Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Nowadays, there are many brands building cars in Xiahai, and there are also many brands that lack technical support. Even, many brands that lack independent patents can only carry out simple assembly business and are in a passive position in market competition and foreign trade. After all, technology is the foundation of car companies, if there is a lack of technology investment, it will be difficult for long-term development.

Recently, some data show the comparison of the accumulation of patents by the new forces of car building. it can be seen from the intuitive data that Weilai takes the lead in a number of patent data. In terms of the global total, Ulai is absolutely in the lead with 6390 pieces, nearly 3000 more than the car company in second place.

Specifically, Weilai ranks first in the three categories of invention, utility model and appearance. From the perspective of invention patents, which are the most key indicators of R & D output, there are as many as 2990 invention patents, which fully demonstrates the technical strength of Weilai.

In addition, Ulai has an obvious advantage in the total number of overseas patents, reaching 1588, more than 1300 higher than the second place. It can be seen that in the new forces, Weilai pays more attention to the high-quality investment of technology and the realization of technological achievements, and has more cutting-edge global layout ideas, which continues to bring advantages to Ulai in the field of technology.

Some people in the industry said that the data of this channel should be the patent data that have been made public by various companies, but due to the lag of patent disclosure, these data may be lower than the actual number of patents of each company, because from the practice of the patent industry, many patents will take at least several months from application to disclosure, and some may even last as long as several years.

With the largest number of patents, is the money really spent right?

It is no accident that Weilai has taken the lead in the number of patents. After all, Wei has always attached importance to technology accumulation and tends to invest in valuable technology. From the data previously disclosed, it can be seen that over the past five years, Weilai has invested more than 30 billion yuan in R & D, making it the enterprise with the largest R & D investment among the new forces.

According to the analysis of industry insiders, there is a positive correlation between Weilai's long-term investment and patent advantage, and the lead in the number of patents is also highly matched with Weilai's technological advantage and market position.

Relevant information shows that the core technology of Ulai has covered the panorama of intelligent electric vehicle business. In this year's "NIO IN 2023 innovation and technology day", the first surface of the "Weilai technology stack" attracted the attention of the industry. In the view of some technology practitioners, although "Weilai Technology Stack" was released for the first time, it is actually the result of many years of technology investment.

Specifically, the "Weilai Technology Stack" includes 12 key technology areas, including chips and vehicle smart hardware, battery systems, electric drive and high voltage systems, vehicle engineering, vehicle global operating systems, panoramic interconnection, smart driving, intelligent cockpits, smart energy, intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence and global digital operations, to meet the needs of Xilai in intelligent, electric, automotive, products, services, communities. Multi-brand, multi-platform, multi-regional three dimensions, nine elements of R & D and operation needs.

The leading technology, the most direct role is the continuous improvement of the quality of Weilai models. At present, eight second-generation technology platform models have been fully delivered, and the strongest product matrix continues to be effective, fully meeting the diversified needs of users in the price range of 300000-600000, covering the main market in which BBA accounts for 80% of sales.

For the quality of Weilai models, the market also gives positive feedback. Data show that a total of 126067 new cars were delivered in the first 10 months of this year. Among them, a total of 55432 new cars were delivered in the third quarter of this year, an increase of 75.4 percent over the same period last year, and quarterly delivery reached an all-time high. Moreover, Xilai's leading position in China's high-end pure electricity market is constantly being strengthened. From January to October this year, Weilai accounted for 60.6 per cent of the high-end pure electricity market at an average transaction price of more than 300000.

Various phenomena show that the unassailable performance of Weilai in the high-end market depends to a large extent on its unremitting investment in technology.

Under the long-term doctrine, how far should Weilai look?

In an interview with the media, Xilai executives talked about the issue of technology investment. At that time, the executive compared smart electric car companies to "children growing up". If they do not pay attention to the nutritional supplement of "children", it is bound to affect their physical fitness in adulthood. In other words, if we do not increase investment in R & D at this stage, even if we make a temporary profit at present, it will be like dropping out of school to work to earn money, which is a sign of no ambition and pursuit.

From the actual performance of Weilai, a series of investment has achieved results, because the leading trend in the high-end market is still accelerating.

Some statistics show that the sales of high-end brands increased year on year from January to October this year. Among them, sales growth in the first 10 months of this year reached 40.2%, ranking first. Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz ranked second to fourth, with growth rates of 6.7%, 3.6% and 1.7% respectively, and sales growth was much lower than that of Weilai. Second-tier luxury brands such as Volvo, Cadillac and Lexus had negative sales growth of-1.6% and-4.7% respectively. Porsche ranked eighth, with a growth rate of-12.8%.

Being able to penetrate the iron walls established by traditional luxury car companies shows that Ulai has established higher product and service standards in the high-end automobile market.

When all this works at the level of capital markets, it makes Xilai an "alternative" in this year's difficult financing environment. In July this year, Abu Dhabi investment agency CYVN completed a total strategic investment of about $1.1 billion through the private placement of new shares and the transfer of old shares. In September, Weilai successfully issued a total of $1 billion of convertible senior bonds, and these two financing will effectively improve Weilai's cash flow.

Data show that as of June 30, 2023, the cash reserve of Lulai was 31.5 billion yuan. According to the analysis of investors, Lulai is currently rich in cash, has a solid foundation in the high-end market, has a large space for development, and its long-term thinking is easier to implement.

It is undeniable that new energy automobile companies are at the forefront of the storm, repeatedly subject to strict scrutiny by industry experts and the market, and many new car-building forces are regarded as "naked swimmers". Through the real patent data, we can see that some brands may be bluffing, some brands may be step by step, after all, patent data is always an important indicator of technological strength.

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