The history of coexistence between cars and humans is very short, only more than 130 years. In the process, many car companies were born and disappeared. The car companies that survived were lucky. And those car companies that have perished can only stay in our memories.
In this article, we will take a look at the demise of domestic automobile brands, many of which have been brilliant companies, and now they have gradually disappeared in the torrent of development of the times.
cheetah
Cheetah Automobile's parent company, Changfeng Group, was founded in 1950. In 1984, Changfeng shifted from military products to the development of civilian products such as station wagons and light off-road vehicles, and in 1995 introduced Mitsubishi Pajero automobile technology. Cheetah Motors wears the laurels of "military quality" and "the king of Chinese off-road vehicles", launches many classic models such as Black King Kong and CS10, and became the largest SUV car manufacturer in China in 2005.
In 2009, GAC and Changfeng reached an agreement to change its name to GAC Changfeng. However, due to the aging technology and sluggish sales, GAC Changfeng delisted in three years. Subsequently, GAC and Mitsubishi joint ventured, and Cheetah embarked on the road of independence.
However, with the intensification of market competition, Cheetah car sales continued to decline, and the brand was marginalized. According to the data, the cumulative sales of Cheetah Cars in 2020 is only 1043 vehicles. The operation of Cheetah Automobile has also become more and more difficult, and negative information such as dealer rights protection, parts supply cut-off, and after-sales service hotline shutdown has been exposed. Cheetah Motors' Changsha plant is also managed by Geely to produce new energy vehicles for Geely.
The development time of Cheetah Automobile is not short, and it has left a strong mark in the history of China's automobile development. But it has no qualitative breakthrough in technology, products, etc., and now none of its models meet the national six standards, and are eventually abandoned by the times.
Borgward
Born in Germany in 1919, Borgward was one of the world's leading automobile brands and founded a number of technology firsts: the first in Europe to use automatic transmissions, the first to use air suspension in Germany, and the first in the world to use direct injection engine technology in the cylinder. But in 1961 it collapsed due to a debt crisis.
Six years ago, Foton bought the Borgward Car brand from Borgward AG for 5 million euros and brought it to China. Cloaked in German, Borgward successfully opened the market, and in just 9 months after the launch of the Borgward BX7, sales achieved a breakthrough from zero to 30,000 vehicles. However, the good times did not last long, various quality problems of the BX7 surfaced, Borgward's sales fell sharply, and the models launched later were not able to turn the tide, and in three years, Borgward accumulated losses of more than 4 billion.
Next, Borgward came to the hands of UCAR, the rapid expansion and "self-production and self-sale" retail method did increase Borgward's sales in the short term, but the ashkenazi luxury "human design" collapsed, the technical level collapsed, making Borgward change slowly, word of mouth declined, and the financial fraud incident of Luckin Coffee, the "same brother" of the Shenzhou department, was the last straw that crushed the camel.
At present, Borgward still has not resumed work and production, and I wonder where it will go in the future.
Polar fox
At the beginning of the birth of the Polar Fox, it made a resounding promise of "being born to break the boundary", but in the face of such a situation now, its story does not know how to write down.
In January 2019, BAIC BJEV and Magna officially established a joint venture company "Magna Weilan", which is committed to building a high-end intelligent pure electric car development and manufacturing center open to the outside world, and ARCFOX Jihu was born here.
However, subject to the constraints of the channel rollout schedule, ARCFOX Extreme Fox wants to take advantage of the momentum to make some achievements in sales, and for ARCFOX Extreme Fox, a car company that urgently needs performance to prove itself, its plan to complete the construction of 60 stores within one year is really not very beautiful.
In April this year, the αS Huawei HI version model was launched to the market at a price of 388,900 yuan and 429,900 yuan, both basic and high-end versions. With the blessing of Huawei, the Xilis SF5 has gained a short-term pursuit, this new energy vehicle with new wine in the old bottle has been able to return to the public vision, and the ARCFOX Jihu brand has also been raised to a new height.
However, the selling price of about 400,000 yuan, the lagging delivery period, and the strong brand attributes, the lack of the founder's aura, coupled with the lack of circle culture that fits the times, the unattractive product characteristics make ARCFOX Extreme Fox more and more difficult.
From the perspective of the terminal market and consumers, the current ARCFOX Polar Fox is destined not to become the protagonist of the new energy vehicle market. BAIC BJEV's circle-breaking action may not end like this!
sea horse
In 1988, Haima Automobile, formerly known as Hainan Automobile Factory, opened its own car-making road. In many years of cooperation with Mazda, Haima reassembled and launched a number of Mazda models. After 2001, Haima and Mazda began technical cooperation, and the models launched by Prima MPV and Fumeilai were very popular. However, the ambitious Mazda then turned to the deep-pocketed and technologically mature FAW and Changan cooperation.
In 2006, Haima Automobile, which lost the help of Mazda, opened its own brand road. In the face of increasingly fierce competition in the automobile market, Haima acquired manufacturing plants and developed models, but high research and development costs and meager profits put Haima in danger, and the subsequent models produced were always tepid.
In 2010, Haima, eager to enter the new energy boom, failed to achieve mass production, and could only continuously improve the old models, as domestic independent brands began to innovate independently and develop independently, Haima has always been in the same place. In 2017, Haima's profitability took a sharp turn for the worse, and it even had to sell residential properties to prevent being delisted, and Haima barely survived after transferring equity and looking for a foundry.
Nowadays, under the trend of most brands laying out pure electric, Haima has taken a different path and turned to the development of hydrogen energy. Whether the sword-wielding seahorse can make a comeback is still unknown.
Fiat
In 1999, Nanjing Fiat was officially established, announcing Fiat's march to the Chinese market. The successive launches of Palio, Sienna, Weekend Wind and other models have been well received, making Fiat famous.
However, with the intensification of market competition, the old product lineup is no longer popular, and can only be continuously changed. While SAIC Volkswagen and Dongfeng Yueda Kia continued to upgrade, Nanjing Fiat continued to fry cold rice, and from 2003 to 2006, sales fell from 50,000 to 20,000.
At present, Nanjing Fiat urgently changed the coach and rehired Duan Jianjun, the director of the Ministry of Commerce at that time, but it has never ushered in a turnaround. In 2008, NANC was merged into SAIC, and the cooperation between SAIC and Fiat was officially terminated.
In 2010, Fiat opened a cooperation with GAC, and then launched Fiat 500, Fifiyue and other models, but the strong strength and strong executive team of GAC Group still did not save Fiat's business conditions all the way down.
In 2017, although GAC FCA sold gratifyingly, it also relied on JEEP to pull up the data, and the subsequent negative events brought a fatal blow to the surviving GFAC. In 2018, Fiat, which failed to cooperate twice, announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market.
Today, without Fiat, Guangfik is still taking a heavy step and moving forward, and it is still unknown whether Guangfik, which has gone, can turn the tables against the wind.
Zotye
In the domestic market, relying on "cottage products" to start with Zotye can be described as full of "legendary color", it has also had unlimited scenery, a T600 sold well, and later successively launched the "Motherland Version Tiguan", "Motherland Version Q3" and "Motherland Version A6" and other models, in the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show to earn enough attention of the low-end version of Porsche - SR9 is even more famous.
However, even the legendary company can not be smooth sailing, after the peak of 2016, Zotye ushered in a cliff-like decline in the following 3 years. The cold wave of the market, the epidemic and other environmental factors have made Zotye, which already has problems in its own operation, "worse".
Since the beginning of 2019, the negative news of Zotye Automobile has continued: it has been sought by employees for wages, defended by dealers, and sued by suppliers, and the stock price of Zotye Automobile has plummeted all the way. On the evening of December 23, 2020, Zotye Automobile was finally overwhelmed and declared bankrupt.
Renault
As early as 1994, Renault, a joint venture with Sanjiang Aerospace Group, established Sanjiang Renault Automobile Company, which can be regarded as a pioneer in the development of the Chinese market. However, the production method of CKD has made the production cost of Renault Tafik remain high, coupled with the difficulty of opening sales channels, Renault Tafik's sales have been unsatisfactory, with an average annual sales of less than 500 vehicles all the way to the loss, in 2000 announced its withdrawal from the Chinese stage.
However, Renault did not give up the fat meat of the Chinese market, and in December 2013, Dongfeng Renault's project was officially established through the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission, as one of the last joint ventures approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. After twenty years of silence, Renault has made a comeback, but at the same time it has changed from a forerunner in the Chinese market to a latecomer.
In 2016, Dongfeng Renault launched two SUV models Correga and Coreo cumulative sales are gratifying, can be said to have fired the first shot, and follow-up sales have increased, but the good times are not long, in 2018, China's automotive industry suffered a cold wave, Dongfeng Renault's annual sales also fell sharply, although there was a slight recovery in 2019, but due to the impact of the epidemic and its own competitiveness is not high and other factors, on April 14, 2020, Dongfeng Renault announced the dissolution and delisting.
Write at the end
Survival of the fittest has always been nature's law of survival, and the automotive industry is no different. With the foreign car giants that have been around for a hundred years, the development of China's auto industry is only a few decades, and car companies have shifted from east and west, reverse borrowing to positive research and development, most of which have gone out of their own development paths, but we also see that once they cannot keep up with the trend of the industry and the wind of the times, even the car companies that have been in the limelight will eventually be eliminated by history.
Written by Number One Jun
Editor-in-Chief Sun Chen
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