The new car contended | Xu Jiayin: No one is allowed to lie flat, and lying down must also lie on the Evergrande car

Wen/Pu Zhenyu dared to bet on one of the most important impressions left by Xu Jiayin to the outside world, he had gambled on the golden decade of real estate soaring, and then took new energy vehicles as his new gambling game.

From the perspective of the industry wind, Xu Jiayin did not gamble wrong. But the problem was that his chips were lost. Since the second half of 2021, the debt crisis of Evergrande Group has continued to ferment, and Evergrande Automobile has also entered an unprecedented "severe winter period".

Lack of money is the most true portrayal of Evergrande Automobile's "severe winter period". Since October 2021, negative news such as work suspension, suspension of pay, wage cuts, and compulsory vacations has surrounded Evergrande Automobile, and people inside have been panicked.

In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2021, Xu Jiayin sent a letter to Evergrande employees, saying earnestly, "At present, the company has encountered unprecedented huge difficulties, and all Evergrande employees have endured severe challenges that have never been..." A generation of heroes, the scenery is no more.

Looking back on November 2019, it is a completely opposite picture - the spirited Xu Jiayin set the goal of "building Evergrande New Energy Vehicle into the world's largest and strongest new energy vehicle group in 3 to 5 years" at the Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Global Strategic Partnership Summit.

Unlike cross-border car manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Baidu, Evergrande, who started its real estate business, does not grasp the core elements of the next round of automobile competition, neither electrification technology nor intelligent network technology, Evergrande Automobile is an emerging car company completely driven by funds.

Xu Jiayin understands this very well, and he even mentioned it bluntly, albeit in a very "Versailles" context. He said that for car building, we want people to have no one, no technology, we have nothing, only money, so we have to change lanes and overtake.

"Only money!" It is precisely because of this that, as in the real estate market, Xu Jia's way of printing new energy vehicles is still to open up and fight high, just as he summed up the concept of local luxury car manufacturing - "buy, buy, buy, close, circle, big, good".

According to statistics, as of March 2021, Evergrande has invested a total of 47.4 billion yuan in the new energy automobile industry, of which a large amount of funds has been invested in or acquired mature enterprises such as NEVS, Shanghai Kanai New Energy, and Koenigseg.

The thunderstorm of the parent company triggered a crisis in the car-making business, and there are always similarities in history. In 2017, when the LeTV auto project was just beginning to pick up, LeTV suddenly fell into a debt quagmire, Jia Yueting left the United States, and once hitched a ride on Xu Jiayin after 2018.

From the gold lord behind Jia Yueting's car to becoming a "difficult brother and difficult brother" similar to Jia Yueting, in just a few years, it has become a human being, and Xu Jiayin's inner feelings are unknown.

However, what is certain is that in the debt quagmire, Xu Jiayin wants to firmly grasp the life-saving straw of car building. After all, on Evergrande's huge ship full of holes, investors and employees have a way to retreat and can jump ship, but Xu Jiayin can only hold the last "bottom card" of car building, hoping that the outside world will re-believe and support him, and even help him turn against the wind.

In August 2021, Evergrande Group said it was already reaching out to several potential independent third-party investors to explore the possibility of selling some of the company's assets, including Evergrande Motors. But in the end, Xu Jiayin was still not willing to give up this license plate.

At the end of December 2021, Xu Jiayin made a statement that "no one is allowed to lie flat". But under the trillions of debts, how to "stand up"? According to Xu Jiayin's three strategic decisions proposed by Xu Jiayin to resolve risks and save itself, Evergrande will "realize the transformation from the real estate industry to the new energy automobile industry" within 10 years. This is also a rare statement about the automobile business of Xu Jiayin after Evergrande fell into a debt crisis.

Judging from the actual progress, Xu Jiayin's road to car building seems to be smoother than Jia Yueting's. On January 12, 2022, Evergrande Automobile announced that the first car of Hengchi 5 was officially rolled off the production line, 12 days earlier than originally planned, which is the first model of Evergrande Automobile to go into mass production.

The only thing that makes people sigh is that in the group photo of the new car off the line ceremony, Xu Jiayin's figure was not seen. Xu Jiayin, known as the "model car worker", has not been absent from any key occasion of Evergrande Automobile before.

At the close of the day of the off-line ceremony, Evergrande Automobile closed at HK$4.03, up 3.33%. In the past 2021, Evergrande Automobile's stock price fell by more than 80% for the whole year.

In contrast, Jia Yueting's FF development is constantly bumpy, encountering more than one ticket jump, and the progress of car manufacturing has been stagnant for a long time in the "one foot at the door" stage in Jia Yueting's mouth. Until July 2021, FF successfully landed on nasdaq through a merger with SPAC. The latest news from Faraday Future official blog is that Faraday Future FF 91 will be officially mass-produced this summer.

But what Jia Yueting is more optimistic about than Xu Jiayin is that he is moving in the direction of debt-free and light. In the United States, Jia Yueting's personal bankruptcy restructuring plan took effect in July 2020, and his personal debts in the United States were directly discharged, leaving only debts in China to be dealt with.

And Xu Jiayin, a bunch of old friends who had pulled him around the 2008 financial crisis could not help him again. Liu Luanxiong, the founder of Huaren Real Estate, who was once evergrande's second largest shareholder, sold Evergrande shares in 2021, and could only continue to support Xu Jiayin in verbal form, declaring that he was still optimistic about Evergrande's development.

Some people will judge the cross-border car building of real estate companies as unreliable based on Xu Jiayin's encounter, but this is not a conclusion that can convince everyone, at least Yao Zhenhua, the boss of Baoneng Group, will definitely jump out and oppose.

On January 22, 2022, Baoneng Automobile held a high-profile new car tasting meeting at Guangzhou Baoneng Qoros Cultural Center, and many models of bao brand and Qoros automobile were exposed for the first time.

Yao Zhenhua seems to want to tell the outside world in such a way that Baoneng Automobile is still alive and well when Xu Jiayin is in a mess.

However, car building has never been a matter of strength whoever is louder. Baoneng Automobile announced as early as 2021 that the Qoros brand would release and list 5 new cars that year, but the result was thunder and rain. I don't know if Yao Zhenhua's drama this year has improved compared with last year.

Interestingly, at the moment when Evergrande Automobile is in a deep crisis, there are still more real estate predators who choose to enter the automotive circle. However, their movements are obviously much more cautious, and their strokes are far less bold than Evergrande and Baoneng.

These cases include the participation of real estate developer Agile in WM Motor's US$152 million D2 round of financing, Jiangsu Shenzhen Commercial With real estate background participating in the restructuring plan of Zotye Automobile, and Wanda Group investing 100 million yuan to establish Wanda Automobile to enter the automobile sales business.

From this point of view, although Xu Jiayin's road to car building may not really work out in the end, he has undoubtedly provided enough vigilance and tips for latecomers.