On the ninth day of the Lunar New Year, some people start work, and some people lose their jobs when they start work.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, there was news on social platforms that a certain door factory announced that it would be disbanded on the same day. Door factoryThe key words of the word were aimed at Gaohe Automobile, and Gaohe collapsed in an uproar.
At 6 o'clock in the evening of the same day, after the plenary meeting, Gaohe Automobile announced that it would suspend production for 6 months from now on.
An internal employee of Gaohe Automobile revealed that the wages of employees before February 18 will be paid normally; However, employees who remain in the company before March 15 will only receive basic salary, and after March 15, Gaohe Automobile will only pay Shanghai basic salary to employees who are still in service.
As early as a few months ago, there were frequent unfavorable news within Gaohe.
In October, Hi-Tech started a business restructuring and laid off nearly 20% of its workforce
During the New Year's Day, the employee welfare subsidy was forced to be reduced
On the eve of the Spring Festival, Gaohe notified the delay in the payment of wages in January, canceled the 2023 year-end bonus, and actively encouraged employees to find another way
Layoffs, voluntary salary cuts, and wage deferrals, all the turmoil has revealed the poor business situation of Gaohe Automobile.
Similar cases are not unheard of in the new energy circle, and WM Motor, which got up early in the morning to catch up with the late gathering, has also completely walked out of the embarrassing link of arrears of wages, suspension of work, and bankruptcy.
Human Horizons CEO Ding Lei
The state of shutdown is like a prelude to the collapse of car companies. Will Gaohe become the first new power car company to collapse in 2024?
Flowers in the mirror, the moon in the water, Faraday's future is a dream
Tracing the history of the founding of Gaohe, it is difficult for us not to think of Faraday Future on the other side of the ocean.
In 2008, Tesla launched the Roadster, the brand's first all-electric sports car, based on the AC Propulsion Tzero and Lotus Elise.
In the car market, where the internal combustion engine was the absolute mainstream at the time, the emergence of the Roadster was like a shooting star that pierced the sky, and it only took 3 to 0-60 mph (about 0-96 km h).In 9 seconds, the Roadster subverted people's stereotype that electric cars are old and old, like slow golf carts, and pure electric cars instantly became famous.
Musk and the all-new Tesla Roadster
In addition to justifying the pure electric performance, the emergence of the Roadster also left a first-class capital story.
The pure electric vehicles of the future have brought a broad space for reverie for major capitals. According to a person familiar with the matter, after Tesla launched the all-electric sports car Roadster,Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has been thinking about designing and building electric vehicles, and in 2014 Apple's famous Project Titan project surfaced.
Also tempted by Jia Yueting is also moved. Inspired by Roadster, Jia Yueting officially founded Faraday Future in Los Angeles, California, USA in 2014. The following year, Jia Yueting brought Faraday Future to CES (Consumer Electronics Show) for its brand debut, and announced that it would build a production plant for its models in Nevada.
In September of the same year, Ding Lei joined LeTV as the co-founder of LeTV Automobile, and the future Gaohe and Faraday Future formed an indissoluble relationship.
In 2017, FF 91 was listed at CES
One step ahead is a pioneer, and two steps ahead may be a martyr. 」
Jia Yueting is indeed forward-looking enough, but the overly aggressive style still brings trouble to LeTV Auto. According to a previous report by AI Finance Agency, an internal employee who worked as a middle-level employee in LeTV revealed that the aggressive financing style made Volkswagen full of doubts about LeTV Auto, and Jia Yueting still continued to show the development progress to the outside world under the premise that the core technology has not been completed. At a press conference, LETV needs to demonstrate its intelligent voice capabilities, and the actual effect is achieved by the background remote control.
Jia Yueting
The radical style of acting has a strong conflict with Ding Lei's hard-working concept of car building.
In 2017, on the eve of LeTV's financial fraud, Ding Lei chose to leave. In March, Ding Lei continued to devote himself to the car-making business and established Human Horizons from scratch (Gaohe Automobile is its subsidiary); In July, after 10 years of financial fraud**, all of Jia Yueting's shares in LeEco were frozen, and after resigning as a director, FF Auto fell into a dilemma of lack of fundraising, and mass production became far away.
In the two years that Faraday Future's situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse, Gaohe acquired a local factory of Dongfeng Yueda Kia under the guidance of Yancheng City, and solved the production capacity problem in the early stage of mass production with the help of a molded production line.
In 2020, when the FF 91 was still telling the story of mass production, Human Horizons released the Hiphi X, the first luxury pure electric SUV of the Hihe brand, with a price of 57-800,000 yuan, which also allowed Hihe to directly settle on the high-end luxury pure electric track.
A lot of people say that our car is a lot like the FF 91, of course that's the case, after all, we are related. FF 91 is about to sell 2 million, and we only sell 800,000.In the early days of Hiphix's release, a HiPhi employee was not shy about his relationship with Faraday Future. To what extent do the two cars resemble? We can find the FF 91 design almost everywhere on the Hiphix body.
From the outside, the HiPhi X and FF 91 share the same face. The slightly curved narrow arc headlights, the symmetrical electric doors, and the overall line direction seem to tell us the identity of the twin brothers of the two cars.
Hiphix
Faraday Future FF 91
From the outside to the inside, the hiphi X and FF 91 also overlap in the cabin layout. With a surprisingly similar A-pillar window, a roughly identical steering wheel, and a large vertically centered display, the design of the enveloping cockpit is identical.
HiPh IX Interior - From: Topgear
FF 91 Driver's Interior
The similarity of the two cars is not a coincidence, according to relevant sources, during his tenure as the co-founder of LETV Auto, the main business of LETV Auto was controlled by Ding Lei.
To a certain extent, the mass production of HiPhi X is the successful localization of FF 91, and the emergence of HiPhi Automobile is like a dream of Faraday Future. However, more importantly, Ding Lei has really brought the perfect car he envisioned in his heart to reality.
Gimmicks are difficult to win people's hearts, only technology is eternal
HiPhi Auto's reputation was launched by HiPhi X.
The flamboyant electric door function coupled with the mecha-style design has earned enough freshness and topicality for Gaohe, after all, there are always people who are willing to pay for bold and avant-garde things.
In May 2021, nearly a year after its release, HiPhi X began to officially move towards the delivery sideIn the end, in 2021, Gaohe delivered a total of 4,237 new vehicles.
In September of the same year, HiPhi unveiled the production of its second flagship model, the HiPhi Z, and in August of the following year, it officially unveiled the HiPhi Z, a mid-to-large electric coupe. Continuing the alternative selling point of high-end luxury and intelligent mecha style, the positioning of HiPhi Z also has a bit of a sword taste.
The model matrix of Gaohe Automobile
Sooner or later, the short-term gimmick will fade away, and the high-end and pioneering personality of Gaohe Automobile will not be able to continue to be transformed into sales stories. Following the annual sales of 4237 units in 2021,In 2022, Hi-Tech continued to perform steadily, with annual sales of only 4,349 units. In addition to high-end and personality, there is no story to tell.
Even the most high-end and luxurious brands need to have sustainable and healthy hematopoietic ability. The annual sales performance of Gaohe is not even comparable to the monthly sales of other new forces, and the struggling Gaohe began to realize the importance of entering the volume market.
In 2023, after two years of mediocre sales, HiPhi Motors launched its third model, the Hiphi Y, in the mid-year node, with a price range of 339-44.90,000 yuan, which is also the first model product of Gaohe to enter the 300,000 price range.
Hiphi y
Equipped with the second-generation design of the NT intelligent winged door, HiPhi Y brings the best playing style back to the volume market. However, the volume market, which is involved in the white-hot stage, does not believe in the styling story, and almost at the same time as the release of Hiphi Y, the focus of competition for the 200,000-level similar model products has shifted to the high-voltage platform and intelligent driving sector.
In June, Xpeng G6 sank to the 20-300,000 market with 800V+XNGP; In July, Huawei's M7 put the national mapless intelligent driving on the agenda. In October, the all-new Zhiji LS6 launched a combination of quasi-900V + high-end intelligent driving hardware as standard.
The climax of intelligent driving has arrived, and major car companies are exploring the road of self-development and cost reduction. In comparison, Gaohe, who is accustomed to technology integration, is not only difficult to concave the personality of high-end brands, but also Hiphi Y, which is considered to use a cheap business solution for 400V+, has become the tears of the times from the beginning of its release.
Want to play in the high-end luxury marketEither there is a strong volume and scale to support the bottom, or it can continue to find financing channels to continue its life. However, according to relevant sales statistics, the annual sales of the Hiphi Y, which was highly anticipated by Gaohe last year, was about 4,100 units, while the annual sales of the two flagship models of the Hiphi X Y were about 4,100 units.
hiphi z
At the other end of the sales wall, Gaohe is also not satisfactory in seeking financing. In June last year, the Saudi Ministry of Investment signed a cooperation agreement worth 21 billion Saudi riyals (about 40.2 billion yuan) with Gaohe; In November, Saudi Arabia's public investment ** capital injection was 2Rumors of 500 million US dollars (about 1.8 billion yuan).
However, compared with the Middle East, NIO injected 1.1 billion US dollars (about 72 yuan.)1.5 billion yuan) directly to the account, Gaohe's two financings finally ended without a hitch. The financing agreement, which is closely linked to sales volume and self-developed technology, has put Gaohe's operation into a "dead loop".
At NIO Day 2023, Li Bin had predicted that the domestic new energy competition would reach the finals in 2025, and that the finals would be an endless road. But competition is also accompanied by opportunities, Li Bin also believes that in 2024-2025, high-end smart electric vehicles will enter a stage of explosive growth, and the long-term accumulation of oil to electricity will also undergo explosive growth.
Gaohe Automobile, which has been suspended for half a year, may have fallen on the eve of the outbreak of the high-end market.