But the ideal is full and the reality is skinny. Since the official release of 20 17 in September, the answer sheet written by Baiteng Automobile in less than three years is not satisfactory. Behind this answer sheet, there are many negatives about this brand.
On the evening of June 29th, Dai Lei, CEO of Baiteng Automobile, organized a temporary staff meeting, which was attended by more than 800 current and former employees of Baiteng Automobile. At the meeting, Dai Lei announced the company's decision to suspend business operations in China (excluding Hongkong) from July 1 2020. Most employees in China will stay in their posts, and only a few employees will stay in their posts to maintain the most basic functions of the company.
Among them, there are less than 100 employees (China District), and production and R&D account for 50%. In North America and Barton Germany, bankruptcy applications have been initiated according to local laws, leaving 65,438+00 people respectively.
For employees waiting for their posts, the downtime is expected to be 6 months. The company will pay the salary of the employees to be employed in March 2020 before July 10. Employees who choose to resign voluntarily will be paid off in one lump sum before July 2020 10.
As a car-making team that burns money like running water, the establishment of a new power brand is always inseparable from the presence of various capitals, and the willingness to invest these capitals naturally stems from the confidence that this brand brings to the outside world.
The founding team of Baiteng Automobile was not led by capitalists like Wei Lai and Tucki. Instead, Bi Fukang, a world-famous electric vehicle expert who has worked in BMW for 20 years, led the i8 project of BMW electric sports car, which was called "the father of i8" by the industry.
And served as the general manager of Dongfeng Ying finidi? General Manager of Dongfeng Ying finidi Automobile Co., Ltd. and Senior Vice President of Marketing of BMW Brilliance. Dai Lei, the current CEO of Batten, has rich experience in marketing, sales, brand management, business development and enterprise operation.
Technical experts+marketing experts, plus the core management team, including many top experts from China, Europe and the United States who have held important positions in BMW, Tesla, Google and Apple. The combination of this combination also made Baiteng gain a lot of attention at the beginning of listing, and the result of the heat transformation is the confidence of the market.
20 16, 16 In February, Baiteng was jointly invested by Harmony Automobile, Lihe Automobile and Jinheng Investment. In August of the following year, Baiteng Automobile was invested in Series A by Suning, Shengfeng Holdings and Nanjing State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, totaling 240 million US dollars.
On June 1 1, 2065438, Baiteng Automobile announced the completion of the B round of financing, with a total financing amount of 500 million US dollars. The investors are FAW Group, Tiqi Holdings, Contemporary Ampere Technology Co., Ltd. and Jiangsu Belt and Road Investment Fund, of which FAW Group invested 265 million US dollars.
According to public information, since its establishment, Baiteng Automobile has carried out four rounds of financing, with a total amount of about 8.4 billion yuan. And all this came to an abrupt end with the explosion of the shutdown.
It is reported that the Shanghai office of Baiteng Automobile was rented in April, and the Beijing office was rented in June 17. Now Baten has been in arrears with employees' wages for four months. Moreover, it is still "in arrears" with FAW Li Xia's debt of 3 1 100 million yuan, and Nanqi Factory recently stopped working because of the arrears of water and electricity charges.
In addition, in two sets of financial programs on June 28th, Baiteng was also pointedly pointed out that "burning 8.4 billion can't make a mass production car."
Different from the traditional "PPT brand", Baiteng did put it into action on this road. 2065438+September 8, 2007, Baiteng Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industrial Park was officially started in Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jiangsu Province, with a planned area of 1200 mu, a total investment of 1 107 billion RMB, and a planned total production capacity of 300,000 units.
2065438+September 2008, FAW Li Xia transferred 0/00% equity of its wholly-owned subsidiary FAW Huali/KLOC-0 to Nanjing Zhixing Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd., the parent company of Baiteng Automobile, and Baiteng Automobile obtained the qualification for automobile production.
On October 7th, 2065438+0865438+/kloc-0, Baden officially released its first concept car, BYTON, in Las Vegas. Concept, April, BYTON? The concept made its first public appearance in China. In August of that year, Baiteng opened the car purchase intention payment channel of the "Baiteng Chuangzhi Pioneer Limited Edition" model in a limited time, and officially accepted the reservation.
At the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, 20 19, Batten officially released its first mass-produced model M-Byte, and in June 1 1 announced that its starting price in Europe was 45,000 euros. However, since then, the news about Baiteng M-Byte has gradually disappeared, followed by news about the shutdown.
As for Batten M-Byte, a 8.4 billion-yuan vehicle, what impressed us most was the 48-inch large shared full screen, including the driver's touch screen, the co-pilot touch screen, the BYTON gesture sensor, the driving monitoring system and other equipment. It can be said that the scientific sense of the entire cockpit has been upgraded to a higher level.
In addition, as a pure electric medium-sized SUV, Batten M-Byte has a super-long wheelbase of 2950mm, a single-motor rear-drive version of 200 kW (272 HP) and a front-rear dual-motor four-wheel drive version of 300 kW (408 HP). NEDC's cruising range is 430 kilometers and 550 kilometers.
In April this year, the prototype of Batten M-Byte has been put out of production line, and is undergoing durability and collision tests. It is planned to go on the market in the middle of this year. However, this M-byte with a wild imagination finally entered the cold palace with the shutdown of Baiteng.
As early as 20 16, Li Bin, chairman of Weilai, once famously said, "Don't build a car without 20 billion yuan". This seemingly exaggerated statement has great practical significance.
Judging from several new car-making forces that already have real cars, Weilai raised nearly 40 billion RMB, Weimar raised nearly 23 billion RMB, Tucki exceeded 654.38+06 billion RMB, and the ideal also exceeded 654.38+065.438+00 billion RMB.
On the other hand, 8.4 billion yuan is not a small amount, but it is only a drop in the bucket for bottomless industries.
There are actually many straws that overwhelm Bai Teng. For example, FAW Li Xia transferred 0/00% equity of its wholly-owned subsidiary FAW Huali 1 yuan to Nanjing Star Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd., the parent company of Baiteng Automobile. At this point, Baiteng has also obtained the qualification for automobile production access.
However, behind the acquisition of 1 yuan, Huali's debt of 850 million yuan and employees' salaries are included, which also means that Baiteng is responsible for paying off all debts of FAW Huali, which is equivalent to the qualification of buying a car of 850 million yuan. But up to now, Baiteng still owes 3 1 100 million to FAW Li Xia, which has become a big burden in the absence of profit sources.
If "burning money" itself is the essence of this industry, then "financing" has become the way to survive in this industry. For example, in April, Weilai's China headquarters settled in Hefei and received an investment of 7 billion yuan; Li will also receive a $550 million Series D financing led by Meituan.
On the other hand, after receiving millions of dollars of investment from Marubeni Corporation of Japan at the end of last year, there is no new investment. The C-round financing originally started in June 20 18, with an amount of 500 million US dollars, was stranded due to the epidemic, which also led to the break of Baiteng's capital chain and became the biggest factor for Baiteng to stop production.
For Daley, as a marketing manager, he knows the importance of capital in this game, so he is either looking for money or on his way. Different from Dongfeng Ying finidi and BMW Brilliance, the lack of financing in the C round now makes Baiteng, who is short of funds, seem to be wearing a pair of anklets, which restricts the pace of action.
In addition, investors who have participated in Baiteng investment research and had in-depth contact with Baiteng also have the following comments on Baiteng:
"The system is incomplete, the responsibilities are unclear, the system is unclear, the management level is chaotic, the management is loose, the internal friction is low, and there is no clear responsibility and accountability system for people. Ideally, it is difficult to form an ideal joint force, and the warm workplace is indifferent and hypocritical. The consumption habits of multinational companies are not well managed by multinational companies. They don't understand each other horizontally, the key issues are vague and mysterious, and they lack strong capital support and endorsement. They seem lofty but they are eager for money at the expense of the early stage.
Although there is no way to consider the real situation, under the interwoven influence of internal management, epidemic situation, financing delay and debt-ridden, Baiteng Automobile failed to get away with it in this round of cold winter. Whether the status quo can be changed depends on when the stagnant C round of financing can be implemented.
From this year's epidemic, we have seen the misery of all sentient beings. For example, Renault announced that it would lay off 654.38+0.46 million people worldwide in the next three years. Nissan has officially withdrawn from the Indonesian market and gradually withdrawn from the Korean market; By 2025, Honda will reduce its global models to the current1/3; Volkswagen Group closed more than 10 European factories and 2 North American factories.
What's more, it is a traditional car company with a big family, and it is a new force without the accumulation of original wealth. The actual situation is the same. From June to May this year, the domestic production and sales of new energy vehicles were 295,000 and 289,000 respectively, down by 39.7% and 38.7% respectively.
For Geely New Energy, GAC New Energy and BAIC New Energy, this is still within the tolerable range, but for the new forces making cars, this blow can even be buried by history.
At present, there are nearly 40 new car-making forces in China, but according to the sales data in May this year, only eight new car-making forces such as Weilai, Ideality and Tucki have new car sales. This year, there are only more than 20 new brands with sales data, and most of them have even disappeared.
From the perspective of specific brands, the future car has been in arrears with wages, and employees have organized a number of "salary-seeking groups". Chairman Lu Qun has also been listed as a high-consumption person by the court;
Bojun Automobile, which was established four years ago, announced on June 15 this year that it failed to build a car and will sell a number of core technologies such as in-vehicle platforms.
Faraday's long-term funding problem in the future, although its FF9 1 model has appeared, it can't be mass-produced, and its founder Jia Yueting has gone bankrupt and reorganized, and no longer owns FF shares.
Lindsay cars are now in name only. Wang Xiaolin, the chairman of the board of directors, is suspected of false technology investment and embezzlement of huge state-owned assets. Suspected of committing a crime, he has been investigated by the public security organs according to law. The company is also in a state of complete paralysis, with the management collectively resigning and employees taking action to safeguard their rights.
In a word, the new force of building a car itself does not rely on selling cars to maintain its operation, but on selling "potential" to let investors join in one after another. In the depressed environment, investors' confidence in the market has gradually shrunk and investment has become more cautious. Only a few car companies, such as Li and Weilai Automobile, have obtained financing, which makes many new car-making forces fall into a dead end like Baiteng.
These hidden negatives reflect not only the plight of Baiteng, but the normality of the brand of new power in this car-making industry with extremely high investment and extremely slow return on capital. Now that the tide has receded, car companies with products can rely on the current models to attract investors to stay, while car companies whose products have not yet been born are likely to be stillborn.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.