Since Caixin reported on October 11 that Li Feng, head of Xpeng Motors’ purchasing department, has been suspended due to involvement in an internal anti-corruption investigation,The industry has received mixed reviews on Xpeng’s anti-corruption actions in the supply chain.Some people think that Xiaopeng is knocking on the mountain to shake off the tiger. If it knocks on the mountain, the big tiger behind it will not really be discovered. Some people also believe that anti-corruption behavior in enterprises will cause internal shocks, do more harm than good, and is not conducive to stabilizing people's hearts.

The real situation is that this is more like a signal that Xpeng Motors’ internal reform process has entered the final stage in the past year.

According to Pinjia, Xiaopeng has entered a deep adjustment stage since the beginning of this year. During the entire process, Xiaopeng has been preparing relevant investigation actions.

In the past period of time, the outside world has been curious about the progress of Xpeng Motors' internal adjustments. He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xpeng Motors, always shirks this issue when facing the public, saying that it’s not time yet and will talk about it later, and everyone will understand later.

This caliber is actually related to the rhythm brewing within Xpeng that is now exposed.

Now, this reform, which is regarded as "second entrepreneurship" within Xpeng Motors, is still in the process of adjustment——However, the anti-corruption investigation, which has been intensively discussed as a hot issue in the past period, is not a bad signal for Xpeng Motors. The implementation of anti-corruption actions actually means that the problems in Xpeng Motors’ past management have been gradually cleared up, and a positive cycle of internal management has begun.

In addition, Pinjia also learned thatIt is widely rumored that Wang Fengying, the "iron lady" president of Xiaopeng Motors, has taken a knife but the real situation is that the anti-corruption pickets are personally led by He Xiaopeng.

It can be seen that after He Xiaopeng took charge of various business sectors, Xiaopeng Motors’ internal organizational structure adjustments, product and marketing, and channel level reforms have all achieved results. In addition to product capabilities and marketing capabilities, He Xiaopeng has also penetrated into manufacturing, supply chain and other fields.

In fact, the most direct manifestation of Xiaopeng's counterattack was the surge in orders in September.

It was He Xiaopeng who did it, not Wang Fengying

In the eyes of the outside world, Xpeng Motors President Wang Fengying has contributed a lot to the great internal anti-corruption efforts launched by Xpeng Motors.

He Xiaopeng has also taken the initiative to talk about Wang Fengying's ability in cost management many times in interviews with the media. Within Xpeng Motors, He Xiaopeng also often said,

"Xpeng Motors needs people like Fengying who understand everything."

However, an insider of Xpeng Motors revealed to Pinjia that it was He Xiaopeng himself who actually started the anti-corruption issue within the company.

This may be understood to mean that since Wang Fengying took office, she has not only brought her management experience to Xiaopeng, but is also one of the few people within Xiaopeng Motors who dares to speak out to He Xiaopeng.

Wang Fengying pointed out the problem, but,The person who really raised the knife and fell with it was He Xiaopeng.

This cruel and ruthless image may be difficult to associate with the "good guy" He Xiaopeng in the past. However, many people within Xpeng Motors have clearly felt the changes in He Xiaopeng himself since the company began promoting internal reforms at the end of last year.


He Xiaopeng who "escorted" Wu Xinzhou to NVIDIA to report. Source: He Xiaopeng Weibo

When the G9 was refreshed last month, He Xiaopeng said that only two of Xpeng Motors' 12 original executives remained.Rather than saying that this is He Xiaopeng solving efficiency problems through organizational adjustments, it is better to say that He Xiaopeng is solving "problems left over from history."

Compared with Ideal and NIO, He Xiaopeng entered Xpeng Motors as an investor and became the actual manager. But in the early days, He Xiaopeng's greater role was actually to bring capital effects to Xiaopeng Motors and inject innovative technology genes into Xiaopeng. As an actual manager, He Xiaopeng faced a more complex company structure, which also resulted in He Xiaopeng not being too involved in manufacturing-level issues that he did not understand.

After the adjustment, He Xiaopeng is becoming more active. In the view of Xpeng Motors insiders,Now He Xiaopeng's changes are reflected in his firmer management.

On the one hand, Xpeng Motors has continued to benefit this year. It has two products with good reputations, the G6 and G9, ready for launch, as well as cooperation with Volkswagen and Didi. This also shows that Xpeng Motors' technology accumulation in the past few years has begun to exert greater market value.

But on the other hand, it is also at this time that Xpeng Motors' internal pressure is greater than ever before, and it needs a "real leader."

After all, bone scraping to heal an injury is still painful. But everyone has seen the changes in He Xiaopeng.

The sudden increase in G6 orders exposes procurement problems

In fact, since the photos of Xiaopeng G6 were exposed, many people are not optimistic about its performance.

However, through the operation of the company's marketing resources, Xpeng G6 once became an important product that saved the company's reputation.

For example, after being launched on June 29, Xpeng G6 ushered in a new delivery high of 8,132 units in September. Judging from the sales ranking of 200,000-250,000 pure electric SUVs in September released by Chedi, the Xpeng G6 firmly ranks first. It can be regarded as achieving the small goal set by He Xiaopeng for the Xpeng G6 when it was launched in a certain dimension:

It surpassed the 250,000-level sales champion in 3 months.


Source: Xpeng Motors

At the same time, Xpeng Motors also announced recently that orders for the Xpeng G9 exceeded 15,000 units within 15 days of its launch, of which the MAX version accounted for more than 80%.

Of course, if Xpeng's production capacity ramps up quickly, perhaps there can be fewer qualifiers on these lists.

However, this has also exacerbated and exposed problems at the procurement and delivery end.

On the night when Xpeng G6 was launched, the number of orders announced reached35,000 vehicles, but judging from the delivery volume in the past three months, Xpeng's delivery capability still has not reached the level of monthly delivery of more than 10,000. Compared with its competitors, there is obviously room for improvement.

He Xiaopeng also mentioned that for the delivery of new cars, the supply chain and delivery capabilities have been fully prepared, but after three months, Xiaopeng G6 has not yet reached the monthly delivery capacity of over 10,000.

Delivery is transmitted to supply, and supply also takes advantage of the trend to verify the real problem on the procurement side.


Xpeng Motors’ monthly delivery level has steadily improved, but the real turning point has not yet arrived. Source: Xpeng Motors

According to media sources, Li Feng has been detained, and some colleagues involved in the company's procurement department were taken away by the police on their way to work. However, Xpeng Motors did not disclose the specific issues Li Feng was involved in.

Pinjia learned from the side that many of the issues Li Feng was involved in have been addressed internally by Xiaopeng Motors, "It’s definitely not a simple matter of knocking on the mountain and shaking the tiger."Xpeng insiders said that Xpeng Motors is fully prepared for this anti-corruption in the supply chain.

Public information shows that at the end of 2022, Xpeng Motors will adjust its supply chain business department and merge the original supply chain service department, marketing services procurement department and parts procurement department into the procurement department, and Li Feng, vice president of Xpeng Motors, will be in charge of the new department.

Although Xpeng Motors has launched a round of internal adjustments since the failure of the G9 to be launched last year, according to Xpeng Motors insiders revealed to Pinjia, at that time the focus was on the marketing level and considerable reforms were carried out, thus covering up problems at the supply chain level.

"After the launch of G6, He Xiaopeng truly realized that marketing is not the biggest problem."Xpeng Motors insiders said that from last year's G9 to this year's G6, the governance of different departments within Xpeng Motors has experienced layers of tests.

"The problems on the procurement side should have been taken care of long ago."This person said.

He believes that in fact, judging from the complicated situation of G9SKU at that time, problems on the procurement side have already emerged.

Another reason why the anti-corruption problem in the supply chain really broke out after the G6 was launched is that during the previous epidemic, supply guarantees covered up many problems in the procurement process. With the explosion of G6 product power, the problems in Xpeng Motors' supply chain have been completely exposed.

When Xpeng Motors responded to the anti-corruption incident, it mentioned that it would not affect business and production links.

In the eyes of more insiders, the sooner the supply problem is solved, it is actually a benign signal. Xiaopeng Motors can finally roll up its sleeves and get started.

Xiaopeng grows up

Since the beginning of this year, from marketing-level adjustments, channel transformation, to the implementation of technical capabilities such as XNGP and Fuyao Architecture, this adjustment has brought considerable changes to Xpeng Motors in the "second entrepreneurship" stage defined internally by Xpeng Motors.

Of course, there are still some more direct questions:

When will Xpeng Motors' monthly delivery volume achieve rapid growth? When can Xpeng Motors get close to its profit expectations and fundamentally adjust its revenue capabilities?

But as He Xiaopeng personally led the anti-corruption campaign, these results became clearer.

From 2020 to 2022,The company size of Xpeng Motors has increased from more than 5,000 people to nearly 16,000 people.Although Xpeng currently has the smallest number of employees compared to Ideal and NIO, many companies will encounter countercurrents in their growth process. In the past year, Xpeng Motors has made substantial internal organizational structural adjustments to combat the problem of rapid growth.

After joining Xpeng Motors, He Xiaopeng has been describing the automobile company's intelligent blueprint. Even when the penetration rate of electric vehicles was not high enough, He Xiaopeng wanted to build a self-driving car worth 150,000 yuan. He Xiaopeng, who has a technical background, was full of idealism in the early days of car building.

In the past few years of focusing on intelligentization, Xpeng Motors has paid a lot of tuition in technology. However, it is gratifying that Xpeng Motors' intelligent technology capabilities have reached one of the best in the industry. After returning from idealism to reality, He Xiaopeng saw that in managing a car company that was beginning to take shape, he should also assume the ability to take control of the overall situation and even be independent. At this time, He Xiaopeng truly entered the role of the founder of a car company.


After Xiaopeng G6 was launched, He Xiaopeng went into the factory to tighten screws. Source: He Xiaopeng Weibo

He no longer only talked about technology, nor did he hinder human relationships. He began to delve into all aspects of management of a car company and became a decisive CEO.

When technological dreams come true and he truly understands the complexity of reality, He Xiaopeng is probably closer to his idealistic original intention.