Ding Lei and Gaohe Automobile, who were in turmoil, did not wait for the white knight who came to save their lives, but waited for a complaint from the old owner Jia Yueting.
Faraday Future, a subsidiary of Jia Yueting, announced today that it has filed a lawsuit with the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court against Ding Lei, a former FF executive and founder of Human Horizons, on the grounds of trade secret infringement and unfair competition. FF requested an order from the court to compensate for the corresponding damages, and further demanded that Human Horizons immediately cease the infringement of trade secrets related to FF91, including the cessation of sales of the allegedly infringing products.
The new legal proceedings may deter potential buyers of Gaohe.
Previously, Gaohe Automobile, which only had a "three-month self-help window", was actively looking for a "buyer".
On February 27, Ding Lei, the founder of Gaohe Automobile, led his team to Chongqing to visit the headquarters of Changan Automobile. According to a number of ** reports, Ding Lei met with Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, to discuss the test drive of Changan Deep Blue S7, and also delivered Gaohe Automobile products for Changan Automobile's team to experience.
The next day, news came out that Gaohe was negotiating with Changan Automobile about the acquisition, and Changan Automobile would acquire 51% of Gaohe's shares.
However, Zhu Huarong responded to a number of **, saying, "I am talking, and it is far from 'proper'." ”
Gaohe Automobile, which has been suspended for 6 months from the first day of resumption of work at the beginning of the year, urgently needs a life-saving money to restart operations. Ding Lei bluntly said that the window period for Gaohe's turnaround is up to 3 months. "We will do everything we can to save the company. If you can't save it, then you can only accept your fate and fight for the last time. He said that there are many companies interested in Gaohe, "acquisition or investment, I will actively strive for it."
Previously, it was rumored that Huawei planned to acquire Gaohe, with the goal of "building the next Cialis (i.e., the Wenjie brand)". However, both Huawei and Gaohe denied the news.
A number of senior practitioners in the automotive industry told the "Deep Web" that based on Gaohe's past achievements and brand power, many companies will be interested in Gaohe, but there are probably not many people who can really make a move.
It takes a lot of money, but everyone is very cautious with their money and has to deal with cutthroat competition. A senior auto marketer told the "deep web" that the battle for the life and death of new energy vehicles will last at least three to five years, or even longer, and the key to the future competition of major brands is money, "who has more money, can survive and develop." ”
Not only the troubled Gaohe Automobile, but most of the domestic new power car companies are also constantly seeking financing. In addition to the ideal car that achieved annual profitability, the other three listed new power car companies NIO, Xpeng, and Leap continued to raise funds last year.
First, Xpeng Motors received about 5 billion yuan of investment from Volkswagen, then Leapmotor received about 11.7 billion yuan from Stellantis Group, the world's fourth largest automobile group, and then NIO announced a strategic investment of about 15.8 billion yuan from Cyvn Holdings in Abu Dhabi, Middle East. In addition, the deep web learned that new forces such as Nezha Automobile, Zeekr, and GAC Aion are also seeking listing and financing.
After the Gaohe incident, LPs (i.e., investment investors) will be more cautious about vehicle investment. An auto consulting executive told the "Deep Web" that the financing difficulty of car companies may increase in the future.
Ding Lei, founder of Gaohe on the left, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile on the left, **China** newspaper
It is difficult to sell yourself: "Gaohe's accumulated technology is basically in the field of traditional cars".
Judging from the financing and acquisition cases of new car companies in the past two years, Ding Lei's financing road is not easy.
For multinational leading auto groups that want to learn from China's electric vehicle technology and explore China's new energy vehicle market, they are more inclined to cooperate with car companies that have succeeded in China.
Stellantis N., the world's fourth-largest automotive groupv.Carlos T**ares, the global CEO of Stellantis Group, answered why he invested in Leapmotor at the signing of the investment cooperation with Leapmotor. "If we want to win the Chinese market, we better win the help of a successful Chinese company first. ”
Tang Weishi bluntly said that the Stellantis Group is not very successful in the Chinese market at present, and needs to have a certain rate in the Chinese market, and their method and logic are very simple, "It is to cooperate with the best (enterprises)." ”
In 2023, the annual sales volume of Leapmotor will be about 1440,000 units, second only to Li Auto and NIO, and the third largest annual sales volume of new domestic car companies.
The intelligent shortcomings of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit that other traditional automobile groups with relatively strong funds want to make up for are also the shortcomings of Gaohe Automobile.
"The technologies accumulated by Gaohe are basically in the field of 'traditional cars', chassis, lights, these, which are not very good for intelligent technology. An executive in the field of automotive technology told the Deep Web.
Taking intelligent driving as an example, Wei Xiaoli has launched high-speed pilot assisted driving as early as 2020 and 2021, while Gaohe Automobile will only launch it at the end of 2023. Before the Spring Festival this year, Huawei Wenjie launched the national urban pilot assisted driving function.
According to 36Kr, citing the information of a number of Gaohe employees, the ADAS (Advanced Assisted Driving) department of Gaohe Automobile has not been taken seriously by the company, with less than 300 department members, responsible for algorithms, regulation, perception, fusion, testing, etc. Xpeng Motors, which has invested in Volkswagen Group in exchange for technology, has a smart driving R&D team of more than 3,000 people.
In addition, Gaohe Automobile does not have the production qualifications required by new power car companies.
Although Gaohe Automobile has two factories, Yancheng Plant (formerly Dongfeng Yueda Kia Factory, which Gaohe renovated and rented) and Qingdao Laixi Factory, the production qualification is affiliated to Yueda Kia, and the essence is that Yueda Kia is OEM production. Therefore, even if the Qingdao plant has production capacity, it still needs to be assembled at the Yancheng plant according to the regulations.
Strategic mistakes: the pace of corporate growth and capital markets is misaligned
Founded in 2017, Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe Automobile, has a similar idea to Tesla, first using 800,000 yuan models to build a brand, and then using the profits earned from high-end models to mass produce 300,000 yuan terminal models, so as to expand the scale.
The beginning of the car was very smooth. The first model released in 2020, the HiPhi X (priced at more than 800,000 yuan), has repeatedly surpassed the Porsche Taycan to win the first place in China's monthly sales of luxury electric vehicles of more than 500,000 yuan. The success of the first car brought stable revenues, profits and confidence. In 2022, when the second car of Hi-Tech is about to be released, Ding Lei decided to increase investment: expand the team and add stores.
However, since the second half of 2022, the competition in the domestic new energy market has intensified, the first war has sprouted, coupled with the overlap with the first car configuration, the second 500,000-level model of Hiphi Z, which Gaohe has high hopes for, has failed to open the market, and Gaohe Automobile's funds have begun to become stretched.
"There is no problem with the first car being a luxury car, but there is a problem with the car not going to go in the back. An automotive industry executive told the deep web that a company's rapid growth period should match the rhythm of the entire capital market.
They (Gaohe) were already late, the speed was not fast, they missed the time cycle, and they had heavy assets. The above-mentioned person said that in such a situation, the model is unsuccessful and encounters the best war environment, no matter which company will be under pressure. "In fact, the market is not very prosperous for new energy vehicles, especially independent car manufacturers, and it is difficult for Tesla to get funds. ”
In the past three years, the total sales volume of Gaohe Automobile is about 130,000 units, with an average annual sales volume of about 4,500 units. In the same period, Wei Xiaoli, who started a business and built cars, has already sold more than 10,000 units per month, and Li Auto will sell more than 50,000 units per month in December 2023.
At the same time, NIO and XPeng are still continuing to explore the ** belt to expand their scale. "Deep Web" learned that the Weilai Parity sub-brand will be released in 2024. Xpeng Motors' acquisition of the first car in Didi's car manufacturing project, the Mona (codename), is also scheduled to be mass-produced this year. "Mona expects to sell 100,000 units a year. He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, said.
A number of HiPhi employees believe that if the second car is released as a 300,000-level HiPhi Y, perhaps the situation of HiPhi will be very different from what it is now.
The HiPhi Y is the third model to be released in July 2023. However, three months after the release, before the production capacity ramp-up was over, the high-tech funds had bottomed out. In October last year, Gaohe began large-scale layoffs and negotiated supply and debt collection, until February this year, when it was unsustainable and officially announced the suspension of production for 6 months.
According to the Yuanchuan Research Institute, citing the information of Gaohe employees, the senior management of Gaohe Automobile had a lot of discussions about whether the second car should be on Y or Z, but in the end it was decided that Z with a higher risk coefficient, "If it was set at the time of Y, it should be able to be launched around September 2022, and from the perspective of the market at that time and the competitiveness of Y itself, it should not be a big problem to surpass NIO ES7." ”
Financing in the Middle East is difficult to land
When Ding Lei established Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe Automobile, he thought that he had prepared sufficient start-up capital for car manufacturing.
From 2018 to 2019, when Wei Xiaoli and other new domestic car-making forces also listed financing as a top priority, he mentioned many times in ** interviews that external financing would not be held for the time being. "I wouldn't have done this without adequate funding. Because I can't accept the model of running out of money halfway through the job, and having to look for money everywhere to continue the work. ”
This confidence may come from Ding Lei's rich political and business contacts and resources.
He is a top student who graduated from Fudan University with a bachelor's and master's degree, and studied under the famous physicist Xie Xide. After graduating from Fudan in 1988, he joined SAIC and worked hard for 23 years to become vice president of SAIC, during which he participated in and promoted Santana's domestic production. In 2011, he was transferred to Shanghai Zhangjiang Group as Party Secretary and General Manager. From 2013 to July 2015, Ding Lei served as the deputy mayor of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, during which he participated in the construction of China's first free trade zone and led the introduction of Tesla project.
In 2015, he was invited to join LeTV Automobile, but two years later, LeTV had a financial crisis, and Ding Lei decided to build a car by himself. In 2017, Ding Lei established a fund management platform East Coast**, and established cooperation in Yancheng**, Jiangsu, and Human Horizons, the parent company of Gaohe Automobile, was born with the support of ** capital. In January 2022, Qingdao City Investment invested 13800 million yuan participated in the overseas equity investment of Human Horizons, and promoted the project of Gaohe Automobile headquarters and vehicle production base to settle in Laixi.
Through Gaohe's capital actions in the past year, it can be speculated that Ding Lei's assumptions on Gaohe's capital may be: domestic investment and US dollar capital as start-up funds to launch two expensive cars to stabilize gross profits; After a certain sales base, it will impact the IPO listing and increase financing channels; On this basis, the launch of high-volume cars to expand revenue and profits is basically the same as Tesla's path.
However, this idea was thwarted twice in 2022. The first is the failure of HiPhi Z, and the second is that the IPO of HiPhi Automobile was forced to suspend because its sales volume, revenue and other indicators did not meet the requirements for listing on the Hong Kong stock market. Ding Lei needs to open up other financing channels for Gaohe blood transfusion.
In June 2023, according to The Paper, the Saudi Ministry of Investment signed a memorandum of understanding with Human Horizons for about 21 billion Saudi riyals (about 5.6 billion U.S. dollars) to establish a joint venture engaged in vehicle research and development, manufacturing and sales. However, this investment has not yet materialized.
In this regard, Gaohe Automobile told Shell Finance in January this year that Saudi Arabia's investment is a package agreement, which will be extended from 2024 to 2030 (an important implementation year of the Kingdom's "2030 Vision Plan"), in addition to the equity investment in Human Horizons, it also includes the construction of factories in Saudi Arabia, smart transportation smart cities, and the creation of a first-chain ecosystem. The cooperation project has passed a series of key nodes and is progressing in an orderly manner.
Investment in the Middle East needs to be paid by Gaohe. A person familiar with the matter told the "Deep Web". According to 36Kr information, the investor requires Gaohe Automobile to introduce the first chain and production line in Saudi Arabia, and has the corresponding production capacity, and after the above requirements are met, the investor will hand over 5.6 billion US dollars to Gaohe within 10 years of reaching cooperation.
In October last year, it was reported on the Internet that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment** (PIF) planned to invest at least 2US$500 million (intended investment), and if an investment agreement is reached, PIF may purchase Human Horizons shares at a valuation of US$3 billion. According to 36Kr, PIF did not immediately invest in Gaohe Automobile after inspecting the two factories of Gaohe Automobile on the spot to understand the sales volume and production capacity scale.
Li Xiang, the founder of Li Auto, publicly called on the state to establish and guide the merger and acquisition system of automobile companies after Gaohe fell into trouble, including issues related to qualifications. He believes that there will be many new brands that will encounter operational and financial problems in the future, although they are the result of reasonable market competition.
If the social loss caused by the merger and acquisition due to poor management is 10, the social loss of failure due to poor management is 100. The three major U.S. companies were also the product of fierce competition and mergers among hundreds of car companies. ”