In fact, the meaning of shutdown is basically to go out of business, like Weimar and Tianji before, they have also issued notices of shutdown and shutdown, you can search on the Internet, and they all operate like this. ”
Xiao Lin (pseudonym), an employee of Gaohe Automobile, said this to the editorial department of Zhiwei.
Two days after Gao He revealed that he had stopped work and production, when the editorial department contacted him, he had already stayed at home looking for a new opportunity.
On February 19 (the day after the shutdown was announced), I went to the company in the morning and found that the lights were not turned on, pitch black. Kobayashi said, "At the beginning, the news of the shutdown has not been officially announced, and there has been no meeting at the employee level, that is, the direct leader told you about it." ”
On the first day of the end of the 2024 New Year holiday, others started work, and Gaohe announced the suspension of work and production.
As a brand based on high-end in new energy vehicle companies, it has just been officially released in 2019, and the price of the first product is in the ** band of 60-800,000 yuan, ready to fight high.
In just four years, Gaohe faced the situation of shutdown and production, and the editorial department of Zhiwei contacted employees at all levels of the company to try to find out how Gaohe got to this point.
On February 18, Gaohe Automobile held an internal meeting and announced that it would suspend production for six months from now on. In addition, some employees have also received a notice from the company that the salary for January will be paid at the end of February, and the salary from February 1 to February 18 will be paid normally, and the date is to be determinedEmployees who remained at Hi-O before March 18 will only be paid basic salaryAfter March 18, employees will only be paid their Shanghai base salary.
In fact, people who know a little about this matter in the industry knowGaohe has not been able to do so since October last year. Liu Sheng (pseudonym), a former Gaohe purchasing employee, told Zhiwei, ".The most direct embodiment is the payment to the merchant, and at that time, the merchant could not urge the money at all, but at that time, some ** businessmen may still have some fantasies, thinking that they can get money if they survive it. ”
Looking back on last year's work, Liu Sheng felt helpless and angry, "The outsourced ** business has to withdraw many times, all because the money has not been paid and the money is in arrears. Last year, the problem of Gaohe payment was very serious, I have never seen such a bad payment company, that is, it is reasonable not to pay later. It's very distorted, and people in the company may think that if they don't pay, they won't pay, it's normal, if they don't pay, they won't pay, and they will not pay to the extent that they don't distinguish between right and wrong.
Liu Sheng was laid off by Gaohe in October last year, and now he is a little glad to recall that moment, "Fortunately, he left at that time, and there is compensation." Many people think that the company is not very kind, in fact, in about the month of last year, many people have opportunities outside, but in the positive atmosphere created by the company, I feel that Gaohe is okay, and stayed, but now I may not get my salary for a month or two. ”
In fact, the emergency layoffs that had just returned from the National Day holiday in October last year were already one of the few self-help measures left by Gaohe at that time.
During the National Day holiday, the management was in a meeting to discuss the layoffs. After the holiday, the week of October 8th, it started, and it was very fast, probably all (the list of layoffs) was set for that week. In fact, at that time, it was already known that Saudi Arabia's money should not be able to come, and the company's funds could not be supported. Liu Sheng recalled the layoffs.
Liu Sheng was referring to Saudi Arabia's money, referring to the $5.6 billion financing agreement signed with the Saudi Ministry of Investment in early June 2023 by Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe AutomobileIn July and August, the Saudi side also went to Shanghai, Yancheng and Qingdao factories to conduct due diligence.
But apparently, that funding didn't come togetherLiu Sheng speculated that the reason may be related to the sales of Hiphi Y, the most popular car of Gaohe, and Hiphi Y, which Gaohe had high hopes for, did not assume the role of turning the tide.
At that time, Gao He basically bet on Hiphi Y. If HiPhi Y sells more than 3,000 units per month, the company's cash flow will not have any problems. But in fact, after it came out, it was only two or three months, and it was maintained at about 1,500 units sold, and then it fell off a cliff**. Zhang Qian (pseudonym), a senior employee of Gaohe, said.
In September last year, in order to rush the sales of Hiphi Y, Gaohe has used the means of buying cars for employees and even letting ** merchants buy cars, but the sales volume is still lower than expected, which may be the case, which led to the failure of capital injection to be in place, which further aggravated the tension of Gaohe's capital chain.
Regarding Gaohe's financial situation, Zhang Qian believes that Gaohe may have missed a good opportunity from the beginning.
From the financing level, Gaohe actually made a big mistake. If Gaohe, like NIO and Xiaopeng, introduced financial investment in 20 years, the result may be different. You see, like NIO, it melted 1200 billion before and after, Xiaopeng also melted 780 billion before and after, but Gaohe only melted more than 200 billion before and after. ”
This is a very big mistake, Ding Lei Ding may not want to give up this ** right, do not want to be manipulated by this capital anymore, but he obviously underestimated the difficulty of building a car, but also underestimated the fierce competition in the Chinese auto market, Gaohe's cash reserves are seriously insufficient, which leads to walking on thin ice all the way. ”
In Zhang Qian's eyes,The company gave up a lot of very good opportunities, such as working with Byte, Volkswagen and AudiIf it weren't for some problems with management rights, control and equity, Gaohe would not have come to this point.
As for whether there will be a turnaround after Gaohe, Zhang Qian thinks, ".It's very difficult to save it, and now if Mr. Ding can't get this financing, then it's basically very pessimistic, and there are really few bigwigs in the automotive industry who can have more resources than Ding Lei.
Public information shows that Ding Lei's resume is indeed very glamorous. Ding Lei is a veteran of the automotive industry, having served as the general manager of Shanghai General Motors since January 2005. During his six years as general manager, Shanghai GM's annual production and sales exceeded one million units, and it won the first place in sales of domestic passenger car companies for four times.
Later, in 2013, Ding Lei served as the deputy mayor of Pudong New Area, Shanghai. In September 2015, Ding Lei joined Jia Yueting's LeEco Super Auto as Co-Founder, Global Vice Chairman, and CEO of LeEco Super Auto in China and Asia Pacific.
And exactlySAIC-GM's experience has made most of Gaohe's decision-makers "old men" who have followed Ding Lei for many yearsIn Zhang Qian's view, perhaps it is this kind of following over the years that has led toThe decision-making level has developed the habit of the boss pointing me wherever I fight, and no one is willing to stand up and express different opinions.
So this caused Lao Ding to be actually very helpless. There should have been more than 20 people at the decision-making level who should have stood up on key matters, but none of them seemed to stand up, let Lao Ding make his own decisions. Then how can Lao Ding understand everything, and then make his own decisions on everything?”
Zhang Qian feels that Gaohe's failure is largely due to the mistakes of the leadership's strategy, and it is still making new energy vehicles with the ideas of traditional car companies.
People who have come out of the general system before, they may not be particularly good at marketing. Because GM actually has a high degree of recognition in the market, you don't need to put a lot of effort into this awareness. But this group of people came to Gaohe,In accordance with GM's way of playing, to build a store, to sell, to do service, and then feel that this car can be sold in this way, that is impossible, the popularity has not been done, how can the Gaohe brand be compared with the GM brand?
The brand power of Gaohe is indeed a point that most Gaohe people are criticizing.
Gaohe also recruited a marketing president before, this person was the general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, but it didn't take long to leave, according to people close to him to Zhiwei, or because there is no room for operation, the company is not willing to invest too many resources in this.
From another point of view, does high-end positioning need enough brand power as support?
Tesla first hit the high-end flagship car at the earliest, and after the 1 million Model S and Model X came out, the Model 3 was released, and one sold out.
Gaohe obviously wants to replicate this path, through the HiPhi X and HiPhi Z, two high-end flagship cars, to establish the brand and technology, and then go to the third and fourth cars to go and sell out.
However, Gaohe obviously underestimated the degree of involution of Chinese car companies, and when Hiphi Y was launched in July last year, it was the time when car companies were extremely involuted, and at that time, NIO Ideal Extreme Krypton was cutting prices, and it was often 20,000 or 30,000.
Others are richer than you, faster than you to develop, and then others have brands, it is difficult to fight. Zhao Zihang (pseudonym), product manager of Gaohe, said with emotion.
When talking about his own products, Zhao Zihang mentioned the difficulty of implementing innovative and complex processes in the domestic automotive industry, "For example, the appearance of X and Z, especially the appearance of Z, because it is very unique, it has a large number of folded lines and ridges. So like such an appearance, in order to be completed and mass-produced, there are a large number of process problems that need to be solved, including the Hiphi Boat robotic arm inside is also a new thing. ”
When mentioning why Gao He spent so much effort on appearance, Zhao Zihang replied, ".Many people think that these bells and whistles are meaningless, but in fact, there are quite a few consumers who buy our cars and probably take this kind of ingenuity. You can see that there is a set of 3D digital cars in the middle of Gaohe's car machine, which is actually a precedent in the industry. ”
Gao He is at least willing to try to make something new, willing to do something that others may seem to be high and low. ”
Zhiwei came into contact with a number of Gaohe employees, and found that the most affectionate for Gaohe are still R&D employees, and they generally feel that Gaohe was just born at the wrong time, and has encountered the epidemic for three years since its establishment, encountered the extreme involution of Chinese car companies, and encountered the downward cycle.
However, there are also many practical problems on the other side of these employees' ideas: is the innovation made by Gaohe really in line with the market demand? Is there a sufficient number of targeted people to support it? If friends don't cut prices, will Gaohe's sales be very good?
There is no way to answer these questions. Perhaps, these questions will never be answered.
Now, these employees no longer care about these problems, and most of the employees are more concerned about whether their January and February wages can be paid at the end of the month as announced.
Zhiwei asked a senior executive close to Ding Lei, and he thoughtThe answer is hard.
Because basically all the assets are mortgaged. Including the office building in Pujiang Town, as well as the equipment of the factory, everything that could be mortgaged was mortgaged, but in fact, there was no money at all. ”He said.