news

Lv Hua, chief reporter of Peninsula Media (photo provided by the interviewee)

How can a retired veteran with 20 years of military career embrace the new economy in the field of intelligent robots? How can a company that started out with car services build a full ecological service system of "light, electricity, charging, and washing" step by step to become a "potential unicorn"? Recently, the reporter went to Qingdao Huiju Laixi Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Laixi Intelligent"), a leading domestic intelligent unmanned car wash company, for research and interviews, and answered the questions by analyzing mature implementation plans.

Laixi is an intelligent unmanned car wash station built next to the gas station.

From a small and micro enterprise to a potential unicorn

In 2006, Liu Guotao, the founder of Laixi Intelligent, retired from the job and started his own business. At that time, the Chinese automobile industry was in its first "golden decade" of rapid development, and the scale of the automobile service market was rising. Taking this opportunity, Liu Guotao founded Shandong Minolta Automobile Service Co., Ltd., focusing on the automobile service industry.

In 2014, after more than a decade of rapid growth, the automotive industry began to enter a period of market transformation. The high-gross-profit period of automobile manufacturing has ended, and the proportion of aftermarket business has become increasingly larger. In this critical "trend", Liu Guotao created the Easy-Mean Automotive Service brand, and offline stores quickly opened across the country.

In 2018, with the smart car wash company Yiji Kilometer receiving Alibaba's exclusive strategic investment in its B round, the smart car wash track attracted giant capital for the first time. It was also in this year that Liu Guotao decided to layout a more segmented smart car wash track.

Facing the rapidly expanding smart car wash market, Liu Guotao's team holds a number of core patents independently developed. Among them, the fully automatic intelligent unmanned car wash equipment is equipped with ics Internet of Things system, photoelectric sensor/automatic fault avoidance system, vehicle model automatic mapping and calculation system, etc., which can steadily control the failure rate within one thousandth. The low-temperature car wash patent has achieved -13℃ car washing without ice, which is far ahead in the industry.

With a number of core competitive advantages, Laixi Smart, which focuses on smart car wash business, was officially established in 2021 and completed rounds A and A+ of financing. Today, Laixi Smart has entered 167 cities, established 1,544+ strategic car wash sites, and has more than 15 million registered fans. In less than three years since its establishment, its valuation has exceeded 1 billion yuan, and it has grown into a "potential unicorn" enterprise.

Innovative business models to solve industry difficulties

Laixi Intelligent has established a 24-hour unmanned car wash station in cooperation with gas stations. By signing a strategic cooperation agreement with gas stations, it creates a free car wash scene for users.

This business model precisely targets the difficulties of multiple industries, the first of which is the traditional car wash industry. As of the end of June, the number of cars in China has reached 445 million, and the car wash market has reached hundreds of billions. However, with the increase in labor and operating costs of traditional car wash stores, it is normal for the industry to not make money; the second is gas stations. With the increasing penetration rate of new energy vehicles, the passenger flow of stations has declined sharply, and the operating pressure is increasing.

Laixi Smart’s business model achieves the goal of “one key opens two locks”.

It is understood that after the Laixi intelligent unmanned car wash project was put into use, the number of repeat customers at the gas station reached 60%, and the number of customers who simply washed their cars and refueled them accounted for 20%. Since Laixi intelligent unmanned car wash has six core advantages, including 3 minutes from washing to air drying, constant temperature car washing technology, and circulating water device, it can be operated 24 hours a day throughout the year without off-season. In a year, each device saves nearly 200,000 yuan in comprehensive costs compared with traditional car wash stores.

Users gain experience, gas stations gain traffic, and car wash stations gain revenue. This business model achieves “killing three birds with one stone”.

Build a full ecological service system

Half a year ago, Laixi Intelligent's IPO launch strategy conference kicked off in Sanya, Hainan. At the launch ceremony, Liu Guotao announced the next strategic layout - new energy.

According to Liu Guotao, Laixi Intelligent has fully grasped the huge potential of the combination of renewable energy and intelligent technology, and has deepened its efforts in new energy through two major business segments: intelligent cleaning and intelligent charging. For the intelligent cleaning business, Laixi Intelligent has developed efficient intelligent car cleaning machines and intelligent photovoltaic panel cleaning solutions to meet the growing demand for solar energy utilization. This not only improves the utilization efficiency of new energy channels, but also extends the service life of photovoltaic equipment, thereby creating greater value for customers and promoting the popularization of clean energy.

In the field of smart charging, in addition to smart energy storage charging piles, Laixi Intelligent has independently developed and manufactured smart mobile charging robots that have achieved L4 autonomous driving and automated vehicle charging, changing the previous "car looking for electricity" to the current "electricity looking for car", which not only reduces manpower demand, but also can control the peak and valley differences in electricity prices through the robot's built-in energy storage battery, greatly improving the return on investment.

In addition, in order to alleviate the mileage anxiety of the majority of new energy vehicle owners, Laixi Intelligent's other product, the mobile car charger, will soon be launched. This product has applied for a national invention patent. Through the uniquely designed battery control system, this charger can increase the range of new energy vehicles by at least 150 kilometers. So far, Laixi Intelligent has completed the accumulation and integration of resources, and a full ecological service system integrating "light, electricity, charging, and washing" is becoming more mature.