"Hudson Acquisition l Corp. will merge with Aiways Europe to provide electric vehicles for the European market."
"iAuto, an automotive investment consulting platform, has signed a strategic investment worth US$1 billion with Human Horizons, the parent company of Hi-Hop Automobile."
……
After March, May has become the "Resurrection Month of Dying Car Brands". In March, Zhidou Automobile was reorganized by Geely, Emma Technology and GSR Venture Capital; Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. officially became a wholly-owned shareholder of Southeast Motor; Haima New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. was entrusted to Zhengzhou Airlines for 5 years.
There are also rumors that Tianji Automobile, whose equity was frozen in January, has not completely given up the idea of "looking for money" and "wants to struggle more". Even WM Motor, which is regarded as a "long-dead" company, is still in a state of bankruptcy and reorganization, and according to the "self-help" formulation, it is not ruled out that it will try to be resurrected.
"These car companies are still pulling and struggling," an industry insider commented, "some of them are considered residual resource utilization, which can be understood." In fact, some of them have no future, they are not dead or alive, they are all hanging for the sake of local interests. ”
The manufacturing attribute of automobiles still follows the principle of "resource concentration, scale expansion, and cost dilution" in the underlying logic. In reality, the demand of the automobile market is diversified, which provides a foundation for the diversification of car companies and brands, but too scattered resources are always not conducive to industrial progress.
Compared with the "dead car companies" that have been truly reorganized and digested and absorbed, those brands that have forcibly survived are more like old people on the hospital bed, who are forced to continue their lives by their children just for their pensions, "just for a little money".
Perhaps, the "hanging" funds to chase the wages and compensation of employees is the last remaining "with a little human touch" value of some "undead" car companies.
Greet the white knight
At the beginning of the year, due to the layoff crisis, Gaohe Automobile, which was regarded as the "first explosion of the year", ushered in the identity of the white knight finally surfaced, neither Changan Automobile, which has been rumored for a long time and hopes to borrow the Gaohe brand and channels to strengthen the high-end brand of AVATAR, nor FAW, which was accused of reorganizing Byton and trying to win Gaohe, but an auto investment consulting platform iAuto from the United States.
The Auto Commune has sorted out several key points of information.
How much does iAuto invest? According to the notice, Human Horizons, the parent company of Hi-Hop Automobile, signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement with iAuto, and iAuto plans to invest up to US$1 billion as the first round of special funds for the restructuring of Human Horizons.
What are the direct objectives and business continuation forms of iAuto's investment in Gaohe? iAuto said it will fully support Hi-Hop's plan to resume business operations and vehicle production, that is, to maintain Hi-Ho's original operating model rather than being absorbed by the new brand.
When will the funds arrive? The parties plan to publish financial results for the first half of 2024.
Subsequently, the announcement of "Gaohe Automobile Preparatory Working Group during the Restructuring Period" was released, and its 001 number indicated the identity of the first official internal announcement this year, outlining the division of labor between the two working groups for the reorganization.
The first is to set up a "restructuring working group", which consists of four groups, namely the shareholder affairs group, the government affairs group, the supplier affairs group, and the employee affairs group;
The second is to set up a joint operation working group, which is responsible for the company's daily decision-making and operation, and consists of seven teams, namely product planning group, project & design & engineering group, production and supply chain group, marketing team, finance team, legal team, human resources and comprehensive functional group.
Each group has a list of leaders. "Judging from the specific list, Wei Yanqin and others are more familiar with the management of Gaohe, and their rank is higher than Yang Yueqing (project director) who brought goods in the previous live broadcast, and several pinyin names are likely to be the representatives of shareholders in Asia, especially because the cooperation was signed in Hong Kong." People familiar with the matter said.
"Is this true or false?"
"Just give the money."
"Is it in September that you will have the first money?"
…… After the news came out, the Gaohe employee rights protection group, which had been silent for more than a month, exploded again.
However, the employees in the rights protection group who are more aware of the situation, as well as some people who know the inside situation, give a not optimistic evaluation.
Human Horizons is not small. Founded in September 2017, the company is an innovative high-tech company focusing on the future of intelligent transportation, with a strategy centered on smart cars, smart transportation and smart cities, and later launched the vehicle brand Gaohe.
In the early days, Human Horizons/Hi-He's intelligent strategy was closely related to vehicle-road coordination, and even delayed the R&D investment in intelligent bicycles. "After all, the founder, Ding Lei, used to be the deputy mayor of Pudong New Area, and the government has good resources, and his thinking is also linked to his work experience in SAIC-GM and Pudong District, and he is optimistic about participating in the vehicle-road coordination of urban infrastructure," observers attribute.
To describe it from Human Horizons' own information: since its establishment more than six years ago, Human Horizons has invested more than 15 billion yuan, formed 1 high-end brand, 2 production bases, 3 major models, 4 R&D centers and 150+ sales and service outlets across the country, with a total of 4,500 employees as of February 18, 2024.
"Our employees' wages should be several small goals," said the employee rights group, in addition to arrears of employees' wages, Gaohe was previously revealed to have defaulted on payments to suppliers, resulting in the stagnation of projects such as entry cars.
"The U.S. side has sanctioned China's electric vehicles, and some manufacturers have begun to use their brains to play a bridge between China and the United States in electric vehicle trade," the person said, "Jia Yueting's recent statement is this idea, and iAuto also has this idea." ”
It's just that after all, it is no less difficult to build a bridge between the chasm than to ascend to the sky, and the fundamental motivation for putting forward the goal is to attract attention and circle money, or to do a career sincerely, only time is left to answer.
Aiways picked up the opportunity of rebirth and gave up the Chinese market
If Gaohe's resurrection plan is hidden in the United States, then Aiways is very clearly aimed at Europe, and may even give up the Chinese market.
According to the identities of the two signatories of the resurrection plan, one is Hudson Acquisition l Corp., a SPAC company listed on the NASDAQ in the United States, and the other is Aiways Automobile Europe GmbH, a European company. Why did Hudson not choose Aiways' headquarters in China for its acquisition of Company I, but its European operations?
It is clear that the acquirer's goal is to supply electric vehicles for the European market.
"The new entity will have a new strategic positioning to capitalise on our reins and resources in the European EV market." Alexander Klose, Managing Director of Aiways Europe, announced in a statement.
A source familiar with Aiways' near-term plans said that Aiways will be headquartered in Europe and will be responsible for sales, marketing and finance, while manufacturing, procurement and R&D will be mainly carried out in China. It is reported that the merger transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
"Overseas sales are greater than domestic sales" is the long-term performance of Aiways.
On the one hand, it is because there are indeed some opportunities for exporting overseas, and the degree of involution competition among new domestic car-making forces is too high, and it is difficult for weak brands to increase the volume. On the other hand, from Fu Qiang, Gu Feng and other long-term managers of Aiways, to Chen Zhixin, the former president of SAIC Group, who once controlled Aiways, they are actually all "SAIC" automobile, and their overseas resources determine that it is relatively easy to achieve early results.
"A few years ago, Aiways got hundreds of large orders in Europe at every turn, and it was these resources that drove it." Relevant sources said.
Previously, Aiways' U5 and U6 models have achieved certain sales results and presence in the European market, and the ready-made products and operating framework provide the necessary conditions for recovery. However, in the summer of 2023, the Shangrao factory of Aiways will stop production, and then the Shanghai company will be filed for bankruptcy review, and Aiways will be listed as a dishonest person subject to execution.
"Since the beginning of 2024, there have been rumors of Aiways looking for money and resumption of production everywhere," in fact, this kind of rumor is easy to recall at present, "but Aiways is silent." ”
Nowadays, the domestic volume is not moving overseas, this route was unbelievable a few years ago, and now with the "new energy lane change overtaking success, China's electric vehicles surpass the overseas level" is more and more accepted, "overseas is the way out" has become a consensus.
Aiways, which is about to "disappear" in China, may directly abandon the Chinese market and turn its attention overseas.
Compared with the suppression of Chinese electric vehicles by the United States and Europe, although ALL-IN overseas will avoid the shackles of some "imported cars", it also means that there is no way back from now on.
It should be said that from Gaohe and Aiways, to Zhidou, Southeast and Zotye, the logic of their respective resurrections can be theoretically established. The southeast is the reorganized production capacity of advantageous car companies; Zhidou can be rebuilt as a pure electric micro-car brand by Geely after the failure of Global Eagle and Zhidou that year; Aiways clearly points to a new path of "sailing overseas", and Gaohe also vaguely reveals a similar attempt.
However, how much capacity does Chery's growth potential need to be replenished to integrate the southeast?
How many seats do domestic pure electric micro-car brands and products need to be added in addition to Wuling Hongguang MINI, Changan Glutinous Corn, etc.?
Now with the intensification of internal competition, it seems that overseas can take a breath, but how to avoid political risks such as European and American suppression? BYD and other companies have accelerated their exports, how long can these weak car companies avoid competition overseas?
These problems must be thought of by the car companies concerned, but they may not be able to solve them, just for the sake of capital and interests, they have to choose a direction, and then run wildly, even if blindfolded.
"Damn it or will die"
The automobile industry has a history of 100 years, if you refer to the development trend of overseas automobile powers, as well as the development process of China's fuel vehicle enterprises, it is easy to find that the number of enterprises and brands has a less-more-less process.
The early twentieth century saw a major development of American automobiles, including early electric car companies (which largely disappeared after 1940) and gasoline car brands, which at its peak numbered in the hundreds. Later, giants such as General Motors and Ford Motor began to annex and expand. Nowadays, we see that GM has brands such as Chevrolet and Buick, which were originally independent car companies, and GM was incorporated into it through share swaps or mergers.
Li Shufu in the East and the late Marchionne in the West have faced dozens of fuel vehicle companies and issued a prediction that "there will only be three or five in the future". So among the new car companies that are one level higher in number, how many will die? A capital company closely related to the new car-making force gave a judgment: 99%.
Zhu Yan, managing partner of NIO Capital, once said in an interview with the media that hundreds of startups in China are betting on the electric vehicle revolution, but because new technology research and development requires a lot of investment, only 1% will survive in the end. "Starting from scratch to building a car is a very complex system that requires abundant capital investment and a large number of personnel," Zhu said, "so the survival rate of new energy vehicle companies will be very low." ”
Since the birth of the automobile, it has always been the representative of the standard capital-intensive, technology-intensive and labor-intensive industries. Even though we are currently facing changes unseen in a century, the three major changes of intelligence, networking, and new energy, as well as the imminent new four modernizations, are destined to subvert the original industrial outlook, and even change the basic rules of the game to some extent. However, this still does not change the fact that this industry needs a large amount of continuous capital investment and strong technology research and development capabilities to support.
Whether it is electrification/new energy, or intelligent networking/autonomous driving, it is extremely expensive, and the R&D cost is much higher than that of technology projects in the era of fuel vehicles. Volkswagen, for example, spent more than 50 billion euros on the MEB platform, and the cost of building the corresponding infrastructure is staggering.
At this time, it is more necessary for the industry to concentrate resources, rather than fighting separately and duplicating construction. Even giants may form alliances and cooperation to improve synergies and share high R&D and construction costs. A few hundred very weak small enterprises are far less advantageous than a few strong large enterprises, even if the latter few large enterprises are merged by the previous small enterprises, they will produce a qualitative leap in the process of "centralized convergence".
However, it was precisely the previous wave of "big work and fast development" that led to the extremely scattered resources of new energy vehicles.
According to the statistics of the China Circulation Association, the number of new energy vehicle projects planned to be built from 2015 to the end of June 2017 exceeded 200, and the related investment amount exceeded RMB trillion. If the new energy vehicle production capacity targets disclosed by each automaker are summarized, it is almost close to the current domestic sales of fuel vehicles - more than 20 million units, about 10 times the national target for new energy vehicle sales in 2020.
According to the statistics of CCID Research Institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the total domestic production capacity of new energy vehicles in 2020 has reached 26.69 million, while the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles that year are only about 1.367 million, the capacity utilization rate is only about 5.1%, and the idle production capacity exceeds 25 million.
Manufacturing is inseparable from scale, and profitability is inseparable from operational efficiency. As we all know, the production capacity of automobiles needs to reach 80% to ensure profitability, and only a few companies such as Tesla and Ideal have achieved net profit among the new forces, and most of the other new forces only have gross profit margins, and net profits have not turned positive. The top car companies are so difficult, so what about the weak new forces?
Under the premise of a certain degree of difficulty, the cruelty of the knockout round and the enthusiasm of the participants are basically positively correlated, and the frenzy of domestic new energy vehicle projects is doomed to the end.
Gaohe and Aiways are still struggling on the road to resurrection, and it is unknown how far they can go. But after the fable of "one in a hundred", there is a bloody road of thorns.
After all, only after the purge cleanses the flood will China's new energy industry take on a new look. At that time, whether it is the praise of "corner overtaking" or the confidence of Chinese cars to stand in the forest of the world, it will usher in unprecedented strong support.