Renamed Suzuyao Automobile, bid farewell to the Chinese mainland market once and for all
(At present, the official website of Suzuki, which Chinese mainland, is still operating, which shows that its brand is mainly engaged in outboard and motorcycle products, and no longer has information about cars)
The birth of Changan Suzuki Alto wrote a major miracle in the history of China's micro-car, and in October of the following year, it also created the first installment car purchase model in the Chinese market, which made the already inexpensive car more market-oriented to the public, and the total sales volume in the Chinese market exceeded 500,000 vehicles, allowing the car to further enter thousands of households.
In the first decade of the 21st century, Changan Suzuki's sales in the domestic market can still continue to grow, from 2008 to 2011, Changan Suzuki sales were 102,500 units, 150,100 vehicles, 200,000 vehicles and 220,000 vehicles, respectively. But the good times are not long, because Suzuki has always been the main small car brand, at this time the domestic consumer demand for cars has ended the "subsistence" period, the general environmental demand is a larger size and more luxurious cars, coupled with the lack of competitiveness of the Suzuki brand, many overseas popular products have not been introduced and effectively operated, Changan Suzuki soon began to decline, sales sluggish. In 2012, Changan Suzuki sales fell 22.7% year-on-year to 170,000 units, and further fell to less than 150,000 units in 2013.
On September 4, 2018, Suzuki Motors announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market and turned its attention to the Southeast Asian market, which loves mini cars. At that time, Changan Automobile reached an agreement with Japan Suzuki Co., Ltd. and Suzuki (China) Investment Co., Ltd. to acquire 50% of the equity of Changan Suzuki held by Japanese enterprises for 1 yuan in cash, and will complete the equity delivery by the end of 2018, changan Suzuki will be transformed from a Sino-Japanese joint venture into a wholly-owned subsidiary of Changan Automobile, which also marks the complete withdrawal of Japanese Suzuki from the Chinese market.
(The picture shows suzuki India's official website, which shows that its product line is quite rich, including many Indian special models)
(The Suzuki Spacia series K-Car is both cute and practical, and will become the fourth largest car sales in Japan in 2021 with sales of 128881 vehicles.)
Established manufacturers eventually went bankrupt
Among the technology transfer of Cheetah cars by Mitsubishi in Japan included the high-top version of the Pajero V31 and the flat top version of the V33 model that were sold in the Asian market at that time. Readers and friends familiar with Hong Kong films know that in the 1980s and 1990s, Mitsubishi Motors achieved the highlight era of brand history with the implantation in Jackie Chan movies, and also made Pajero a household name in the Asian market, and The Pajero produced by Cheetah also took the top spot in domestic off-road vehicle sales before the arrival of the millennium, and this car was even produced by Cheetah until the 2010s.
In November 2002, Changfeng continued to introduce production flying with Pajero io as the prototype. In 2004, Changfeng Automobile, a subsidiary of Changfeng Group, was listed on the A-share market, and in the same year, the headquarters was moved to Changsha, forming four major parts production bases, three vehicle production collectives, two major R&D centers and a group headquarters layout. However, with the decline of Japan's Mitsubishi Motors in the 21st century, and Changfeng Cheetah has been overly dependent on Mitsubishi technology, the product technology from the 90s has become obsolete, hidden dangers have begun to lay, and in the seven years from 2002 to 2008, sales have only hovered around 20,000 vehicles.
In the same year, Changfeng Group decided to return to the vehicle business, and in 2013, it repurchased the ownership of the production base and cheetah trademark, and established Hunan Changfeng Cheetah Automobile Co., Ltd. and Hunan Cheetah Automobile Co., Ltd. In the first few years since 2015, Cheetah has finally improved, successively launching CS10, CS9, CS9EV, Mattu and other models, achieving sales of 45,000 units in 2015, 93,200 units in 2016, and 125,000 vehicles in 2017.
(Cheetah Mattu)
At the end of 2017, Cheetah Automobile proposed an investment of 10 billion yuan to build a new factory, with an annual output of 400,000 vehicles, but this time Cheetah's sales are also declining, and blind expansion of production capacity has also increased the huge asset burden for the entire company. In addition, with the advent of the cold winter in china's auto market, Cheetah Automobile set a sales target of 200,000 units in 2018, and only 86,400 units were completed that year, with a completion rate of only 43.2%. In 2019, sales were only 33,000 units, down 61.6% year-on-year.
Due to the serious operating losses, Cheetah was exposed to the implementation of collective salary cuts for employees and the suspension of factory production. According to an internal meeting minutes document issued on May 29 of that year, The Changfeng Group, where Cheetah Motors is located, resolved to implement "employee salary adjustment and burden reduction and salary reduction". The content of the document said that in view of the rapid changes in the automotive industry, the company's production and operation losses are serious, and the production base is seriously insufficient, etc., the meeting ensures that it can survive through salary adjustment, burden reduction and salary reduction.
(2019 Cheetah CS10)
The cliff-like decline in sales may not be related to quality issues. Taking CS10 as an example, its gearbox problem has almost become a common problem, and it can be seen in the complaint records of the vehicle quality network that the historical complaint records of all models and all products of Cheetah Automobile are about 1800, of which the relevant complaints about the CS10 gearbox exceed 1300, accounting for more than 70% of the total complaints. Numerous quality problems led to the subsequent CS9 and Mattu listings, and sales did not improve.
In May 2020, a "Letter to Hunan Cheetah Automobile Co., Ltd." jointly signed by Cheetah Automobile dealers circulated on the Internet, which pointed out that cheetah automobiles had no cars to sell from May 2019 to May 2020, dealers had no cars to sell, operational difficulties, serious losses, rent and employee wages could not be paid; after the resumption of production in May 2020, Cheetah Automobile still unilaterally controlled the use rights of dealers' account rebates, cash and so on. On August 18 of the same year, Cheetah Car Dealers issued a "Statement on Stopping the Free After-sales Of Cheetah Cars in China" to car owners, which showed that due to the various acts of Cheetah Car Manufacturers that harm the interests of dealers, dealers will not be able to provide users with free maintenance, repair, warranty and other services in accordance with the warranty manual.
On April 27, 2020, Geely Holding Group, Hunan Provincial People's Government and Changsha Municipal People's Government formally signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Changsha to host the Changsha plant of Hunan Cheetah Automobile Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Hunan Provincial State-owned Enterprise Changfeng Group Co., Ltd., to engage in the production and sales of new energy vehicles. On June 3 of the same year, Beidou Aerospace Automobile (Beijing) Co., Ltd. signed a cooperation agreement with Changfeng Group Co., Ltd. to reorganize Changfeng Cheetah.
Along the way, it is not difficult to see that cheetah has made the wrong choice question step by step, resulting in the good cards that it originally owned have been broken, and after filing for bankruptcy review, where will the future of this brand go?
Byton Cars
Burned 8.4 billion can not make a mass production car?
In the past few years, Byton has experienced 6 rounds of financing, a total of 8.4 billion yuan, and the leading investors even have Tencent Investment, FAW Group, Catalpin times and other giants that have seen the news. On April 4, 2021, Foxconn also signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Byton Automobile and Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone to accelerate the mass production and manufacturing of Byton's first model, M-Byte, and strive to achieve mass production of M-Byte by the first quarter of 2022. Ding Qingfen, who was the co-CEO of Byton at the time, said that "Byton was able to return to the track at this moment", but soon after, the executives of the founding team left one after another, and Ding Qingfen, who insisted until the last moment, also left at the end of the year, and Byton's "restart plan" finally failed.
When Byton's first brand store in Shanghai opened, the staff clothing was tailor-made and imported from Germany; the business cards of employees in China were also imported with environmentally friendly materials, and the cost of a box of business cards was as high as thousands of yuan. In 2018, Byton's North American office of more than 300 people spent more than $7 million in snack procurement fees alone, equivalent to an average of nearly $20,000 in snacks per person a year! In north American offices with fewer than 500 employees, the monthly salary cost of employees is three times that of the 1,400 employees in China.
In just a few years, Byton not only spent all this money, but also had a debt of up to 470 million yuan that had not been paid off, and owed nearly 1,000 employees 4 months' wages. However, Byton's financial situation continued to deteriorate, Byton's debt difficulties and its complex shareholder structure caused foxconn more difficulties than Foxconn expected, and in the end, the seemingly promising project was shelved. At that time, the sense of luxury and technology were amazing, and byton M-Byte, in the end, he was stillborn.
His debut was the peak and finally merged with Chang'an Mazda
Acquired by BMW China for 1.633 billion yuan
Perhaps it is the cultural influence of state-owned enterprises that "do not seek merit, but seek no fault", brilliance has gradually lost its wolf nature under the market economy. In 2004, ningbo Rover project, Sanjiang Renault project, replica London taxi "Austin" project has died; Zhonghua car lost 600 million yuan that year, in order to stop losses, Jinbei GM was transferred to SAIC Group, the only valuable project is probably left bmw brilliance.
(In that era when independent brands can be copied, the appearance of China Junjie is really amazing)
Honestly, the failure of this series of new cars is not surprising. On the one hand, quality problems emerge in an endless stream, and only one star of results have been achieved in the european crash test, which has been reduced to the laughing stock of "scrap iron from China"; on the other hand, Brilliance has almost "consumed" BMW over the years, hoping to create explosive models by absorbing BMW's technology, once and for all.
On the other hand, Brilliance China did not seize the development opportunities of new energy vehicles, and there were various reasons such as product planning, manufacturing quality control problems, poor market channels and after-sales service quality, etc., and missed market opportunities several times, resulting in today's dismal. By the first eight months of 2020, Brilliance China's sales were only 4991 vehicles, and in June of that year, Brilliance China's sales were even only 69 vehicles.
In 2020, affected by the epidemic, brilliance group's independent brand operation conditions further deteriorated, and the long-term accumulated debt problem broke out. According to Brilliance Group's 2020 semi-annual report, the total liabilities at the group level are 52.376 billion yuan, and the asset-liability ratio exceeds 110%, losing financing capabilities. Brilliance Group announced a formal bankruptcy reorganization on November 20, 2020 due to insolvent debt and debt repayment pressure, brilliance group introduced at the second debt meeting, as of August 13, 2021, brilliance group and other 12 enterprises are expected to have a total debt of 61.984 billion yuan.
Korean brands may usher in a turnaround
(Although Kia's official website is still on the domain name, and the corner label also says Dongfeng Yueda Kia, it has been renewed on the brand introduction page, focusing on Kia's new logo and new brand concept)
Founded in 2002, Dongfeng Yueda Kia is jointly invested and established by Dongfeng Motor Company, South Korea Kia Automobile Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., Ltd., with 25%, 50% and 25% of the shares held by the three parties respectively, and the tripartite joint venture term is 30 years, and it is headquartered in Yancheng, Jiangsu Province. However, of the 25% of Dongfeng's shares, 20% are production qualification resources, and the real capital contribution accounts for only 5%. This makes Kia and Yueda not very happy, but in the current situation of enterprise development, the three parties have compromised together, but this also lays hidden dangers for today's ending.
In 2017, the "THAAD incident" broke out, hyundai Kia Group was seriously impacted in China, and in 2017, Dongfeng Yueda Kia's sales were almost waist-high, with sales of only 359,000 vehicles in that year. At the same time, the rapid rise of independent brands, as well as the slowdown in the growth of China's auto market and even negative growth, coupled with the impact of the epidemic, for Dongfeng Yueda Kia can be described as worse, the company has also fallen into consecutive years of losses.
(Dongfeng Yueda Kia's first car - 2003 Maxima)
In 2020, Dongfeng Yueda Kia's revenue was 21.94 billion yuan, with a net loss of 4.75 billion yuan, and a net loss of about 2.6 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2021. Dongfeng, which said at the time that it would "never quit", has now chosen to "dump baggage".
The decline of Korean cars in China is largely due to Hyundai-Kia's continuous introduction of "special" models for the Chinese market, the practice of selling several generations of models in the same house is controversial, and the special cars made are far less attractive than Asian overseas models. If Kia can gain a higher shareholding ratio and control at Yueda Kia, it may be able to introduce more global models to support its high-end route. In March this year, the new general manager Liu Changsheng took over the baton of Li Feng, who had just been in office for a year and a half, at the helm of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, wondering if he could take advantage of the equity adjustment to reshape the company and lead Yueda Kia back to the peak?
Negative entanglement The teacher dies before he can succeed
On December 27, 2021, Nanjing Bojun New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. was newly bankrupted and reorganized, and the applicant was Nanjing Shengshi Yangzi New Energy Automobile Industry Investment Fund, who was also the sixth largest shareholder of Bojun Automobile, with a shareholding ratio of 5.2%.
Bo County's name is a bit awkward, and I believe many people have not been able to read it immediately. In fact, Bojun Automobile was established in December 2016, formerly known as American Advanced Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Sizhi Automotive Engineering Technology Co., Ltd., engaged in chassis design and vehicle performance development services, and is not backward in technology. After the establishment of the company, Bojun Automobile announced an investment of 10 billion yuan to build a pure electric vehicle manufacturing base in Nanjing.
At the press conference in April 2019, Bojun Automobile announced that it has built three highly flexible and scalable platforms of i-SP, i-MP and i-LP, and will spawn dozens of models covering the three mainstream market segments of A-class, B-class and C-class in the future. According to the plan, its first model, the iV6, will be officially mass-produced in Tianjin at the end of 2019, and deliveries will begin in the first quarter of 2020. Everything seems to be very good, however, by January 2020, Nanjing Bo County will only pay 14.1 million yuan to Tianjin Bo County, which is far from the 1 billion yuan down payment promised in the agreement.
(Bo County iV6)
(Bo County iV7)
After experiencing negative news such as broken capital chains, unpaid wages, executive departures, and various lawsuits, it is also expected that Bo County will eventually go to extinction. In 2022, the domestic new energy market has been occupied by the three giants of the new forces of "Wei Xiaoli" and the new energy brands that have caught up later, and Bo County Automobile has become a mess, and it has also become a typical specimen of the new forces of car manufacturing in recent years.
Unreliable meets unreliable
However, Jinbei products have been relying on the old Toyota old Hiace van "magic reform" for more than 20 years, from 2015, with the rise of Jiangling Motors, SAIC Maxus and other brands, Jinbei car sales are not as good as before, so in December 2017 with the French Renault cooperation to establish a joint venture company - Renault Brilliance Jinbei Automobile Co., Ltd. Among them, Brilliance accounts for 51% of the shares, and Renault accounts for 49% of the shares.
However, the combined products have not improved, and the research and development and promotion speed of the Renault Brilliance Gold Cup is too slow, with sales of 43,000 Renault Brilliance Gold Cup in 2018, down nearly 30% year-on-year; sales in 2019 were 40,200 units, down 6.5% year-on-year; and sales in 2020 were about 23,000 units, down another 42.8% year-on-year.
In December 2021, according to the employees of Renault Brilliance Golden Cup, the company held a meeting on December 20 to announce that from now on, the payment of wages will be suspended, and various insurance and provident funds will be suspended (only medical insurance). Not only that, the Renault Brilliance Gold Cup is currently involved in a total of 730 legal proceedings, involving an amount of up to 152 million yuan; a total of 102 times listed as an executor, the total amount of execution is 140 million yuan.
On January 4 this year, Jinbei Automobile issued an announcement that the company supplied some auto parts products to Renault Brilliance, and due to the supply chain relationship, the company had related receivables, inventory, molds and fixed assets. In addition to the impairment factors of fixed assets, renault Brilliance bankruptcy reorganization is expected to affect the company's attributable profit in 2021 by 48 million yuan.
When the self-defeating Brilliance Gold Cup meets the unreliable Renault, its ending direction is not surprising, but I did not expect it to end so quickly.
Write at the end
Different from the brands that have fallen in the tide of new forces in recent years, many of the car companies that faded out of our sight in 2021 are still familiar names for consumers for many years. If you want to use a word to describe them, it will probably be "hard to return", and the bad habits and ills accumulated over a long period of time are difficult to correct. They all use the lessons of their own fate to sound the alarm bell for marginal car companies, the big waves and sand, the survival of the fittest, which is an eternal natural law.
(Photo/Text/Photo: Yang Jiazhen, Pacific Auto Network)