Written by Yang Guang
Editor|Yu Jie
Produced by|Automobile Sankei
Shen Hui, who just celebrated his 53rd birthday a month ago, may be going through the most difficult period of his career.
From the frequent spontaneous combustion of vehicles to being exposed to forcibly locking electricity, and now deep in financial crisis, all employees have reduced salaries, WM Motor, which was once comparable to Wei Xiaoli, is in a deep quagmire.
Even though Apollo is about to complete the Hong Kong stock listing through backdoor Apollo, Shen Hui still borrows the phrase "live like an animal" from the movie "Furong Town" to express his sense of powerlessness.
Recently, some WM car owners said that their WM.ai APP function has been invalid for more than two weeks, although the official customer service gave an explanation for the server failure, but according to the automobile industry experience, the reason behind it is because WM failed to pay the telecom operator on time and was forcibly disconnected.
At the same time, some people posted an internal notice on social media that all WM employees are about to leave without pay.
In fact, at the end of last year, Shen Hui confessed for the first time in a letter to all employees of the company that WM was suffering from a shortage of funds and his life was hanging by a thread, and in order to cope with financial pressure, WM announced a series of cost-reduction measures, including M4 and above managers taking the initiative to reduce salary, 50% basic salary, other employees to pay 70% basic salary, cancel bonuses such as year-end bonuses, suspend the issuance of car purchase subsidies, etc.
In an insider's view, it is understandable that the company has encountered difficulties and made some adjustments to throttle, but some directions are incomprehensible.
"For example, arrears of telecom operator fees, so many car owners cannot use the App is simply a mysterious operation, without the support of these old car owners, how can there be today."
On Weibo, many car owners also expressed their disappointment with WM.
A consumer who has just mentioned W6 for less than half a year said that it has been almost a month since he logged in to the APP to prompt the server abnormality, and the sales were pushed to the manufacturer, the manufacturer's customer service phone could not be reached, and the manual information was not replied.
"The people's money is not blown by the wind, I really hope that someone can take care of it."
WM W6 was launched in 2021, this car was hailed by WM as "the first domestic mass-produced model with unmanned function intelligent electric model", the official price is 16.98-259,800 yuan, but in the following nearly two years, WM has no new models launched, and the M7, which has previously been unveiled, has also been exposed to be postponed indefinitely due to financial problems.
Some insiders close to WM believe that the departure of Du Ligang, a veteran of the company and former CFO, is the trigger for WM's recent turmoil, and a senior executive who subsequently took over the business does not understand the automotive industry at all, and many decisions appear quite amateur and impersonal.
Founded in 2015, WM is the first brand among the new domestic automakers to achieve mass production and delivery, ranking second only to NIO in 2019, but its sales have deteriorated in recent years, with less than 30,000 new cars sold last year.
At the beginning of January this year, WM announced that the price of all models was raised, with increases ranging from 15,000 to 25,000 yuan.
WM Motor said frankly in the announcement that "surviving" has become the consensus of the industry, and "profit" has become the goal pursued by the company.
Although the car companies that increased prices at the beginning of the year are not WM alone, the paralysis in after-sales has made countless car owners feel cold.
According to media reports, nearly half of WM's showrooms in Shanghai have closed, only one repair shop in Beijing is still open, and WM's factory in Wenzhou has also been exposed to be in a state of shutdown due to no orders.
A car owner in Zhejiang complained that his car had been parked in the 4S shop for almost three months because there were no spare parts, and said that he regretted buying WM.
Of course, WM is not all bad news.
In January this year, Apollo Mobility said that it had completed a strategic merger and acquisition with WM, and according to the plan, WM will most likely complete the listing on Hong Kong stocks in the second or third quarter of this year.
Subsequently, WM also disclosed three recent financings with a cumulative total of about 2.01 billion yuan, which will also serve as an effective supplement to WM's cash flow before listing.
In the comment area of Shen Hui's latest Weibo, some people sent him warm birthday wishes, and some people scolded WM's inaction. Like people drinking water, they know themselves warmth and cold.
Today, the success of the backdoor listing has been regarded as the "life and death barrier" for WM in 2023. If you succeed, the game continues, lose, and maybe out.