After the completion of bankruptcy and restructuring, when Zotye Automobile will realize the restart of business has always attracted the attention of the industry. After more than a year of silence, Zotye Automobile returned to the public eye with a New Year poster. Zotye TS5! What was once a life-saving straw for Zotye has now become the hope of a reversal.
Back on January 31, the Year of the Tiger, the public account of Zotye Automobile, which has been broken for 14 months, released a New Year's celebration poster with a red background and a tiger pattern, as well as a rear image of a car named "TS5". Thus triggering market speculation that Zotye Automobile is not far from the day of its official return.
At the same time, the poster also has a protagonist is a new car, this car is before the bankruptcy reorganization, known as the last straw of Zotye Automobile, from "National V" to "National VI" emission standards after the Zotye TS5, the car was frequently exposed at that time. Due to bankruptcy and reorganization, the Zotye TS5 project has been shelved.
Thinking back to that year, Zhongtai was also a prominent figure with the "leather ruler department", and the folk joke was called "Baoshitai". However, after the automotive industry entered a period of stock competition, Zotye Automobile itself lacked hard power, and the financial situation began to decline due to a decline in sales. According to the sales data of the Association, in 2019, the total sales volume of Zotye Automobile was only 116,600 units, a sharp decline of nearly 50% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the mother for the whole year was a loss of 6 billion to 9 billion yuan.
Due to the lack of liquidity, the comprehensive overdue of interest-bearing liabilities, the suspension of production and operation, and many other negative entanglements, *ST Zotye and its 8 subsidiaries fell into a debt crisis. In October 2020, *ST Zhongtai was ruled by a court to reorganize. On November 30, 2021, the court ruled to approve the reorganization plan of Zotye Automobile, and on December 28, 2021, the court confirmed that the reorganization plan of the seven companies had been executed.
After the completion of the reorganization, Jiangsu Shenzhen Commercial became the largest shareholder and controlling shareholder of *ST Zotye, and the actual controller was officially changed to Huang Jihong. Before *ST Zotye was "pocketed", Su Shenzhen Shang gained control of the huge group in the same way, can *ST Zotye return to the track?
According to *ST Zotye's restructuring plan, in the traditional business, Zotye Automobile will gradually adjust its brand strategy for Zotye, Junma and other brands, and concentrate resources to boost sales by merging homogeneous models, optimizing product sequences, optimizing cost structure and reorganizing dealer networks. At present, the Zotye TS5 may be the first model to restart production.
Zotye TS5 is the first model of the Zotye 3.0 era, the appearance of the leather ruler to choose the design department, began to take the original design style. The exterior design was designed by designer Anthony Williams-Kenny, who was the director of the design department of SAIC Technical Center and the royal designer of MG.
Judging from the previous design exposure drawings, Zotye TS5 adopts a penetrating front face, chrome-plated decoration runs through the two split light groups, and the middle network adopts a layered treatment, and adds chrome decorative shapes with high recognition and a strong overall sense of hierarchy. The tail design has changed from before, the letter mark has been changed to "Z" mark, and the through tail light design has not changed.
The Zotye TS5 is 4586/1840/1618mm in length, width and height, and has a wheelbase of 2700mm. The interior adopts a layered center console design, but it is now the era of large screens, and it is believed that new cars will also be redesigned.
As we all know, Zotye Automobile once had no car to sell because it did not have a National VI engine reserve. At that time, Zotye TS5 exposed two different models, namely the 1.5T low-power engine of Ruizhan (Tongling) Technology TNN4A15T and the Mitsubishi 1.5T high-power engine of model 4A95TD, both of which met the National VI standard, and the maximum horsepower of the two was 156 and 190 horses respectively, and the gearbox matching was expected to be 6MT and 8AT gearbox.
After a gap of more than two years, Zotye returned to the car track, chose the original model TS5 as the entry point, and showed its attitude, saying goodbye to the cottage style and taking the original road. However, how attractive a model designed two or three years ago is for today's consumers remains to be tested. In addition, at present, the Zotye automobile dealer channel has not yet recovered, and the sales volume will not be too optimistic in the short term.
It is worth mentioning that Ford China recently said that it recognized that the joint venture between Ford China and Zotye Automobiles had terminated the agreement. At that time, it was planned to establish a Sino-foreign joint venture self-brand pure electric passenger car manufacturer with a design annual production capacity of 300,000 units, of which the first phase was 100,000 units, and it was expected to be officially put into operation in September 2021.