Cao Yuan is from the Vice-Pilot Temple
Smart Car Reference|Official Account AI4Auto
Another new car-making force has exploded.
It is still all employees who issued a letter to shareholders, exposing in detail the company's miserable operation and the management's "cheating and abduction".
The company is called Youyao Technology, the founding team has a deep background of traditional large car companies, the first car has won the first place in the sales of Chinese new energy brands in Europe, and the company has also received hundreds of millions of local investment.
However, the status quo of Youyao Technology being collectively reported by employees is:
The management is chaotic, the loan is used to support the financing, the capital chain is broken, and the capital is insolvent.
All employees reported it, and the company exploded
The current situation is released by the official WeChat account of Youyao Technology (XEV), in the name of all employees, to the shareholders.
The calm water surface was broken, and the employees used thousands of words to debunk the plight of Youyao Technology.
The company now has five major problems:
- The company's strategy is chaotic and its goals are not clear
- The sales business was developing well, but it was forced to discontinue production and sales
- The financing is not ideal, and it is suspected of falsifying sales volume to support finance
- Financial management was chaotic, and a blanket suspension of payments led to a run on suppliers
- Suspension of salaries for all employees without reason, and violent layoffs of the Shanghai company
The core of these problems comes from the management, and the letter also specifically accuses Chairman Lu Di and Chief Financial Officer He Jianghao.
Employees said that the company's management did not set clear goals and plans in line with market rules and a clear budget system (and it was "never made"), resulting in unreasonable annual sales targets and chaotic financial management.
Not only did the sales team not know the company's actual sales targets, but the company also invested in a large number of projects that continued to lose money, and the company's cash flow was close to breaking by the end of 2023.
However, instead of adjusting the strategy and solving the problem, the company's management laid off the global sales team on the grounds that "sales targets were not met", and at the same time completely stopped production and stopped paying suppliers on the grounds of "tight cash flow".
And the layoffs not only include the global sales team, in January and February this year, Youyao Technology laid off two rounds of employees throughout the company, and cut salaries at the middle level, and the wages and compensation for the laid off employees in February stopped in March.
And that's not all, in March, the company's management suddenly violently laid off the Shanghai company, which is the center of Asian operations, including the sales, operation, marketing, finance teams, and even pregnant employees, without prior communication and without any compensation.
At the same time, due to the unsatisfactory financing situation of Youyao Technology in the past two years, the financing team began to fabricate sales data in order to look good on the books, deceive shareholders and investors, and forcibly produced a large amount of inventory, short-term inventory financing but as sales revenue, and finally a repurchase run, the company could not repay its debts in time, which further deteriorated the company's cash flow.
According to the letter to shareholders, the overall external debt of Youyao Technology exceeds 300 million, but the value of existing assets is less than 100 million, and it is seriously insolvent and on the verge of bankruptcy.
And the management later focused only on how to cash out the existing inventory cars, and all operations were forced to shut down.
Youyao Technology has also faced lawsuits from a number of suppliers, and employees in Shanghai and Hefei have also begun to defend their rights in accordance with the law.
At the end of the letter to shareholders, the employee's fingerprint and signature are also attached, indicating that they believe that the shareholder has the right to know the truth, so they wrote this article.
What a big mess......
Who is Youyao Technology?
Some people may wonder, such a company has exploded such a big thunder, it seems that they have never heard of it before?
Because although Youyao Technology is a new force in China's car-making industry and was established in 2018, it has always focused on overseas markets, mainly Europe.
And the founders are all from the traditional automotive industry.
Lu Di, the founder and chairman of the board, graduated from Coventry University in the United Kingdom and worked for JAC Motors.
He helped JAC to establish and lead the JAC Italian Design Center, which was well-known in the automotive design circle at that time, especially in the Chinese automotive designer circle.
Co-founder Lu Bin, graduated from Shanghai University with a major in business administration, has worked in SAIC-GM Chevrolet, Geely, Chery, responsible for brand channel and sales, market planning, marketing, etc., with more than 15 years of experience, and has also held key positions in WM Motor.
However, before Lu Bin joined Youyao Technology, at the 2019 Italian Auto Show, Youyao Technology's first model YOYO was unveiled, and mass production was achieved the following year.
How can mass production be achieved so quickly?
As a pure electric small car, YOYO's door panels, front face and rear wing can be 3D printed, and the vehicle interior can also be printed according to user needs to achieve a high degree of customization.
Youyao Technology has said that the use of 3D printing to produce production vehicles does not need to open the mold, which can reduce the time and cost of vehicle research and development by more than 80%.
In addition, YOYO can also be swapped.
There are 3 battery packs in the battery compartment, which can be replaced separately or manually. Drive the car to the battery swap station, and there will be a service staff to help replace the battery pack, which can be replaced in 3 minutes.
Although YOYO can only seat 2 people, the longest range is only 150km, and the maximum speed is only 80km/h, which may not be enough in China.
However, the price is only 13,900-15,900 euros (about 109,000-125,000 yuan), and it also has a number of configurations that are not available in the same price range, such as frameless doors, sunroofs, and vehicle-machine interconnection, which firmly hold European consumers.
In May 2021, after YOYO was officially launched in Europe, the cumulative sales volume of that year reached 10,000 units, making it the Chinese new energy brand with the highest sales volume in Europe that year.
And now when you search for it, you can also see many overseas media or individuals expressing amazement and appreciation for YOYO, and it is even praised as "an electric car truly designed for the urban environment".
In addition, because YOYO's production base is in China, with the help of a strong domestic electric vehicle supply chain system, YOYO's comprehensive gross profit from bicycle sales can reach 30% in 2023.
Made in China, sold abroad, sales are not bad, Youyao Technology is not only considered a successful representative of China's automobile overseas case, but also in October last year, Ludi revealed in an interview that the company has been close to financial positive.
But who knew that behind the prosperity was a chaotic management and a turbulent situation in the company.
And judging from the financing situation disclosed to the outside world, it can also prove that Youyao Technology, which relies on external blood transfusion, has not had funds in its accounts for a long time.
The only two financing developments that can be found are one in 2020 and one in 2021, and neither of them disclosed the amount of financing.
In addition, Hefei Youyao, a related company of Youyao Technology, also has a local investment of 150 million yuan.
In addition, Youyao Technology has no more public investment and financing records.
There was a long way to hope for self-hematopoiesis, and it went to the end step by step.
The concept of Youyao is not innovative, but the final outcome has not escaped the test of people, money, and organizational ability, and has become another sad and lamentable case in the reshuffle cycle of the new car-making forces.
And, as a member of the "traditional car company executives entrepreneurship and car manufacturing", there is one more failure case in this camp.
Yoyao Technology Notices to Shareholders:
https://mb.vekin.kk.com/c/imsjcaveds7ips5oatic