成于吉利也困于吉利 “电驱独角兽”格雷博3年亏9亿元

This article provides an overview of Grab Energy, the unicorn company in electric drive systems that is pursuing an IPO in Hong Kong. It covers both the company’s strong achievements and its significant operating risks, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core performance: Grab ranks first globally in installed capacity of third-party integrated electric drive systems. Backed by Sequoia China, the company has a post-investment valuation of 5 billion yuan. Its total revenue grew more than 10-fold between 2023 and 2025, reaching 3.628 billion yuan in 2025.

2. Key risks: It has accumulated a net loss of over 900 million yuan in three years. More than 90% of its revenue comes from Geely Group and its affiliated companies controlled by Li Shufu, leaving Grab with weak bargaining power and a steadily declining gross margin for its core products. It also faces a buyback clause with an annual interest rate of 10% if it fails to complete the IPO on schedule. Currently, its current liabilities exceed current assets by 1.9 billion yuan, creating substantial liquidity pressure.

3. Future plans: Grab has launched its second growth curve by entering the high-growth AIDC power supply and embodied intelligence electric drive tracks. However, neither business has generated revenue to date, their commercialization remains unproven, and it is still unclear whether the company can achieve stable profitability in the future.

This article uses the development case of Grab, the leading third-party electric drive supplier, to deliver key insights on supply chain strategy and trend forecasting for automakers, as summarized below:

1. Industry trend: The new energy vehicle electric drive industry is shifting from a reliance on third-party outsourcing to in-house R&D as the dominant model. Leading automakers including BYD, Nio and Geely are all building out their own in-house electric drive capacity, making supply chain self-reliance a clear industry direction.

2. Cooperation takeaways: Deeply binding with a third-party supplier can reduce short-term costs, but it also carries risks: the supplier may face weakened bargaining power from over-reliance on a single large client, lack sufficient growth momentum, and even be replaced by the automaker’s in-house system over time. Auto brands need to balance the ratio of in-house R&D and outsourcing, and diversify their supply chain to reduce risk.

3. New track opportunities: Third-party electric drive suppliers are leveraging technology reuse to expand cross-industry into AIDC power supply and embodied intelligence electric drive. Auto brands can monitor technological progress in these fields early and explore cooperation opportunities with suppliers in new areas such as robotics.

This article sorts out the current development status, opportunities and risks of the new energy electric drive industry, and provides clear guidance for business planning for industry sellers, with key insights as follows:

1. Market opportunities: Third-party electric drive still has room for growth, and technologically leading third-party suppliers can gain strong capital recognition—Grab, as a leading player, saw its valuation double in just half a year. Established electric drive suppliers can also leverage existing technology and manufacturing capabilities to enter two high-growth segments: AIDC power supply, which has a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 50%, and embodied intelligence electric drive, with a CAGR of over 96%, to build a new growth curve.

2. Risk warnings: Sellers need to guard against the risk of over-reliance on large clients. Deep binding to a single customer will weaken bargaining power, drag down gross margins for core products, and expose the business to catastrophic damage if the client relationship changes. Companies also need to structure financing terms carefully to avoid liquidity crises triggered by IPO-related gambling clauses.

3. Adapting to trends: As the trend of OEMs moving to in-house development and away from third-party suppliers becomes clear, sellers must diversify their customer base and develop new business lines early, rather than over-relying on a single leading client, to navigate industry changes.

This article offers a range of insights for development and planning for new energy component factories, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Product direction: New energy vehicle electric drive has upgraded to integrated power domain solutions, which have driven substantial revenue growth after commercialization. Relevant manufacturing factories can follow this trend by investing in R&D and production capacity for this product category to match market demand.

2. Business opportunities: Factories already active in the electric drive sector can leverage their existing technology accumulation and manufacturing capabilities to enter the high-growth AIDC power supply and embodied intelligence electric drive tracks. Both markets are set to see explosive growth over the next five years, and their technology, architecture and manufacturing processes can be reused, keeping expansion costs low.

3. Operational takeaways: Factories should avoid over-reliance on a single client group, which gradually erodes bargaining power and compresses profit margins. They also need to prepare early for the industry trend of OEMs developing in-house electric drive, diversify their customer base early, and build a second growth curve to spread risk. Companies should also structure gambling clauses carefully during financing to avoid triggering liquidity crises.

This article sorts out the current development status and core pain points of the new energy electric drive industry, and provides clear strategic guidance for relevant industry service providers, with key insights as follows:

1. Industry trends: The third-party electric drive industry is currently facing substitution pressure from OEMs’ in-house development. Leading suppliers have already started cross-industry expansion into AI computing power and robotics. AIDC power supply and embodied intelligence electric drive are the fastest-growing emerging tracks in coming years, with CAGRs of 50.4% and 96.4% respectively, offering huge growth potential.

2. Core client pain points: Third-party electric drive suppliers generally face three major pain points. First, concentrated customer structure: over-reliance on a single leading client erodes bargaining power and compresses profit margins. Second, most suppliers have yet to achieve stable profitability, and when combined with IPO gambling clauses, this creates significant liquidity pressure. Third, companies expanding into new tracks generally lack customer resources and production capacity reserves, making commercialization difficult.

3. Business direction: Service providers can build offerings around these pain points to provide third-party suppliers with customer development consulting, financing structuring, and capacity planning matching for new tracks. They can also build supporting services for emerging tracks early to capture industry growth dividends.

This article discloses the IPO plans and operating status of Grab, the leading third-party electric drive supplier, and provides insights for operation and planning for industrial and capital platforms, with key takeaways as follows:

1. Core enterprise demand: Technology-driven innovative component companies like Grab have clear IPO and financing needs, while also facing liquidity pressure from IPO gambling clauses. They require platforms to provide more efficient listing pathways and supporting capital support.

2. Investment attraction direction: Core new energy components are currently a hot track favored by capital. Technologically leading third-party suppliers deliver fast growth and high market recognition; Grab, as the global leader in third-party electric drive, saw its valuation double from 2.5 billion yuan to 5 billion yuan in just six months. Platforms can prioritize attracting high-quality innovative enterprises in this field to optimize their project portfolio.

3. Risk prevention and control: When sourcing new projects, platforms should focus on auditing companies’ customer structure, watch for operating risks from large client dependence, and review gambling clauses to assess liquidity risk. For innovative enterprises布局ing on new tracks, platforms can launch targeted incubation services to help connect industrial resources and advance commercialization.

This article uses Grab as a case study to illustrate the current development status and emerging challenges of the independent third-party new energy components industry, offering high reference value for industrial research, with key insights as follows:

1. New industry trends: A clear "de-third-partyization" trend has emerged in the new energy vehicle electric drive sector. Most leading OEMs are accelerating the development of in-house produced electric drive, squeezing the living space of third-party suppliers. Leading third-party suppliers have begun leveraging technological commonality to expand cross-industry into two emerging tracks—AIDC power supply and embodied intelligence electric drive—making this a new direction for industrial transformation.

2. New industry challenges: The independent third-party component industry broadly faces the problem of deep over-reliance on large clients, which directly leads to lost bargaining power, highly concentrated operating risk, and weak risk resilience. The new tracks that companies are expanding into remain in an early stage, most have yet to achieve commercialization, leaving future development with high uncertainty.

3. Business model research: Whether the currently popular industry model of "capital backing + technology-driven growth + rapid scaling via binding large clients" can support third-party component companies to achieve sustainable development still requires solving two core issues: building independent competitiveness and delivering a viable second growth curve. This makes it an important topic for in-depth industrial research.