid.

　　More relevant institutions predict that the Chinese new energy vehicle market will reach a level of 15.98 million vehicles in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 35.1%. This means that by then, the penetration rate of domestic new energy vehicles will exceed 50%, and the proportion of ownership will exceed 10% of the total.

　　With the current popularity and future trends of the new energy market, a group of car companies are constantly increasing their investment in this field, and it is not surprising to focus on this piece of fat. But for freight drivers, the road to making cars is not easy.

　　According to the prospectus of Huolala, from 2020 to 2022, the revenue of Huolala (including its overseas business platform) was $529 million, $844 million, and $1.036 billion, respectively, with a compound annual growth rate of 39.9%. Among them, in 2022, Huolala achieved profits for the first time, with a profit of 53 million US dollars. In the first two years, it suffered losses of 155 million US dollars and 631 million US dollars, respectively.

　　Regarding the losses in the first two years, Huo Lala stated that the main reason is to accelerate regional expansion in emerging and existing markets, continue to invest, and incur high user acquisition costs. This indicates that Huolala's own business and existing market are not optimistic.

　　Secondly, Didi, which belongs to the same track as Huolala, has been trying to participate in car manufacturing, but the reality is not good.

　　In 2018, Didi collaborated with Ideal to develop a pure electric MPV. The original plan was for mass production in early 2020, but it stalled due to no further investment from both parties. In November 2020, Didi chose to collaborate with BYD to launch the D1 model, which was produced and manufactured by BYD and mainly aimed at the ride hailing market.

　　However, there have been no reports of any plans to build cars among "peers" such as Kuaishou Taxi and Didi Freight.

　　At the same time, although there are many car manufacturers entering the market, the disputes in the automotive market are multifaceted and the changes are unpredictable. Even Huawei, which has been frantically exploring the edge of car manufacturing for a long time, has taken a step back under Ren Zhengfei's veto once again. In other words, cake made from cars is not easy to eat.

　　Under the pressure of new energy vehicles, the fuel vehicle market can still survive, but cannot grow. Many domestic brands with insufficient research and development capabilities and second tier joint venture brands that cannot keep up with the market have reached the point of dying struggle.

　　And the new energy market is also at the forefront of life and death. Amidst the increasing growth of BYD and the stable output of Tesla, the market is in a state of mourning, with even "NIO" losing money year after year, let alone the decline of the fast-paced future and Weima Gaohe.

　　Although the competition in the pure electric commercial vehicle market is not as fierce as in the competition for new energy passenger vehicles, and there are not as many players, this provides the opportunity for Huola to enter the electric commercial vehicle market. However, from the current business model of Huola, it is not easy to participate in vehicle manufacturing.

　　So the question comes, if we say that the amount of goods pulled by Labradors depends on whether Labradors pull too much, then what does it depend on whether Labradors build cars or not?