Yundu Automobile, which once achieved sales of 20,000 new energy vehicles in 2018, is becoming the first "new power company" to be eliminated in 2022.
A few days ago, the relevant person in charge of Yundu Automobile admitted that the news of the production suspension was true, but said that "the company's production suspension is mainly affected by the supply of batteries", and "it is expected to resume production around the end of June."
According to the data from the Passenger Federation, the cumulative sales volume of Yundu Auto's models in the first quarter was 516, of which the production and sales in March were zero.
One of the company's shareholders, Haiyuan Composites, announced the transfer of Yundu Auto's equity.
Previously, on April 13, 2022, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, made a surprising speech at the corporate global partner conference. He mentioned that it is expected that in the next 3-5 years, 80% of auto brands will face shutdown and transfer.
Yundu Auto is in trouble.
Once started with Yundu Automobile, the momentum was fierce, but today it is unknown. Where will the brands such as Tianji Automobile and Aiways Automobile, known as the new third-tier forces, go?
Who will be the next enterprise that Zhu Huarong calls "shut down and transfer"?
Yundu Auto went from glory to loneliness, executives left, and financing was poor
In 2015, the Yundu project was officially launched.
In 2018, the company achieved sales of more than 7,000 new cars with its π series products, ranking second only to NIO in the new power delivery list.
When people thought that the company was about to take off, the company fell silent. In 2019, the sales volume of Yundu was only 2,566 units. From January to May 2020, the sales volume of Yundu was only three digits.
In July 2020, Lin Mi, the former general manager of Yundu Automobile's marketing company, returned to serve as the company's general manager, and brought with him Zhan Wenwen, the former director of the New Technology Research Department of the BAIC Research Institute, Fu Zhenxing, the former vice president of LeEco, and the former Lynk & Co. Sales Co., Ltd. public relations director Zhang Zhen and other talents.
Lin Mi once told Shell Finance reporter: "Where is there so much bloody heroism, I really can't let go of my children."
With the return of Lin Mi, Yundu set sail again.
In 2021, the sales volume of Yundu Motors will be 5,361 units, a slight rebound, but it has not yet returned to the peak level of 2018.
From January to March 2022, Yundu Motors sold only 516 vehicles, and in March, all production and sales were zero.
A few days ago, Haiyuan Composite Materials, one of the shareholders of Yundu Automobile, stated in the "Announcement on the Establishment of Subsidiaries by the Company's Subsidiaries" that it will transfer 11% of the shares of Yundu Automobile to Zhuhai Yucheng Investment Center (Limited). Partnership), the transfer price is 22 million yuan.
After the completion of this transaction, Haiyuan Composites will no longer hold the equity of Yundu Auto.
The data given by Haiyuan Composites shows that in 2021, Yundu Automobile’s operating income will be 67.7632 million yuan, with a loss of about 213 million yuan; in the first quarter of 2022 (unaudited), its operating income will be 6.6025 million yuan, with a loss of 55.7136 million yuan.
As of March 31 this year (unaudited), Yundu Auto's total assets were about 1.652 billion yuan, its total liabilities were as high as 1.682 billion yuan, and its net assets were -30.7964 million yuan.
Mr. Liu (pseudonym), an insider of Yundu Automobile, told Shell Finance reporter that the admission of Juneyao Group is basically a foregone conclusion.
The most well-known product of JuneYao Group is the JuneYao Power Lactic Acid Drink from Hubei JuneYao Great Health Drinks Co., Ltd.
An insider close to Yundu Automobile told Shell Finance reporters that the company has communicated with investors many times in the past year, but the results are not very good.
"Since it was revealed that we had negotiated with Xiaomi, we also talked about several big capitals, and we talked deeply. But they all questioned our product line and the company's follow-up development plan. In that case, we generally The work in hand will be suspended, but in the end, the relevant capital will not come in, which slows down the company's research and development and related progress." A Yundu Auto employee who has left his job introduced to the Shell Finance reporter that Yundu is "slow" in his eyes. s reason.
The source said that Yundu only paid 50% of his salary in October 2021, and Zhan Wenwen and Zhang Zhen also resigned and joined Ford China and Great Wall Motors overseas teams respectively.
Mr. Liu believes that the reason why the company was unable to introduce sufficient capital in the past was that, on the one hand, the company had complicated four-party shareholders, and interested companies did not join because of internal efficiency, procedures and other issues.
According to public information, the previous shareholders of Yundu Automobile were Putian State-owned Assets Investment Group Co., Ltd., Fujian Leading Industrial Equity Investment Fund Partnership (Limited Partnership), Zhuhai Yucheng Investment Center (Limited Partnership), and Haiyuan Composite Materials, holding shares. The proportions are about 43.44%, 30%, 15.56% and 11% respectively.
"JuneYao Group's admission is basically finalized. They are quite professional and communicate well with shareholders." Mr. Liu said, "JuneYao Group may bring a new set of automotive teams next, but the specific situation is still in progress. In conversation."
Talking about Yundu's "failure", Zhang Xiang, Dean of the New Energy Vehicle Technology Research Institute of Jiangxi New Energy Technology Vocational College, believes that in the final analysis, it is still "incompetent products".
The earliest model of Yundu is Yundu π1, which is a small SUV. The second product, π3, is also a small SUV. The overall price is about 100,000 yuan, which is similar to the early products of BAIC New Energy. There is a certain amount of sales and competitiveness in the period when there are few competing products in the market and high subsidies.
However, in terms of core technology, there is still a gap with other new energy vehicle brands such as Wei Xiaoli.
Shell Finance reporter also tried to contact Lin Mi, general manager of Yundu Automobile, but as of press time, the other party has not responded.
The story of Yundu Auto has come to an end, who will be the next outgoing companion?
The decline of Yundu Automobile may be just a microcosm of the "out" of some new power companies in the new era.
According to public data, in 2021, the sales volume of Tianji, Aiways, and Skyworth will be 1,778, 3,011, and 6,393 respectively, which together account for less than 0.5% of the entire market; from January to March 2022, Tianji , Aiways, Skyworth sales were 1807, 564, 3438 respectively.
The data reflects the predicament of these companies.
The difficulty of financing also shows the dilemma of enterprises.
According to the company’s investigation information, the latest round of financing of Skyline Auto was in October 2020, with a financing amount of about 5 billion yuan; AIWAYS only received hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from individual investors and its subsidiaries in January 2022.
Compared with Aiways and Skyworth, Skyworth has certain financial strength behind it, and its performance is not too bad, but compared with Wei Xiaoli, which sells nearly 10,000 vehicles every month, there is still a big gap, and it is difficult for the market to see the company. How will this gap be bridged.
Zhu Yunyao, an expert from China Automobile Research Institute, said that each company has its own reasons.
But on the whole, they failed to find the "charm point" of new energy vehicles, and the products were still traditional and did not get the favor of users; second, they failed to keep up with the combination of smart electric vehicles, and new energy in the early stage kept up. In the later stage, intelligence and automation failed to keep up; there were also a series of problems such as marketing and product positioning.
Zhang Xiang believes that the capital and technology of enterprises are the core issues that make it difficult for them to participate strongly in the market competition.
Due to the limited funds of the company, it is difficult to achieve a more competitive level in the industry in terms of product design and construction, corporate publicity, and employee compensation.
Zhang Xiang mentioned that small and medium-sized enterprises in the industry today have no money, so they can't recruit excellent employees, can't create high-quality products, and even marketing is very difficult.
Although some of these companies try to find new ways to go to overseas markets, overseas markets such as Europe are even more challenging for companies.
According to EU-EVS data, AIWAYS will only sell 555 units in Europe in 2021.
Zhang Xiang believes that there is a high probability that the new power companies in the third-tier car manufacturing industry will go bankrupt, and a small number of them will be acquired.
The competition in the industry is fierce, and only leading companies can survive.
Zhang Chi, chairman of Xinding Capital, told the Shell Finance reporter that financial investors are more willing to invest money in giant companies, such as Alibaba, compared to the second and third echelons of the new car-making forces whose current sales and financing performance are relatively average. Invest in a smart car.
Regarding the future of the company, Zhang Chi gave his views from the perspective of investors: go to communicate with giants more, try to introduce more partners or create a good value for yourself.
Today, the capital chain of Yundu Automobile is broken, and it is quietly waiting for the arrival of new shareholders.
Whether the end of the enterprise will fall into the dust of history like Bojun, Byton and Salen, or will it start anew after being acquired like Xinte and Yujie Electric, it still takes time to give the answer.
But the time that Lin Mi can continue to accompany his "child" has entered the countdown.
Beijing News Shell Finance reporter Bai Haotian