As early as Last January, the new car-making force Weima Automobile submitted an application for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, but until now there has been no following, and the sales list of new forces has long disappeared from the figure of Weima. Perhaps there is a reason for the decline in sales of WM, on Weibo, the "lock electric door" incident of the WM EX5 model continues to ferment, and angry car owners directly condemn WM CEO Shen Hui under the tweet, but WM has still not responded positively.
People familiar with the new forces of car manufacturing may know that WM Motors is the earliest car company to devote itself to the car-making movement. In 2020, the cumulative sales volume of WM Motors reached 22,495 units, ranking fourth among the new forces, and the top three Weilai, Ideal Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile were 43,728, 32,624 and 27,041 respectively. It can be seen that at that time, WM's sales did not lose to the first echelon at all. But now, Nezha Automobile and Gaohe Automobile have turned out to be born, and WM Motors has not only disappeared in the sales ranking, but even in terms of publicity, WM seems to have fallen into a state of "voicelessness".
In July last year, Shen Hui, the head of WM, said, "Smart electric cars are like playing football, and now the 15 minutes from the start of the first half have not been played, and it is not known who wins and who loses." Weima may not be the one who walks the fastest, but it must be the one who walks most steadily. However, as far as the current surging public opinion on the Internet is concerned, Shen Hui's remarks are self-defeating.
Since January this year, many WM EX5 owners have begun to post complaints on platforms such as Autohome that the vehicle has dropped significantly after the battery BMS upgrade, from the previous full power of 350 kilometers to 260 kilometers. At present, WM only said that this is a phenomenon of individual car owners, which is an accidental event. However, the "Car Express" article said that at present, more than 100 Weima car owners jointly complained that there are huge hidden dangers in the battery of Weima car, and WM side reduces the risk of battery thunderstorms by locking electricity to reduce endurance. The owner demanded that WM be able to disclose the details of the product defect, publicly apologize and recall the battery.
Sina Weibo users (Mi Zhou is not surnamed Mi) jointly complained about WM with more than 600 car owners and issued an "ultimatum" to Shen Hui, chairman of WM. Indeed, since December last year, there have been three spontaneous combustion incidents in a month, and the owner said that WM should not underestimate the confidence of the owner to protect his rights, and they have prepared comprehensive evidence and vowed to let WM on the 315 stage.
Of course, for most car owners, due to the trivialities of daily work and life, they chose to "pour bitter water" directly on Shen Hui's Weibo. Some car owners even bluntly said that "WM has an endurance of 200 kilometers in the summer and only 100 kilometers in the winter", this data is too difficult for this Expert from Volvo?
After being complained about, WM's operation made consumers "run wild", in order to cover up the scandal of locking electricity, it violated the regulations of the Quality Supervision Bureau, through the silent upgrade of remote OTA, in the middle of the night batch change or delete the user's car and machine data, creating the illusion of unlocking, but the actual endurance did not improve. At the same time, the charging power is greatly reduced, and the charging time is about 3 times that of its advertised. Perhaps WM feels that most consumers have no engineering background, which is why it is so brazen to cover up its defects through OTA upgrades, but in the face of increasing complaints, WM must face up to the response to return to the track of sales growth.
Until now, WM has still not released the latest sales data for January this year, and its IPO plan has also been criticized by the CSRC for insufficient technology content of enterprises, and the proportion of R& D investment is too low. In this way, WM Motors does not take into account consumers, if WM still continues to ignore consumer demands, then it is obviously impossible to obtain a high valuation in the capital market.