Leapmotor's Car Manufacturing: A Risk-Reward Assessment from a Quantitative Perspective

Let's look at some data first: According to public information, the three new EV forces—NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto—have each invested over 30 billion yuan cumulatively from their founding to achieving quarterly profitability, taking an average of about 8 years. Leapmotor Chairman Zhu Jiangming recently admitted in an interview that building cars requires "at least 20 billion," adding, "If I had known how much money it would burn, I wouldn't have done it." From a quantitative trading perspective, this is essentially a strategy with a terrible risk-reward ratio—huge initial investment, long payback period, and low win rate.