Sequoia Capital China backed Leapmotor, A Hangzhou EV Maker looks optimistic with its distinctive in R&D and direct sales business models
Two weeks ago, when Leapmotor celebrated its sixth birthday, Zhu Jiangming, the founder and chairman of the board, returned to his alma mater, Zhejiang University, and gave a speech titled “How does China lead the world on the EV track?” The speech explained how Leapmotor, which insists on “self-developed core technology in all areas”, has found a way to “catch up”.
Headquartered in Hangzhou, Leapmotor has so far completed its own research and development capabilities regarding smart EVs. The business scope of Leapmotor covers intelligent electric vehicle design, R&D and manufacturing, intelligent driving, electric motor control, battery system development, and vehicle networking solutions based on cloud computing.
Persevering with self-research in all fields
Six years ago, when the “new economy” was booming in Hangzhou, Zhu Jiangming, the founder of Leapmotor, was keenly aware of the trend of electrification and intelligence of cars, and with his love for technology, he decided to enter the smart car industry. From the very beginning, Leapmotor has decided to adhere to the hard-core development path of “self-research in all fields”. In the past six years, it has forcibly created an innovative road leaping development.
“Technological innovation has brought opportunities for overtaking in corners. Only by mastering the core technology in our own hands can we gain real freedom. If we don’t persist, we may not be able to survive in 2019. If we don’t love our business enough ，it may not be possible to build the third car.”
As Zhu Jiangming, founder of Leapmotor
Leapmotor showed Eye-catching market performance
With the release of December and Q4 NEVs delivery data, Leapmotor showed Eye-catching market performance. In the past year, It delivered a total of 43,121 vehicles; among them, the delivery volume in a single month in December hit a record high again, reaching 7,807 units, an increase of 39% YoY and 368% YoY.
The pure electric A00-class model T03, which was launched in 2020, has quickly opened the door to market by virtue of its high 403km range, L2-level automatic driving, face recognition and affordable price. It delivered a cumulative total of 38,463 units delivered in 2021.
As the latest self-research achievements of Leapmotor, C11, which was launched in September 2021, has undoubtedly become the breakout model in the EV market, with cumulative deliveries of more than 4,000 units since delivery began at the end of October.
From its establishment in December 2015, the first car S01 was launched in 2019, and then the T03 was launched in 2020 and the C11 in September 2021. In all fairness, compared with other new car-making forces, this speed is not fast. But what is commendable is that Leapmotor has always adhered to self-research in all areas, and has mastered all core technologies including power, control, networking, automatic driving, car networking systems, batteries, etc. All independent research and development.
While technological innovation drives the emergence of products, Leapmotor’s unique ecological marketing format has gradually highlighted its accelerated growth. Under the new business model of “direct sales + city partners”, Leapmotor has penetrated into nearly 100 cities across the country and has more than 300 sales stores, gradually forming a diversified service network, Leapmotor is ready to bloom in all aspects to improve user service experience.
setting up powertrain technology subsidiaries
According to Qichacha, A range of branches of Leapmotor were established. On 20, December, Leapmotor established a new subsidiary, Zhejiang Lingsheng Power Technology Co., Ltd.
The new subsidiary was registered on December 20th, with Leapmotor’s founder, Zhu Jiangming as its legal representative and executive director.
The company has a registered capital of RMB200 million and is wholly owned by Leapmotor. According to Qichacha, the business scopes of the company include electric motor/ control system R&D, auto parts R&D, intelligent control system integration, software development, IoT technical service.
Investing in its own powertrain company indicates Leapmotor’s growing autonomy within the supply chain. In fact, Leapmotor is one of the few startups to develop core technology and auto parts by itself. The company has successfully developed its own intelligent driving technology, smart cockpit, high-performance electric drive, and battery cell-related technologies.
long-term acceleration in future
As Zhu Jiangming mentioned in his internal letter on the sixth anniversary of Leapmotor and his speech at Zhejiang University, “Although the global self-research has caused us to lose a little initial speed, we have gained long-term acceleration.” The self-developed technology tree has gradually blossomed and fruited, truly mastering the three core technologies of intelligent power, intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving, and creating a more complete intelligent car body. “
