The semi-annual performance reports from the automotive sector have further solidified a grim reality: 90% of new energy brands are teetering on the brink of failure, with those boasting the most shareholders often being the first to succumb. Can AIVA defy this ominous trend?

In recent days, automotive companies have been rolling out their performance reports for the first half of the year, one after another.

After delving into these reports, I've distilled the following key points: Firstly, market polarization is escalating. The entry threshold for the top tier of new energy vehicle (NEV) brands has surged from around 100,000 units in the same period in 2025 to a staggering 190,000 units, while monthly sales for lower-tier brands languish in the hundreds. Secondly, the entire industry is ensnared in a 'volume up, profits down' conundrum. The automotive industry's profit margin has plummeted to 3.2% (compared to 5-6% for the entire previous year), with industry leaders like BYD and Leapmotor witnessing sharp profit declines or even plunging into losses. Thirdly, most brands have an annual target completion rate of less than 40%, with Hongmeng Zhixing falling woefully short at below 20%.

The conclusion that has been hotly debated in recent times has been further substantiated: 90% of new energy brands are likely to face extinction in the coming years.

So, which automotive companies will be the first to fall?

Setting aside financial models, brands like Jiyue, Hechuang, and Neta, which have negligible sales, all share a common denominator: an excessive number of shareholders.

Nevertheless, there are still new entrants bucking the trend. Some time ago, Saido Technology proudly unveiled a new brand, AIVA, with its inaugural mass-produced vehicle, the ME7, slated to hit the market this year. Its pedigree is indeed impressive, with state-owned capital holding a controlling stake, Seres handling manufacturing, CATL supplying batteries, and ByteDance's Volcano Engine providing the technological backbone. In the brand's narrative, this 'dream team' of multiple giants is touted as the ultimate panacea for new forces to break through.

However, my initial reaction upon seeing this amalgamation was one of trepidation. A cursory glance at history reveals that in the automotive industry, where efficiency and dominance reign supreme, having more shareholders and a more illustrious background often acts not as a cure but as a slow poison.

Firstly, joint ventures among multiple giants often lead to counterintuitive multi-headed management, frequently resulting in a stalemate due to 'uncertainty over who holds the reins'.

This lesson has been repeated ad nauseam. Jiyue serves as a classic example. Geely provided the SEA architecture and manufacturing prowess, while Baidu contributed Apollo's advanced intelligent driving technology. Initially, Baidu even considered Jiyue its own brainchild.

However, due to qualification and equity adjustments, Jiyue emerged from Jidu, and the dynamics between the two giants became intricate. Jiyue's management often found themselves caught in the crossfire, leading to a situation where they would announce a focus on automotive robots one day, only to discover the next that the channels were not ready, thus squandering the golden launch period for their first model.

Avatr has also fallen prey to a similar predicament. The CHN model, jointly crafted by Changan, CATL, and Huawei, sounds like an all-star lineup. However, Changan has its own production value and profit targets, CATL is preoccupied with the launch and price control of its battery technology, and Huawei, while providing the software soul, turned around to fully support Seres' Aito, which was more amenable to 'surrendering its soul'.

Caught in the crossfire, Avatr often found itself expending a significant amount of time balancing the interests of the three parties at critical junctures when speed and aggression were paramount. This resulted in a strategic zigzagging, with cumulative losses exceeding 13.2 billion yuan over four years, earning the industry's moniker of 'three wealthy fathers unable to sustain a single profligate offspring'.

This uncertainty over whom to heed directly leads to the second fatal flaw of multiple shareholders: internal friction and sluggishness.

Today's automotive market is a high-stakes game of speed and agility. Before the launch of Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun could convene his executives overnight to make pivotal decisions on pricing and promotional strategies. For the recent launch of XPENG's MONA L03, He Xiaopeng could make unilateral decisions, allowing innovative design details tailored for young people to be implemented seamlessly.

Automakers with an excessive number of shareholders simply cannot match this pace. This disaster has been validated time and again outside the automotive industry. A decade or so ago, during the smartphone boom, joint venture brands like Sony Ericsson and Alcatel required three months of cross-border approvals to tweak a single product parameter, ultimately being outmaneuvered by Apple and Xiaomi, led by a single 'visionary' founder.

A more emblematic case is the 'Teng-Bai-Wan' debacle. In 2014, Wang Jianlin, Li Yanhong, and Ma Huateng, three titans of industry, joined forces and announced a 5 billion yuan investment to launch 'Feifan E-commerce' to challenge Alibaba's supremacy. At the time, the entire industry thought it was an unbeatable combination: Wanda boasted China's premier offline commercial real estate, Tencent wielded the ubiquitous WeChat traffic, and Baidu possessed precise search and mapping capabilities.

However, the outcome? Revising an e-commerce app necessitated coordinating reporting lines among the three conglomerates, ultimately failing to secure actual funding. The CEO was replaced multiple times, turning it into a spectacular industry farce.

Having an excessive number of shareholders also leads to a third consequence: product compromise and a loss of identity.

Great products are invariably the brainchild of obsessives. If Tesla had heeded investors' advice to conduct lackluster market research, the Model 3 would never have seen the light of day. If Li Auto had not defied industry ridicule to persist with range extension, it would not enjoy its current market standing.

Joint ventures among multiple shareholders and giants excel at 'balance' at the expense of innovation. Product managers eventually morph into 'PR managers' juggling the interests of various stakeholders, having to simultaneously appease Shareholder A's hardware demands, Shareholder B's algorithm preferences, and Shareholder C's cost constraints. Such products, while devoid of major flaws, are unremarkable industrial offerings in the market. Jiyue's indecision and contradiction in product definition are precisely the fallout of such compromises.

Now, casting our gaze on AIVA, its main selling points are 'AI-defined automobiles' and embodied intelligence. However, within this seemingly opulent puzzle, a core piece is still missing: high-level intelligent driving capabilities.

Volcano Engine provides the Doubao large model, which is indeed formidable in software domains like smart cockpits, human-machine interaction, and text-to-image generation. However, it falls short as a foundation for high-level end-to-end intelligent driving algorithms.

In other words, AIVA has entrusted its chassis to Seres and its cockpit to ByteDance, but when it comes to 'high-level precision intelligent driving,' which will determine the fate of high-end pure electric vehicles in 2026, it still needs to seek a new anchor.

In an era where most automakers are fated to fail, AIVA must confront one pivotal question to break free from this death spiral: shareholder count → elongated decision-making chains → heightened internal friction → sluggish speed → more mediocre products → accelerated demise. In times of crisis, who can make the bold decisions?