Recently, I talked to my colleagues about "what kind of car you can buy for the least amount of money". Suddenly a colleague proposed the brand of Zhidou, I thought for a moment to express surprise, Zhidou this brand seems to have "disappeared" in recent years, this once beautiful brand where did it go?
A few years ago, with the introduction of the national subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, the spring of the micro-electric vehicle market ushered in, and for a while such models sprung up in an endless stream, according to incomplete statistics, the micro-electric vehicle models on sale have exceeded 40 to 50 models. However, with the "refund" of new energy vehicle subsidies, Zhidou Automobile fell into a crisis in 2019, first with a sharp decline in sales, and then to a storm of unpaid wages, and finally came to the situation of bankruptcy and reorganization on October 28, 2019.
Even in the bankruptcy reorganization stage, Zhidou is also facing ups and downs. According to the announcement, during the implementation of the reorganization plan, the reorganization plan of Zhidou Automobile could not be implemented because the original restructuring investor, Nanjing Zhidou, failed to pay the reorganization investment in full as agreed and had no intention of continuing to perform.
Although the market has not given Zhidou a long time, it also has a momentary highlight moment. In 2017, Zhidou's cumulative sales reached 42,500 vehicles, and so far the cumulative sales of more than 100,000 vehicles, from the sales ranking at that time, it can be seen that Zhidou D2 won the championship with 4471 units of sales, far exceeding BYD's e5 model. It can be said that the emergence of Zhidou D2 has changed many consumers' concept of cars.
Looking back at the history of Zhidou, it has been 4 years since I unconsciously.
I thought that Zhidou would be buried by the long sea of history, but the ending was always unexpected. Recently, Zhidou Automobile, which has been silent for many years, has a new trend, and a real estate company has reached out to help and "helped Zhidou up".
Who is the person who "lifted up" Zhidou?
According to the announcement, on March 2, 2022, *ST Yinyi signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the manager of Zhidou Automobile. In order to accelerate the company's strategic deployment in the field of new energy vehicle manufacturing, enhance the company's core competitiveness and sustainable development capabilities, the company intends to invest no more than 400 million yuan to participate in the restructuring of Zhidou Automobile and the change of the reorganization plan, obtain the actual control and independent operation right of Zhidou Automobile, and will pay the intention of 40 million yuan within 3 working days after the signing of the memorandum.
As the "white knight" of Zhidou Automobile, what kind of enterprise is *ST Yinyi? According to the data, *ST Yinyi is mainly engaged in high-end manufacturing and real estate industry, of which high-end manufacturing industry is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of automotive automatic transmissions, automotive airbag gas generators and electrified powertrain systems.
It is understood that *ST Yinyi's Belgian Bunge Company and Stellantis Group have established two joint ventures in 2019 and 2020, which have targeted the development and production of hybrid assemblies of new energy models. From this point of view, *ST Yinyi, under the support of relevant experience, obtained the complete completion of the new energy vehicle production line and professional equipment of Zhidou, which is still quite beneficial for future development.
Why Choose ZhiDou?
It can be seen that in recent years, due to the decline of subsidies, there are many new energy vehicle companies that have fallen, not only Zhidou, so why should *ST Yinyi choose Zhidou?
First of all, let's first look at a social phenomenon, according to the current road situation in Chinese cities, generally facing a series of problems such as road congestion, high cost of cars, lack of parking spaces, etc. A convenient, practical, and cost-effective pure electric car is very in line with the travel needs of many user groups. According to the data of the Inter-Passenger Transport Association, in 2021, the cumulative sales of micro-electric vehicles will reach 890,000 units, accounting for a quarter of the cumulative sales of new energy passenger cars in China, of which 9 of the top 15 positions in the list of new energy passenger car sales are micro pure electric vehicle models.
Not only that, according to the current "car to the countryside" policy of various provinces and cities, the overall structure of new energy vehicles has also changed after going to the countryside, which is more in line with the actual needs of farmers and rural areas. In this way, micro-electric vehicles will have greater opportunities, which shows that the future market situation of micro-electric vehicles will be very good, perhaps it is these benefits that have prompted Yinyi to choose to "lift up" Zhidou Automobile, but however, the road to rewinding is not so easy.
A comeback is not so simple
According to the data, Zhidou was founded in 2006, which is one of the earliest enterprises in China to enter the field of new energy vehicles, and Zhidou accounted for 6% of the market share of domestic new energy vehicles and 20% of the market share of small electric vehicles at that time. As the earliest micro pure electric vehicle, Zhidou only produced Zhidou D1, Zhidou D2, Zhidou D2S these three small and exquisite models, and are two-seat version, the model is relatively single, not as clear as the positioning of Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, a large part of which is used for rental sharing.
It can be said that in addition to the brand awareness of today's Zhidou Automobile, the technology, operating conditions, and funds are lacking. Although Zhidou has a complete complete new energy vehicle production line and professional equipment, but after the suspension of production, Zhidou has no core technology, and if you want to start again, you need to rearrange in some technologies, production lines, and suppliers, and the funds for restart are not a small test for Yinyi.
Speaking of funds, it is worth mentioning here that in fact, the situation of Yinyi shares itself is not optimistic. According to the data, in 2019, Due to continuous debt defaults and the performance of auto parts manufacturing related companies, Yinyi is expected to lose 1.9 billion yuan to 2.3 billion yuan in 2021, and the loss will expand by 74.71%-111.5% year-on-year.
We put aside our financial concerns and return to the product. It can be seen that nowadays, the competition in the micro-electric vehicle market has become more and more obvious, and there are many strong opponents in the micro-electric vehicle market, such as Chery QQ Ice Cream and Hongguang MINIEV, both of which are very competitive in terms of price and product strength, if Zhidou is re-launched, I am afraid that the former products will be "difficult to climb the elegant hall", want to please consumers, or create a distinctive product.
summary
Nowadays, under the background of the rapid development of China's new energy vehicle market, Yinyi has chosen to "wake up" Zhidou. In the future, how Yinyi grasps this "old ticket" and knows where to go, we will wait and see.