The “cake” painted by Xiaopeng can’t quench the thirst

Welcome to the WeChat subscription number of “Sina Technology”: techsina

Text / Zhou Xiongfei

Source: Connected Travel

The “Science and Technology Spring Festival Gala” belonging to Xiaopeng Motors has been held for the fourth time.

This Monday evening, with Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng standing in the spotlight, Xiaopeng’s “1024 Technology Day” kicked off. As a company whose development is based on intelligence and technology, the introduction of the progress of intelligent driving accounted for nearly half of the entire event.

In this regard, Xiaopeng officially introduced the progress of intelligent driving, especially the implementation of urban NGP. At the same time, in order to accelerate the implementation of “full-scene point-to-point assisted driving” promised by He Xiaopeng, it also released a new perception architecture XNet and Use Robotaxi business to develop in parallel as an auxiliary support.

In addition to intelligent driving, intelligent interaction has also become the focus of He Xiaopeng’s introduction. According to him, the full-scene voice 2.0 system is different from the previous interaction, which requires wake-up. The 2.0 system can support the ability of no wake-up, simultaneous multi-person dialogue, context understanding, and use in weak network environments.

The protagonist of the second half of Science and Technology Day went from the intelligence of cars to the intelligence of robots and flying cars. Smart robotic horses and flying cars have attracted the attention of the industry since their debut at the last Tech Day. After a year, the robot horse has been significantly improved in terms of appearance, bone design, and mobility. He Xiaopeng also revealed that a new intelligent robot will be released next year.

Unlike robots, flying cars have been tested and developed for a year, and Xiaopeng has launched a new generation of models. Compared with the pair of propeller wings of the previous model, the new model has added a pair of propeller wings. For this new model, Xiaopeng has begun to put into testing.

From the intelligentization of vehicles, to robotic horses and flying cars, Xiaopeng has shown another “muscle” to the outside world through this event, but it does not help to increase confidence in the capital market. The day after the 1024 Technology Day, the US stock price of Xiaopeng Motors opened at $7.25 per share, a drop of 10.82%.

It is not surprising to have such a reaction, because these new stories presented by Xiaopeng are regarded as “painting cakes” in the industry.

Taking XNGP full-scene point-to-point assisted driving, last year He Xiaopeng said that it will be realized in 2024, but at this event, this goal has been changed to only G9 series models in 2024 can achieve this function. The flying car, which was announced last year to be mass-produced in 2024, overturned the previous configuration at this technology day and released a new version of the flying car configuration. In addition, for this product The landing time was not stated.

Since it may take a long time for these new stories to be implemented, it is difficult for these new technologies to solve the bottleneck period encountered by Xiaopeng in the industry. As far as products are concerned, Xiaopeng is still caught in the situation that the new model G9 cannot boost sales and the old model P5 cannot support sales.

Today, Xiaopeng’s top priority is to find a way to solve the current predicament.

1

Xiaopeng’s new story, how fine is it?

The introduction of intelligent driving has become the highlight of this Xpeng 1024 Technology Day.

The introduction to this aspect was completed by Wu Xinzhou, vice president of Xiaopeng Motors. At the beginning of the show, he first threw a question – why does Xiaopeng want to do urban navigation assisted driving that is “hundred times more difficult”? In order to answer this question, Wu Xinzhou came up with some data.

According to Xiaopeng’s data, urban roads account for as high as 71% of users’ total vehicle mileage, and it can account for 90% in terms of vehicle use time. At the same time, only 25% of daily user trips pass through highways, compared to 100% on urban roads.

In September this year, Xiaopeng has launched the urban NGP intelligent navigation assisted driving function in Guangzhou, becoming the first new energy vehicle company in China to implement this function. In Wu Xinzhou’s view, many car companies have taken the lead in implementing single-scenario assisted driving capabilities, such as high-speed assisted navigation and driving.

In the future, the full-scene assisted driving capability will become the focus of competition among car companies. Xiaopeng calls it XNGP, that is, high-speed assisted driving + urban road assisted driving + parking lot navigation assisted driving full-scene point-to-point assisted driving Function.

However, Wu Xinzhou also admitted that due to certain deficiencies in Xiaopeng’s software, hardware and data processing, it is not realistic to realize this function. Based on this, it is logical to introduce some new layouts of Xiaopeng in smart driving.

To achieve higher-level assisted driving, perception becomes the key. In this regard, Xiaopeng has launched a new generation of perception architecture XNet. According to reports, this architecture combines the whole vehicle perception hardware, which has strong perception of static environment and strong detection ability of dynamic environment.

If perception is to obtain environmental data, then labeling, training and deploying data information is the subsequent work. In order to accomplish this, Wu Xinzhou said that Xiaopeng first developed a fully automatic labeling system, and the labeling volume of 2,000 person-years can be completed in 16.7 days.

In addition, Xiaopeng has also established an autonomous driving intelligent computing center – Fuyao, which is used to train artificial intelligence to recognize and understand data. Coupled with the support of Transformer deployment and full simulation system, it can make its intelligent driving system efficient and reliable. .

In addition to the smart driving layout for C-end user models, Xiaopeng also announced its progress in the Robotaxi business. At present, Xiaopeng G9 has passed the closed road test for autonomous driving. According to Xiaopeng’s plan, it hopes to open Xiaopeng’s own Robotaxi business (with safety officers) in 2023 or 2024.

In terms of smart driving, Xiaopeng also put forward related goals. In the first half of next year, the XNGP function will be officially released on the G9, supporting cities such as Guangzhou and Shenzhen; by 2024, the G9 MAX series models will have full-scene capabilities and achieve point-to-point intelligent navigation assisted driving capabilities.

For other models such as the P5 and P7, Xiaopeng only stated that the function of urban NGP will be implemented by next year, and did not specify the specific time for the realization of the XNGP function. In the industry, it may be delayed for these models to realize this function.

Just as there have been many upgrades in intelligent driving, Xiaopeng has also brought new systems in terms of intelligent interaction.

According to He Xiaopeng’s introduction, the new system is called Full Scene Voice 2.0, which is based on the intelligent voice assistant and version 1.0. Compared with the previous version, the 2.0 system can realize the full-time voice interaction capability of the whole vehicle, that is to say, passengers can speak commands at any time without waking up, and can also recognize the needs of passengers in different seats to respond.

In addition, based on Xiaopeng’s full-stack self-developed second-generation voice architecture, the voice function can still be used even if the vehicle travels in an environment with weak or no network such as a tunnel. At the same time, the 2.0 voice function also supports a custom mode, allowing car owners to define their own scene experience.

According to He Xiaopeng’s vision, he hopes that the future Xiaopeng voice assistant can be natural, personalized and emotional, making it more like a real assistant, not just a voice assistant.

After introducing the intelligent driving and intelligent interaction on the vehicle, He Xiaopeng changed the subject and began to introduce the progress of his robot horse “Little White Dragon” and flying car.

These two major products were officially unveiled on the 1024 Science and Technology Day last year. On this science and technology day, there are different changes. Among them, Xiaobailong has been upgraded in appearance and bone design, and AR projection and six-axis robotic arm functions have also been added.

Although according to He Xiaopeng, this product has evolved from a laboratory state to a state close to mass production, but he also said that a new generation of intelligent robots will be launched next year, which may replace the robot horse and become the final mass-produced product.

In terms of flying cars, Xiaopeng released a new generation of flying cars. Compared with the products released last year, the new product is more like a conventional new energy vehicle in land mode; in flight mode, due to the addition of a pair of propeller wings, it can withstand greater winds. , to achieve safe flight.

From the upgrade of intelligent driving and intelligent interaction, to the iteration of the robot horse “Little White Dragon”, and then to the release of the new version of the flying car, in the industry, Xiaopeng once again demonstrated to the outside world that it is in a high-profile manner through a technology day event New stories in the field.

However, while Xpeng Motors is developing new products, it must also focus on solving the current predicament.

2

Xiaopeng, who is in a bottleneck period, is difficult to get out of trouble

Xiaopeng Motors is currently trapped in the quagmire of sales.

According to data released by Xiaopeng, its sales volume last month was 8,468 units. By comparing the sales volume in the same period last year and the sales volume in August this year, it can be found that this sales volume not only fell by 18.67% year-on-year, but also fell by 11.59% month-on-month.

It should be noted that such a decline in sales has already begun. According to the financial report data previously released by Xiaopeng, its total sales in the first quarter of this year were 34,561 units, a decrease of 16.86% from the fourth quarter of last year. For this decline, Xiaopeng explained that it was affected by holidays such as the Spring Festival, which led to a decline in sales.

Generally speaking, after experiencing a seasonal sales decline in the first quarter of each year, car companies will quickly rebound in the second quarter.

However, as far as Xiaopeng’s performance in the second quarter of this year is concerned, its quarterly sales continue to decline. In the quarter, Xpeng Motors achieved a total sales volume of 34,422 vehicles, a decrease of 4.03% from the previous quarter. The decline in sales also led to the decline of Xiaopeng’s performance in the quarter.

In the second quarter of this year, Xiaopeng achieved a total revenue of 7.436 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 98%, but a decrease of 0.25% from the previous quarter. In terms of net losses, data show that in the second quarter of this year, Xiaopeng recorded a net loss of 2.701 billion yuan, an increase of 58.8% from the first quarter of this year and an increase of 126.10% year-on-year.

In the third quarter of this year, Xiaopeng’s decline in sales continues. In July this year, Xiaopeng achieved sales of 11,524 units, a month-on-month decrease of 24.66%; in the following month, sales continued to decline to only 9,578 units, a month-on-month decrease of 16.89%.

For Xiaopeng’s sales decline since the beginning of this year, Connected Travel believes that it has a lot to do with the problems in Xiaopeng’s product system.

Judging from the financial report for the second quarter of this year, the models that mainly contributed to the sales of Xiaopeng were the P7 and P5, of which the P7 was its product launched in 2020, and soon became a popular product in the Xiaopeng product system. A year later, Xiaopeng launched its new model P5. In contrast, Xiaopeng highlighted the label of intelligence in its introduction to the latter.

However, with the launch of the P5, it quickly stole the limelight of the P7, and internal friction occurred between the two products. While the sales of the P7 declined significantly, the P5 did not support the growth in sales. Connected Travel once said in “Expansion of Losses, Weak Sales, Xiaopeng Technology’s Route Is Not Working? This has been elaborated in detail in articles such as .

In order to change the predicament in sales, Xiaopeng pinned its hopes on the launch of the new model G9.

At the end of last month, Xiaopeng G9 began to be launched and delivered under the background of a grand press conference. He Xiaopeng has also been promoting this model with the propaganda words of “the best SUV within 500,000”. But soon after the G9 was launched, it was criticized by many consumers.

The most complained about is the complexity and confusion of the Xiaopeng G9 listing plan. For example, the name of the G9 is combined with “G, E and X” and “570-702”, but the configuration is not distinguished by alphabetical order and number size, so that after the release of this listing plan, it was complained by many car owners.

In the face of complaints and doubts, Xiaopeng had to overturn the previous model and price plan less than two days after the G9 was launched, and released a new adjusted plan. However, as far as the new listing scheme is concerned, there are still 8 model configurations, which are named “Plus, Pro and Max” at the same time. For consumers, the complexity of buying a car still exists.

According to Xiaopeng’s vision, through the launch of the G9, while boosting sales, it can also increase its gross profit margin and achieve a surge based on the higher price of this model.

However, according to the statistics of the first-line sales data media car Fans, the G9 models with the most orders are the 570 and 702 series models with a price of 309,900-369,800 yuan, while the 650 series models with a price of more than 400,000 yuan are not much. Order.

This means that although the Xiaopeng G9 is divided into three-speed and 8-style models, trying to obtain more sales through this layout, the facts may be quite different, and each price range cannot exert its maximum sales potential.

Although it depends on the sales performance of the G9, it will not be known until the beginning of next month, but based on the previous discussion, and the G9 also has competing products such as the NIO ES7 and the ideal L9, from the perspective of the industry, Xiaopeng wants to borrow the G9. It is not easy to break through the bottleneck currently encountered.

Because of this, the capital market gave their attitude. Since the beginning of this year, Xiaopeng’s US stock price has been fluctuating. Compared with the stock price at the beginning of the year, its stock price has fallen by nearly 80% as of last Friday, and its market value has evaporated by more than 40 billion US dollars.

At the same time that the new products are not optimistic, He Xiaopeng also wants to try to restore the trust of the industry inside and outside the industry through the new stories told on this technology day.

3

Can the new story solve Xiaopeng’s near-term worries?

From this science and technology day, I saw that Xiaopeng began to tend to be conservative.

As mentioned above, this year’s Xiaopeng’s technology day has become the first aspect to be introduced. In addition to the many progress in this area, Wu Xinzhou also mentioned some of the difficulties, such as the many obstacles to the implementation of urban NGP, among which The biggest difficulty is undoubtedly the lack of support for high-precision map resources.

Since the establishment of new car-making forces such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal in 2014, the transition from electrification to intelligence has basically been completed today. Among them, in order to achieve higher-level automatic assisted driving functions, car companies such as “Weixiaoli” have cooperated with high-precision map providers, so that each has launched a high-speed navigation assisted driving function based on high-precision maps.

For Xiaopeng, whose main label is intelligence, it has gone a step further in this process. In July last year, it officially announced that it had acquired Tushang Zhitu Technology for 250 million yuan in order to obtain a Class-A map surveying and mapping qualification, in an attempt to further achieve its own purpose of mapping and mapping.

But it turned out that Xiaopeng’s idea was finally shattered. As of now, according to the Notice on Promoting the Development and Maintenance of Surveying and Mapping Geographic Information Security issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Zhitu Technology, a subsidiary of Xiaopeng, has not yet obtained relevant approvals, so that Xiaopeng’s intelligent driving is in High-precision maps cannot be supported in the short term.

For this, Wu Xinzhou also confirmed it on Science and Technology Day. In order to solve the limitation of no picture in the future, Xiaopeng will release the XNet architecture and full closed-loop simulation training data set, etc. According to his introduction, based on these tools, Xiaopeng can realize the “high-precision” “Map” simulation and generation in order to support the continued development of Xiaopeng’s intelligent driving business.

Compared with the high-profile and radical nature of the previous three science and technology days, this science and technology day can be said to be the first time that Xiaopeng has publicly demonstrated its difficulties in intelligent driving research and development. Perhaps because of these foreshadowings, Xiaopeng slightly modified the Flag that was previously established in intelligent driving.

Last year, He Xiaopeng announced that he would realize the point-to-point full-scenario connection of XNGP in 2024, but on this technology day, this goal was refined to the point that only the G9 MAX series models can realize XNGP full-scene assisted driving in 2024. The function is opened, but there is no specific time for other models to realize this function.

“It is also normal for Xiaopeng to become conservative in the field of intelligent driving, because without the support of high-precision maps, the development of its related businesses will definitely be adversely affected. After all, Xiaopeng relied on high-precision maps a lot before.” Automatic Li Xiaoliang, a driving software engineer, said to Connected Travel.

He also believes that Xiaopeng’s goal of autonomous driving in 2025 does not dare to say that it will be implemented in that year, but only means “towards autonomous driving and unmanned driving”. This is because to achieve fully autonomous driving, in addition to technology In addition, the maturity of local laws and regulations must also be considered.

Be conservative like this, and it’s a bit more pronounced on the landing of a flying car.

On the same science and technology day last year, He Xiaopeng released the sixth-generation flying car with a car shape and a pair of propeller wings. According to the introduction at that time, this flying car can realize the conversion between land and flight, perhaps to make this flying car. This product received more attention, and He Xiaopeng set a rather bold flag at that time – this flying car will be mass-produced in 2024.

Now, a year later, Xiaopeng first overturned the configuration of the previous flying car. In He Xiaopeng’s view, the configuration of the flying car released last year has certain defects and cannot be mass-produced. To this end, on this technology day, Xiaopeng launched a new generation of flying cars.

At rest, the new flying car looks very close to a regular car, with just two pairs of propellers overhead; when taking off, the two pairs of propellers unfold to form four propellers on the roof. Just after the release of this new configuration of the flying car, it was quickly criticized by many netizens.

Some netizens think that this is a set of drones that is mechanically mounted on the car, as if “a DJI lifts a car”; at the same time, some netizens think that the configuration of this flying car is unreliable, because the power consumption of the whole structure consumes It is too large, and at the same time does not consider aerodynamically related design.

Perhaps under these complaints, when He Xiaopeng introduced the relevant content of flying cars, the press conference came to an abrupt end, and the specific landing schedule was not announced like last year.

Similar to the flying car, Xiaopeng’s robot “Little White Dragon” project also did not mention the corresponding mass production time this year. From the perspective of the industry, compared with XNGP, it will take a long time for Xiaopeng’s fully autonomous driving, flying cars and intelligent robots to land.

In other words, these new stories that Xiaopeng is currently proposing are like springs in the distance, and these “distant waters” cannot solve the bottleneck period that Xiaopeng is currently encountering.

Perhaps Xiaopeng also realized this and tried to get out of trouble through some more practical adjustments and layouts.

According to media reports such as Easy Car, after the launch of the G9, Xiaopeng also plans to remodel the P7, or install lidar, which is expected to be released within this year. In addition, according to what He Xiaopeng said in the second quarter financial report of this year, a new B-class model will be launched next year, as well as a new C-class model with an undetermined release date.

In addition to the product layout, Xiaopeng has also carried out a large-scale organizational structure adjustment recently. According to the smart car reference report, in this structural adjustment, Xiaopeng has established five virtual committee organizations: strategy, production regulations, technical planning, production and sales balance and OTA committees; three new product matrix organizations have also been established: E, F, H platform product matrix.

From this point of view, to judge whether Xiaopeng can get out of the predicament sooner, it also depends on whether its organizational structure adjustment and product remodeling are effective. Whether it can successfully enter the second half of the new energy vehicle battlefield is a trial.

Because of this, it is not enough for Xiaopeng to break the game with “bright muscles”. Whether the current predicament can be solved also determines whether these “new stories” can be successfully realized in the future.

(The header picture of this article is from the official WeChat account of Xiaopeng Motors, and Li Xiaoliang is a pseudonym in the article.)

(Disclaimer: This article only represents the author’s point of view and does not represent the position of Sina.com.)

This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-10-26/doc-imqqsmrp3819211.shtml
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.