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After Britain monopolized steam engine technology during the First Industrial Revolution, the United States found that no matter how much it improved its steam engine, it could not get around Britain's "Wasteland Privilege Stick";

The path chosen by the United States was to make internal combustion engines and occupy the world market with internal combustion engines as the power source. It took American, German and Japanese cars a hundred years to do so.

In order to break through their limitations, Chinese automobiles have opened up the electric motor route; today, Chinese new energy vehicles have taken the center stage on the world stage.

When China's new car-making forces are overtaking others, there is one new car-making force that is either the favorite of online car-hailing companies in the world, or the pioneer in going overseas. It is Nezha Auto.

In 2023, Nezha Auto exported 17,019 new energy electric vehicles, accounting for 13.7% of total sales and contributing 12.0% of revenue. In the first half of 2024, Nezha Auto exported a total of 17,687 new energy vehicles from January to June, a year-on-year increase of 154%, ranking first among new car manufacturers.

Not long ago, Hozon New Energy Automobile, the parent company of Nezha Auto, submitted its prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and everyone realized that Hozon's car-making strength should not be underestimated. At present, Hozon has a number of new energy vehicles, including the Nezha AYA series, Nezha X series, Nezha L, Nezha S, Nezha GT, etc., with a total sales of more than 430,000 vehicles and an annual income of more than 13.5 billion yuan.

It is worth mentioning that as a technology company that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has focused on introducing and a "chain leader" in Hong Kong's new energy vehicle ecosystem, Nezha "is based in the South China Sea and looks to the world", and with the switch of its energy base, it will hand over the "Wazan" of the world's new energy era.

Who is the master behind the “noisy” sea?

Looking back at the past ten years of Nezha Auto, state-owned assets in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, Yichun, Jiangxi, Nanning, Guangxi and other places have provided money, land and support to Nezha Auto, and are jokingly called the "Pagoda-Bearing Heavenly King" behind Nezha by people in the industry.

The story of Nezha originated in 2014, when Fang Yunzhou, general manager of Chery New Energy, left Chery to start his own business.

At that time, as a professional manager, Fang Yunzhou had already made considerable achievements in the workplace. However, idealistic people in the automotive industry are never bound by the realistic "Xiaoman" policy. Fang Yunzhou still wants to use smart cars to subvert traditional cars and realize his dream of "rejuvenating China and taking off in the world."

The first stop was Tongxiang, Jiaxing, Zhejiang. The story at this point was the same as that of most entrepreneurs, because the shareholder who initially supported Fang Yunzhou, Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, was in Jiaxing. It is worth mentioning that since its establishment in 2003, this institute has been rooted in the Yangtze River Delta and is determined to open up the "last mile" of scientific and technological achievement transformation.

Tongxiang gave Fang Yunzhou an opportunity, and Fang Yunzhou gave Tongxiang a miracle. In the past ten years, the arrival of Nezha Auto has also enabled Tongxiang to achieve a breakthrough in car manufacturing from zero to whole. From 0 to over 100 million US dollars, from 1 to the 100,000th mass-produced car rolling off the assembly line, the development history of Hozon New Energy is a vivid portrayal of Tongxiang's rapid progress on the "new track" of smart cars. Today, Hozon Auto has become a "star" in Tongxiang, Zhejiang; Nezha Auto has even become a representative of the automobile industry in Zhejiang Province.

Signing ceremony of the joint agreement on high-quality development between Hozon Auto and three state-owned enterprises

In 2017, Nezha arrived at his second stop, Yichun, Jiangxi.

If joining hands with Tongxiang was the only choice in the early stage of entrepreneurship, joining hands with Yichun is a two-way journey. In Yichun, there are a number of lithium battery industry leaders such as Yichun Times, Jiangxi Guoxuan, and Ganfeng Lithium. In recent years, Yichun has gradually extended the tentacles of the new energy supply chain to various links of the industrial chain such as lithium carbonate, negative electrode materials, diaphragms, aluminum-plastic films, and lithium batteries.

Yichun, which is determined to become the "Lithium Capital of Asia", is also expanding its industrial chain. In 2018, local state-owned assets acquired approximately 51.31% of Nezha Auto's shares and invested another 1.013 billion yuan in Nezha Auto, which is enough to show the importance it attaches to new car-making forces.

After Nezha landed in Yichun, the local government mentioned more than once that it would focus on "chain leader companies with strong influence such as Hozon New Energy vehicles"; later in the "Yichun City's 14th Five-Year Plan for High-Quality Development of the Manufacturing Industry", it was directly stated that the local government would focus on the Hozon New Energy project.

Around 2020, Nanning and Nezha Auto have become closer and closer. Guangxi has a long history of automobile industry, and the development foundation and conditions are complete. Taking advantage of the new energy boom, Nanning attracted Nezha Auto, which on the one hand promoted Nanning to build a new energy vehicle and parts industry cluster. On the other hand, relying on the geographical advantages of ASEAN and the "Belt and Road Initiative", Nanning can also serve as a port for Nezha Auto to go to Southeast Asia.

It is not difficult to see that by the time Nezha and Nanning joined hands, Nezha Automobile had successfully made a name for itself. It was no longer the "unknown" startup company it once was, but had directly become Nanning's "landmark project of a strong capital."

In April this year, state-owned assets in Tongxiang, Yichun and Nanning directly chose to join forces and once again increased their holdings in Nezha by 5 billion yuan.

In fact, the investment of local state-owned assets is very different from venture capital that only considers ROI. In addition to pursuing financial returns, they also look forward to Nezha's contribution to the local area. In the above three places, Nezha Automobile has begun to "drive the whole chain with one car", using technology to drive the upgrading of local industrial belts, creating a new round of new energy industry closed loop, and contributing a lot of jobs. Hefei, which owns Weilai, also gave Nezha part of the support in the nearly 7 billion yuan cross-round financing in 2023. The expected joining can make Hefei's automotive industry ecosystem fuller.

It is worth mentioning that shortly before state-owned assets jointly invested 5 billion yuan, Nezha Auto also became a key corporate partner of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.

Nezha Auto and the Tsinghua Group

As early as 2005-2008, Fang Yunzhou represented Chery Automobile to study at Ricardo, a top powertrain company headquartered in Cambridge, UK. When he argued with Ricardo's chief engineer and was not optimistic about the fuel hybrid technology route, the other party's eyes and tone did not hide the "superiority" in his eyes and tone. To put it bluntly, they looked down on Fang Yunzhou and Chinese cars at that time, which made Fang Yunzhou deeply feel the gap between Chinese cars and traditional cars.

Self-improvement is the spirit of Tsinghua people and the mark of the development of China's automobile industry in recent years. Nezha's car manufacturing is also supported by the "Tsinghua system". It is understood that two of the four shareholders of the "angel" round of investment in Hozon New Energy were companies founded by Fang Yunzhou's former colleagues at Chery Automobile, and the other two were Tsinghua-affiliated Yihuatong and Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute.

In 2014, Fang Yunzhou left Chery New Energy and went to Tsinghua University to study for a postdoctoral degree and started his own business. At Tsinghua University, Fang Yunzhou studied under the leading figure in the new energy vehicle industry, Academician Ouyang Minggao.

Academician Ouyang Minggao served as the leader of the expert group of the "Major Project of Electric Vehicles" in the "12th Five-Year Plan" and was the maker of China's new energy vehicle technology strategy. Before Ho-Chung, Academician Ouyang Minggao actively helped his students start businesses using new technologies such as fuel cells. SinoHytec, which initially invested in Ho-Chung, is a core hydrogen energy company incubated by Academician Ouyang Minggao.

The Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of Tsinghua University, which initially brought Hozon New Energy to Tongxiang, Zhejiang, also saw the spirit of self-improvement of Fang Yunzhou and his team. In 2016, the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Zhejiang and Hozon New Energy jointly established a new energy vehicle R&D center to research and develop key technologies such as key algorithms for intelligent driving, driving trajectory planning, multi-source signal fusion, and wire-controlled steering/braking.

Later, Nezha Automobile also gave back to the automotive industry of Tsinghua University. Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute is taking Nezha Automobile as the starting point to vigorously promote the technical research and achievement transformation in the fields of new energy vehicle technology and vehicle and parts enterprises in the entire Yangtze River Delta region. Peng Qingfeng, the co-founder who is mainly responsible for the supply chain business of Hozon New Energy, was also elected as the executive deputy director of the New Energy Vehicle R&D Center of Zhejiang Tsinghua Yangtze River Delta Research Institute.

When the 10,000th Nezha car rolled off the assembly line, a group photo of the Tsinghua School's "masters"

There is also such a small episode. In 2017, Hozon New Energy successfully obtained the "birth permit" for listing. At that time, many articles "deeply dug" what the origin of Hozon New Energy was. It was discovered that it not only had the support of Tsinghua University, but also the founder Fang Yunzhou, the soul figure, was not only a veteran in the automobile industry, but also a veteran in new energy. Five years after Hozon was founded, it also obtained "dual qualifications" (investment qualifications and production qualifications). Although Nezha did not have the traffic of other Internet car factories, it took the lead in becoming an enterprise with "dual qualifications" and "dual factories" among the new forces.

Nezha makes trouble in the sea and becomes a new force in the world

In fact, the reason why Nezha Auto has received so much attention and support is because of its strong strength and experience in the proposition of "new energy vehicles".

Back in 1999, a company engaged in the production of lead-acid batteries approached Chery to try to replace the engine with batteries to transform an electric car. The young Fang Yunzhou participated in the assembly and debugging of the batteries.

More than 20 years have passed, but Fang Yunzhou still clearly remembers that the car ran out of power after running for about ten kilometers. To get the car back, he had to push it in the hottest weather, and his clothes were soaked when he got back.

After returning, Fang Yunzhou began to think that batteries are good. If the batteries and engines are placed together, they can use electricity when there is electricity and use the engine when there is no electricity. Isn't that enough? Out of sensitivity to technology, he immediately wrote a feasibility report, hoping that Chery could also develop hybrid technology.

Not long after that, a leader from the Ministry of Science and Technology visited Chery and revealed an important piece of information: the national "863" plan was about to be launched, and one of the focuses was the development of new energy vehicles. Chery quickly started the process of applying for new energy vehicle research and development projects, and Fang Yunzhou was one of the founders.

Fang Yunzhou has been working in the new energy industry for more than 20 years since 2001. From Chery New Energy to Hozon New Energy, Fang Yunzhou has led and participated in a series of international, national and provincial key R&D projects, including more than a dozen "863" projects.

In addition to Fang Yunzhou, the executives of Hozon New Energy, such as Zhang Yong, Dai Dali, Chang Bing, and Zhou Jiang, all came from traditional car companies and are experienced car people. Zhang Yong is also a veteran of the car industry for more than 20 years. He has recently started to be active on social media, and his posts are all about the car industry. The team of Nezha Auto was completely born out of the car industry and is familiar with the key frames in all the nodes of car manufacturing.

With a team of "automotive veterans", fresh thinking from industries such as technology and the Internet, and the research results of Tsinghua University's Yangtze River Delta Research Institute and Academician Ouyang Minggao's team, Nezha Auto will "show its sword as soon as it goes public."

After 2020, the country promoted the promotion of new energy vehicles to rural areas, and the modified Nezha NO1 was successfully selected; in 2021, Nezha Auto’s cumulative sales for the whole year reached 69,674 units, a year-on-year increase of 362%; Nezha V topped the list of new pure electric SUVs in 2021 with sales of 49,646 units; in 2022, Nezha surpassed "NIO, Xiaopeng and Li Auto" in one fell swoop and became the annual sales champion of new car-making forces; in 2024, Nezha Auto dominated the rankings of new forces going overseas.

Nezha Auto has experienced ups and downs in its development, but it has never shrunk its R&D line. Dai Dali, CTO of Nezha Auto, once said: "Nezha Auto does not engage in technology futures or talk about PPT technology in vain. We strive to transform the blueprint on paper into actual technology and products."

Statistics show that the parent company Hozon New Energy has invested a total of 12 billion yuan in research and development, and R&D accounts for 30% of its revenue. Among them, the investment in key intelligent R&D has reached 3 billion yuan. In terms of technology, Nezha has not only obtained more than 1,000 patents in related technical fields such as electric vehicles and battery packs, but also timely changed its innovative ideas in the constant reshuffle of new car-making forces in recent years, and is also seeking new tracks in differentiation and dislocation.

Whether it is Nezha Auto or the people who created the Nezha brand, everyone has always adhered to the Tsinghua way of doing things, "actions speak louder than words", and provided products with excellent quality, sufficient safety, and understanding of consumers' pain points. This year's new product Nezha L allows consumers to spend hundreds of thousands of yuan to have a range of more than 1,000 km, and comes standard with a refrigerator, color TV, and a large sofa. Even the car disassembly blogger has to say "I am convinced, the materials are solid" after disassembling it.

An automobile brand is not built in a few years or ten years. To develop China's century-old automobile industry and century-old automobile brands in the motor era, we need to accumulate word-of-mouth from users. It is understood that Nezha Automobile has maintained a user referral rate of about 30%. Fang Yunzhou once "said frankly" that we do not want to sell products through various fancy marketing or temporary marketing. We want to build a good reputation, ensure quality, and do it step by step.

It is said that sincerity is the best killer move. It is because of sincerity to users, responsibility for products, and confidence in technology that Nezha has a group of supporters on the road to the sea. As of the end of June, Nezha Automobile has more than 420,000 users worldwide, covering 30 countries and regions. Since 2022, it has exported a total of 35,000 vehicles, realizing the transition from industrial chain to overseas, from user expansion to regional coverage. In the past, everyone said that Nezha was a new force in domestic car manufacturing. In the future, Nezha can also become a new force in the world's car manufacturing.

In the era of Industry 4.0, China's new energy has been rising unstoppably on both the supply and demand sides. Some people say that Nezha Automobile has staged a "Northern car spread to the south" in the wave of new energy from Tsinghua University to Zhejiang and then to Hong Kong. In fact, Nezha has achieved "integration of the strengths of the north and the south, and the changes of the east and the west", which is a microcosm of the promotion of Chinese automobiles to go overseas in the era of Industry 4.0.

A hundred years ago, Stuttgart, Germany, was the place where the leading vehicle companies drove the overall development of the cluster, supported the continuous innovation of the industry and the strong automotive supply chain supporting system, which created the glorious "German cars". China now has the world's leading "three electrics", the world's strongest new energy vehicle manufacturing base, the largest number of engineers and leading AI capabilities, and is fully capable of dominating new energy vehicles worldwide.

The first huge wave of China's new car-making forces going global is being caused by Nezha's "making a fuss" overseas. Although the history of the world's automobile industry has a hundred years of history, the story of China's automobile industry has just begun.

Author: Yang Shenghuan

This article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of this magazine.