XPeng should continue to maintain the right direction and efficient execution, and run faster than others at all times, in order to maintain its current position and seek more breakthroughs, XPeng Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng said in an internal email to all employees today.
Through the internal letter, He Xiaopeng wants to remind all employees to look at the long-term interests and not only focus on the short-term rise and fall of the stock price, adding that everyone should keep the entrepreneurial and striving spirit, and must maintain the advantage of doubling or even multiplying the growth rate of the industry.
He said in an email that XPeng is tentatively among one of China's mostly watched three new carmakers, all because of the company's choice and persistence all along. The environment continues to undergo new changes, and for XPeng, there are both opportunities and challenges.
On Monday, XPeng's stock price surged more than 30% and its market capitalization exceeded $50 billion, surpassing Baidu.
The following is a translation of the full text of He Xiaopeng's internal letter.
Hello everyone.
It's been almost two months since our annual all-hands communication at the end of September, and I'd like to take this letter to share some of my recent thoughts with you.
Capitalize on trends and take advantage of favorable factors in the environment
A lot of recent news is favorable to the development of the new energy vehicle industry, including the release of the national new energy strategic plan for the next 15 years, the United States is expected to increase support for the new energy industry, and so on.
Several of the leading new carmakers in China are very healthy in terms of market feedback and cash flow reserves, and the traditional auto industry is also increasing its investment in the new energy sector.
At the same time, technology companies including Apple and Huawei are also gradually joining the ranks of cross-border car manufacturers, and they have started to attack in the new battlefield of smart cars.
These changes will have an important impact on the future of smart cars.
During the continuous R&D of XPILOT 3.0, we have a deep impression that technological innovation is accelerating and intensifying, and the whole industry is moving forward at a rapid pace.
During the battery development process, we have also found that the cost of batteries will continue to fall in the coming years, while energy density and safety will become increasingly high.
This means that our vehicle BOM costs will continue to drop and our competitiveness will become stronger, which will undoubtedly enable smart electric vehicles to occupy a more proactive position in the competition with traditional vehicles.
Today, we can say that we have temporarily taken a place in the new trio in China, all because of our choice and persistence.
If you're sailing against the current, you're going backward. The environment is constantly changing and there are both opportunities and challenges for us. We need to keep moving in the right direction and execute efficiently.
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Looking at the long term
The only way to maintain our current position and seek more breakthroughs is to keep looking at the long term, where there is tremendous compounding growth.
I want you all to focus on their careers and not just on the short-term ups and downs of stock prices.
Short-term business results can cause the stock price to rise sharply, and likewise, it can lead to a sharp decline. Only by focusing on long term gains can we achieve real personal and business growth.
Everyone is also reminded to buy and sell stocks in compliance with the public company window and insider trading prevention requirements.
Let's be clear that the fact that we are in a good position today only means that we do have the opportunity to be even stronger in the future.
XPeng is still a 1-10 startup, and we still need to maintain the same spirit of struggle that we have had for 6 years.
Generally speaking, startups have a better cash + stock compensation structure with more possibilities and imagination, but the benefits are not particularly good compared to some traditional companies, and it is not a place to start at 9am and finish at 5pm.
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Startups always require stronger acceleration, and must maintain an advantage of double or even several times the growth rate of the industry in order to be considered truly accelerating and to be able to hold their own in the industry.
Being a startup also means being constantly on the lookout for many challenges, and we have to be constantly ready to meet them head-on instead of laying on our laurels and eating dividends.
We need to focus on investment in technology, talent, brand, channel, service, quality system, but also to respect partners and friends, to continue to treat customers and potential customers sincerely, and to work harder to grasp more opportunities.
Maintain balance in an aggressive fast run
Running fast, or even running faster and faster, will be the norm at XPeng for some time to come.
I hope all students will realize that we need to maintain balance in our aggressive fast running, rather than looking for opportunities to accelerate on a steady basis.
So far, our total end-to-end employees have exceeded 5,000, and we have continued to deploy offline stores in more than 50 cities across China.
This growth rate is large in absolute terms, which means that we are under more scrutiny than ever before and the challenges of moving forward will be magnified.
We need to stay awake at all times and maintain a clear understanding of "what is a higher priority" and "what is the focus at this stage".
This year, we asked all departments to complete the 2021 goal breakdown in November-December. In order to accomplish these goals next year, we first need to have a high quality talent pool.
As a whole, we will add 4,000+ people next year, a significant percentage of whom will be excellent recent graduates. And we will continue to increase the percentage of high potential graduates.
To this end, we have launched the "Smart Manufacturing 1000" project, which will take excellent graduates as the core, establish a stronger organizational system, and the R&D department will accept more excellent master's and doctoral graduates.
The new blood brings us not only an increase in numbers, but also fresh ideas and innovative capabilities.
All supervisors need to pay attention to potential new students, be more patient with them, and take the time to train potential graduates.
Young high-potential talent has a good ability to learn and adapt, and usually shows very fast growth after 6-9 months of training.
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In addition to fresh graduates, we will continue to bring in high potential talents through social recruitment channels.
A fast-growing company needs fast-growing talents, who will create a huge boost and ultimately benefit the whole team and the company.
Recently, we have been expanding our business system and organization. For example, we are exploring internationalization and developing new transportation business such as flying cars.
In order to achieve our vision of "Leading the way to the future of mobility", we need to make a lot of forward-looking strategic plans from now on.
After a lot of recent thinking and discussions among our senior and middle management, we are all working together around XPeng's core strategic logic, and all of us need to get involved and run together. Let's run together!
He Xiaopeng
November 27, 2020
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