Wenrui Finance Xu ShuminA photo about the meeting between Ding Lei, the founder of Gaohe Automobile, and Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile
On February 27, Ding Lei appeared in Changan Automobile Group, and then it was reported on the Internet that "Changan Automobile negotiated the purchase of 51% of the shares of Gaohe Automobile". But Zhu Huarong responded to the outside world, "I'm talking, it's still far from 'proper', (for now) to find out." ”
Gaohe Automobile, which broke out in a financial crisis, is looking for a way to "save itself".
Since the beginning of the year, various contradictions have erupted in Gaohe Automobile, first with the news of the cancellation of employee benefits, and then the official announcement of the suspension of work and production for 6 months.
A few days ago, at the internal meeting of Gaohe Automobile's Shanghai headquarters, Ding Lei reflected: "The company has developed to this point, and I am speechless and shameless. ”
Gaohe Automobile was once brilliant and once became the sales champion of luxury pure electric vehicles. However, with the intensification of market competition, the core competitiveness of Gaohe Automobile is not strong, the sales volume has not improved much for many years, and the external financing has not been in place for a long time, and it is gradually lagging behind its peers.
Ding Lei also admitted frankly that he can't beat the Internet with traditional business strategies.
According to Ding Lei, the next 3 months will be the window period for Gaohe Automobile to turn over, "make every effort to save the company, if you can't save it, then accept your fate".
In front of Gaohe Automobile, there are only two roads. Either it will be merged, merged, reorganized, or it will follow the old path of WM Motor and Aiways - bankruptcy reorganization.
How to go is a proposition for Ding Lei.
A crisis arises
Everything was foreshadowed.
As early as October last year, it was reported that Gaohe Automobile had started large-scale layoffs, with a proportion of as high as 20%, and some departments even laid off 50% of their employees.
However, Gaohe Automobile denied the news of large-scale layoffs, and responded to the outside world: The so-called large-scale layoffs are false information, and this time it is a normal personnel flow.
However, the market is still speculating, and most believe that behind the large-scale personnel changes, it reflects the dilemma of Gaohe Automobile's tight funds.
In a word, it is a prophecy. At the beginning of this year, some car bloggers began to send out messages saying that "all work of Gaohe has been suspended, including stopping shipments, stopping the development of new projects, and preparing for prosecution." At the same time, Gaohe Automobile also announced on Feishu that it would cancel benefits such as meal allowances, transportation subsidies, and company shuttles for employees.
Subsequently, on February 18, according to relevant ** reports, Gaohe Automobile held an internal meeting and announced that it would suspend production for 6 months, and the factory was not allowed to enter.
The financial crisis of Gaohe Automobile has been put on the bright side. As Ding Lei said, at this point in time, all contradictions erupted in a concentrated manner.
Why? At the beginning, Gaohe Automobile, which once occupied the sales champion position of more than 500,000 luxury pure electric vehicles, has unlimited scenery and leads the market.
In just a few years, Gaohe Automobile fell from the altar.
On the one hand, the sales volume of Gaohe Automobile cannot break through. According to public data, from 2021 to 2022, the sales volume of Gaohe Automobile will be 4,237 and 4,349 respectively. In 2023, the sales volume of Gaohe Automobile will be about 8,000 units, which will still not exceed 10,000.
On the other hand, Gaohe Automobile has not been able to keep up with the financing. It is understood that Gaohe Automobile only received a strategic investment of 5 billion yuan from Bank of Communications in November 2021, and in May last year, Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe Automobile, signed a financing agreement with the Saudi Ministry of Investment with a scale of 21 billion Saudi riyals (about 40 billion yuan).
However, so far, there has been no follow-up progress on Saudi Arabia's investment, and it has remained at the stage of the framework agreement.
It is a general consensus in the industry that "burning money" in car manufacturing, and Li Bin of Weilai Automobile once said that an electric vehicle company needs at least 20 billion yuan to reach mass production. Its own hematopoietic capacity is insufficient, and external financing has not been in place for a long time, and it is only a matter of time before it falls.
From the perspective of the external environment, the involution trend of new energy vehicles is the deeper reason for the predicament of Gaohe Automobile.
In 2020 and 2021, HiPhi X and HiPhi Z were launched successively, with prices ranging from 500,000 to 800,000 yuan. At that time, when new energy vehicles were everywhere, Gaohe Automobile stood out with the best and occupied the luxury pure electric market.
However, with the rise of the three new car-making forces of "Wei Xiaoli", the high-end market of new energy vehicles is no longer dominant. It can be seen that in 2023, the sales of all 8 models of NIO will reach 160,000 units, and the sales volume of Xpeng Motors will be 1410,000 units, and the sales volume of Li Auto is as high as 3760,000 units.
It is an indisputable fact that Gaohe Automobile is lagging behind. Gaohe Automobile is also trying its best to save itself, last year Gaohe Hiphi Z plummeted by 100,000 yuan, and launched a parity model Hiphi Y, priced at 33From 90,000 yuan.
Compared with the 300,000-level new energy models such as NIO ES6, ZEEKR 001, and Tesla Model Y, which have already occupied the market, the sinking of Gaohe Automobile has little effect.
New energy vehicle companies want to go long-term, relying on "hard power". The core technology and core patents in hand determine the firmness of the moat.
As for Gaohe Automobile, many parts and components come from external suppliers. Taking the HiPhi Y model as an example, the motor is from United Automotive Electronics, the drive system is from Bosch, the rear-wheel steering system is from Aisin, and the intelligent voice interaction system is from iFLYTEK.
The only "signboard" it can play is intelligent lighting interaction, NT intelligent wing door, futuristic and other façade functions.
Underestimating the market
Back in early 2023. Ding Lei appeared at the Shanghai International Auto Show with HiPhi X, HiPhi Z and the third main ship, HiPhi Y, which was quite high-profile. His goal is to bring Chinese brands to the world.
Founded in 2017, this car company, from the very beginning, is to "create market-leading cars and make epoch-making products", which is also what Ding Lei often says.
The vision of Gaohe Automobile is to always pursue to create more extreme things. As everyone knows, if you want to achieve such an "extreme", you need to invest a lot of money and face certain risks.
Ding Lei's ideals are ambitious, but the reality is skinny.
The personality and thinking of the founder of the enterprise determine whether the enterprise can go long-term.
During the 2022 Chengdu Auto Show, Ding Lei once said that now the first-line CEO of an automobile company, no one has the same background as him, and no one is still developing and selling cars like him.
But Ding Lei's background may be his limitation.
In 1988, Ding Lei graduated from the Department of Physics of Fudan University and joined Shanghai Volkswagen. Since then, he has worked for Shanghai Volkswagen and Shanghai GM SAIC for more than 20 years, and his outstanding achievements are to lead Shanghai GM to become the first domestic automobile company with production and sales exceeding one million.
In 2011, Ding Lei entered the official career as Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Executive Deputy Director of the Management Committee of Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, and was later promoted to Deputy Mayor of Pudong New Area, Shanghai. During this period, Ding Lei became the main promoter of the introduction of Tesla's project.
Four years later, he chose to go to sea and joined LeEco. In September 2015, Jia Yueting invited Ding Lei as a co-founder to join the LeEco super car project and serve as the global vice chairman and CEO of China and Asia-Pacific, but less than two years later, Ding Lei left.
At that time, Ding Lei could be regarded as one of the leaders in the automotive industry. He has been immersed in the automotive industry for a long time, and has both business experience and political experience, and there is no shortage of contacts and connections.
These experiences have made Ding Lei personally and the platform of Gaohe Automobile.
In July 2017, Human Horizons Holdings*** was established. Tianyancha shows that the company is 20% owned by Shanzhihe (Shanghai) Business Consulting, 20% by Shanghai Zejuehui Enterprise Management Partnership (Limited Partnership), 15% by Wang Zhi, 15% by Shanghai Jinghui Technology, and 15% by Li Guanwen and Li Guanbin.
Among them, Li Guanwen and Li Guanbin are both sons of Li Xuhua, the founder of Shenzhen real estate company Man Jinghua. Li Xuhua used to be one of SAIC's dealers in South China, and he has long been acquainted with Ding Lei.
Most of the natural person shareholders who entered the bureau were dealers that Ding Lei had met before.
The financing of Gaohe Automobile mostly relies on local ** platforms. In 2017, Ding Lei founded East Coast** and established a cooperative relationship with Yancheng**, Jiangsu, and then signed a cooperation agreement with Jiangsu Yueda and Yancheng State-owned Assets Investment Group to establish Human Horizons (Jiangsu) Technology Company.
The support of Yancheng ** is not only to invest in the main operating company of Gaohe Automobile, but also to provide financial assistance for Gaohe Automobile Leasing Production Base, the transformation of new energy vehicle production workshops, and the establishment of related companies.
In addition, two state-owned enterprises in Qingdao, Changyang Group, Qingdao Chengtou and Laixi City**, also provided support for Gaohe Automobile, providing it with more than 5 billion yuan of capital and production plants.
Support from local governments alone is still limited. Start-up car companies need to rely on large loans and financing to continue to build and sell cars.
For example, NIO lost 76.4 billion yuan in 5 and a half years, while Li Auto will not turn its net profit into a profit until 2023, making up for the cumulative losses of the previous five years.
Ding Lei's judgment on the financing of Gaohe Automobile is obviously not accurate enough. There are reports that Ding Lei may not want to give up his equity and no longer want to be manipulated by capital.
Gaohe Automobile has come to such a situation, which is not unrelated to Ding Lei's underestimation of the difficulty of building a car.
A battle of life and death
A screenshot of Jia Yueting's comment on Gaohe Automobile's circle of friends went viral.
Jia Yueting, the founder of FF, rarely expressed his views on Gaohe Automobile a few years later, commenting that it was "a shame for the industry".
Jia Yueting's "extreme" involves a past of the two.
It is rumored that when Ding Lei left LeTV Automobile, he took away a group of core backbones and related information, and instead established Human Horizons. At that time, ** and network news reported that when Ding Lei resigned, he got a full set of design data for LETV FF 91, so the appearance of the first car Hiphi X launched by Gaohe Automobile was close to Jia Yueting's FF 91.
But in any case, Gaohe Automobile has also been glorious, and it doesn't seem to make much sense to revisit the past.
Some industry leaders expressed their opinions contrary to Jia Yueting's opinions on the suspension of work and production of Gaohe Automobile. Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, posted on the platform: "Seeing the comments on Gaohe on the Internet, I don't know what these people think, isn't Ding Lei worthy of respect and admiration?" ”
At present, Gaohe Automobile is in a critical period of life and death. Various car companies, as well as consumers, merchants, dealers and other parties, are discussing where the future of Gaohe Automobile will go.
Employees of Gaohe Automobile are looking for a way out, jumping to other car companies such as Chery Automobile, Geely Holdings, Xpeng Motors, and Zeekr Automobile, while some Gaohe Automobile dealers have begun to sell new cars.
According to Ding Lei, the next 3 months will be the window period for Gaohe Automobile to turn over, "make every effort to save the company, if you can't save it, then accept your fate".
There are only two predictable endings.
The first is mergers and acquisitions and restructuring. Ding Lei also revealed that a large number of resources have rushed over, some want to buy Gaohe Automobile, and some want to invest in Gaohe Automobile.
After all, the popularity of Gaohe Automobile still exists, and it also has technical value such as intelligent cockpit and intelligent wing doors.
Historically, only a small number of car companies have gone bankrupt and collapsed, and most of the outcomes are still dominated by mergers and acquisitions, with the new brand party bearing the debts and after-sales of the acquiree. Historically, the restructuring of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz and BMW's acquisition of the Rolls-Royce and Mini brands have also been successful precedents.
Li Xiang, chairman and CEO of Li Auto, expressed his opinion on the Internet: In the case of the Gaohe thunderstorm, the social loss caused by mergers and acquisitions is much smaller than that of poor management and bankruptcy.
According to his analysis, if the social loss caused by mergers and acquisitions due to poor management is 10, then the social loss caused by poor management is 100. "The three major U.S. companies (the three existing traditional car companies, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler) were also the product of fierce competition and merger among hundreds of car companies. ”
It is even suggested that the state should establish and guide the merger and acquisition system of automobile companies, including issues related to production qualifications.
Previously, it was reported that Huawei was preparing to acquire Gaohe Automobile, but the rumors have been refuted. At present, Gaohe Automobile is in contact with Changan Automobile, but Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, responded that "it is still far from 'proper'", indicating that it still needs a certain amount of time to negotiate.
The worst outcome of Gaohe Automobile is to embark on the old path of WM Motor and Aiways - bankruptcy reorganization.
Before filing for bankruptcy reorganization, WM Motor and Aiways were also riddled with negative information, such as arrears of employees' wages, factory shutdowns, and office arrears and lease withdrawals.
Of course, in the past two years, car companies have also tried to save themselves, for example, WM Motor tried to revitalize the capital chain through the listing of "Apollo Travel", but failed.
The competition in the new energy vehicle market is intensifying, and the survival of the fittest is an inevitable trend.
Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Solution BU, previously said that it will be difficult for the future leading car companies to gain a foothold if the annual output of the leading car companies will not reach 5 million or even 10 million vehicles.