Editor's introduction: Hechuang Automobile, which was once optimistic, is now gradually fading out of people's sight, and its dismal sales and frequent explosions of a large number of employees have left the prospects of the new car-making forces within the GAC.
The departed employee was exposed to law and discipline
A few days ago, some employees of Hechuang Automobile broke the news to the media, breaking the news that some employees posted news in the work group that they had unilaterally terminated their labor contracts and were forced to leave their jobs.
The departing employee said that after he joined the company, he continued to be suppressed and difficult by the person in charge of the sales center of Hechuang Automobile, and on the last day of the probationary period, the human resources department of Hechuang Automobile fabricated reasons to refuse its regularization. At the same time, it declared that although the number of employees of Hechuang Automobile exceeded 800 people, the number of regular employees was only more than 100, and "a large number of outstanding employees were forced to leave, resulting in the often interruption of The related business of Hechuang Automobile due to the departure of relevant personnel, and the business development was affected."
At the same time, the departing employee broke the news that after the new sales team of Hechuang Automobile settled in, the sales volume of the main sales model 007 fell off a cliff, with a monthly loss of up to tens of millions of yuan, and the operating performance was inconsistent with the salary income, and it was said that the annual salary of the executives of Hechuang Automobile reached the highest of 10 million yuan.
The employee said that he appealed the relevant illegal acts of Hechuang Automobile to the company's management and work-related leaders through internal channels, but has not received any response so far.
The employee finally stated that he had collected various evidence of Hechuang Automobile's violations of laws and regulations, and then defended his rights through arbitration, prosecution, and reporting to the competent discipline inspection commission.
In this regard, Hechuang Automobile told CRRC that Hechuang Automobile always regards employees as valuable assets, always strictly follows relevant national laws and regulations and policies, and protects the legitimate rights and interests of employees.
And said that the whistleblower's description of "more than 800 employees in the enterprise, but more than 100 people turned into regular" is different from the real situation of the enterprise. At the same time, Hechuang Automobile said that Hechuang Automobile has perfect rules and process systems in the selection and recruitment of employees, and Hechuang Automobile strictly follows the relevant national laws and regulations, policies, as well as the enterprise charter and personnel management system, and said that there is a clear assessment and regularization mechanism within the enterprise to ensure fair and just treatment of every employee's labor.
CRRC contacted the departing employee and told CRRC that the incident is currently being handled, but the details are inconvenient to disclose.
Lack of feature sales of the main model are sluggish
It is understood that the main model of Hechuang Automobile, Hechuang 007, which was previously on sale, was listed in April 2020, positioning a pure electric medium-sized SUV with a price range of 262,600-400,000 yuan. From the data point of view, the overall sales of Hechuang 007 is not outstanding, and since this year, the cumulative sales of Hechuang 007 have been 321 vehicles.
Auto analyst Zhang Xiang told CRRC, "There are many reasons for the sluggish sales of Hechuang 007, first of all, there is not enough investment in marketing, there are few experience stores, and the sales network is small. Secondly, Hechuang 007 does not have distinct technical characteristics and core technology, Hechuang's car itself borrows the platform of GAC Aeon, and in terms of operation and driving experience, there is no difference with GAC's car, and there is no obvious advantage compared with the same level of car. ”
"In the absence of attention to many problems in the early stage, the best period of market development was missed, and after the models of new forces such as Ideal and Xiaopeng came out, they completely lost their competitiveness." "Hechuang 007 is not innovative in technology, brand awareness is not high, the previous sales network is also small, the core market indicators are not up to standard, and ultimately lead to sluggish sales," Zhang Xiang said.
On the issue of how to increase follow-up sales, Hechuang Automobile told CRRC that the company's sales and market investment will be formulated according to the development strategy of the entire enterprise. At present, in addition to doing a good job in the sales service of the first model Hechuang 007, it will focus more on the sales and marketing of the newly listed model Hechuang Z03. At the same time, he said that as of now, Hechuang has built 107 offline experience stores across the country, and it is expected that by the end of this year, more than 150 Hechuang experience centers will be built in 87 cities.
Not long ago, Hechuang Automobile's second model, the Hechuang Z03, was launched on October 18, positioned in a compact SUV, with a price range of 132,800-168,800 yuan.
At present, in the compact electric SUV market, Tesla, Ideal, Weilai and other powerful opponents have not explored this segment, although the competition is equally fierce, but the pressure is much smaller than the medium-sized SUV market where Hechuang 007 is located. In this range, Hechuang Z03 is roughly at the same price as BYD Song PLUS New Energy and GAC Aion Y, the former selling the top of the market segment in September, and the latter has risen in sales since its listing and has ranked fifth in the segment.
Regarding the competition faced by Hechuang Z03, Zhang Xiang once again said, "The selling point of Hechuang Z03 is that it claims that the cruising range reaches 800 kilometers, and the highest level of pure electric power in China is more than 700 kilometers of Xiaopeng P7. At the same time, the shape design of the hatchback has certain characteristics, the Tesla-style digital cockpit design is relatively simple, and the dimmable canopy design is also more eye-catching; on the whole, it is compared with the Xiaopeng P5, and the disadvantage is that there is no lidar, the characteristics of automatic driving are not obvious, but the comprehensive price comparison is higher, and it has a certain competitiveness in the compact pure electric SUV market. ”
Not long ago, Yang Ying, CEO of Hechuang Automobile, revealed that the new car has received 30,000+ orders. Auto analyst Zhong Shi told CRRC, "For a new face, into the fiercely competitive range, whether it can make a breakthrough depends on the brand's past situation, if there is no past brand accumulation and sales guarantee, all aspects will lead to new faces to come in very difficult." The order volume is not enough to become the selling point of the publicity, and it needs to be converted into the actual wholesale volume, retail volume, and the number of brands to be more convincing. ”
Hechuang Automobile told CRRC that the orders will be delivered one after another, and the follow-up product sales data can be queried in the data released by the Passenger Car Market Information Association.
Future products and businesses may be difficult to grow
Hechuang Automobile, formerly known as GAC NIO, was founded in April 2018; in May 2019, the first concept car was released, and in December of the same year, Hechuang 007 was unveiled; in April 2020, on the occasion of the second anniversary of the establishment of GAC NIO, Hechuang 007 was officially listed; in May 2021, GAC NIO officially changed its name to Hechuang Auto.
From the establishment of the company to the listing of the first car, Hechuang Automobile has advanced very quickly, but in contrast, the performance of Hechuang Automobile's products is sluggish, and it is frequently complained about by public opinion at the marketing level.
Since the establishment of Hechuang Automobile, there have been marketing storms such as "due to battery fire, the whole vehicle will be fully compensated", "announced the acceptance of bitcoin payment for car purchase", and finally ended in an apology; after the new shareholders entered the game, it set off new waves such as "new car Z03 blind booking" and "Evergrande Automobile Door Recruitment", which once again triggered public opinion questions.
Shen Meng, executive director of Chanson Capital, told CRRC, "From the perspective of various previous actions, this company has not been interested in product research and development and innovation, and has been manipulating some marketing topics, so it is difficult to have a foundation for future product or business growth." ”
However, Hechuang Automobile revealed to CRRC that after introducing a new strategic investment shareholder, Pearl River Investment Management Group, Hechuang Automobile continued to iteratively evolve on the new track of intelligent networked new energy vehicles, and made all-round efforts in products and channels to accelerate its progress. He also said that in the next five years, Hechuang Automobile will gradually launch a variety of models in accordance with the rhythm of no less than one model per year, which will bring more and richer product information at the Guangzhou Auto Show.