mighty wave crashing on a sandy shore. In the long journey of new energy, it is far from enough to have a love for cars.

　　The employees have been in arrears for 2 months, and some suppliers have stopped supplying goods due to arrears in payment. Even the few Party B who provide advertising and public relations services have begun to take a cautious attitude towards new cooperation projects.

　　Like all the "new forces" facing difficulties in the winter of last year and this spring, there is nothing new in the beginning of the story of Skycar this spring. Because the information from multiple internal channels shows that the enterprise has been in deep trouble and the future outcome can almost be doomed.

　　As in all previous cases, the manifestation of all problems began with "lack of money".

　　Autobots' obsession

　　In fact, this is not the first time that Skyline Motors has issued a warning because of the financial problem. As early as two years ago, in the middle of May 2020, there was a media report: it was learned that the "capital chain of Skycar was tight".

　　At that time, the source claimed that since the middle of 2019, Skyline Auto has defaulted more than 30 million yuan on various expenses of several advertising and public relations companies, including some of the leading companies in domestic related fields.

　　The main reason for the "bad" reputation of Tianji Automobile in the supplier's side is the slow payment collection. For this reason, as early as the beginning of 2019, some service providers have chosen to terminate the contract in succession. The later fermentation of this problem even affected Skyline's participation in the Beijing Auto Show that year.

　　However, in October 2020, new financing will be in place. With the support of "local government industry guidance fund and large banks", Skyline announced that it had achieved its financing goal of 5 billion yuan.

　　"After the layoff, one person was very tired with the work of three people. (So) I came back from work every day and just wanted to sleep after washing."

　　At that time, an internal employee of Skyline told the media. However, tired and tired, the temporary crisis has passed.

　　Of course, the problem of money still exists. It was soon discovered that Skyline and its suppliers were still fighting a lawsuit to collect arrears. Isn't this the only way to finance? Where has the money gone?

　　Cover factory

　　By the middle of 2022, Skyline has planned a total of 3 production bases in China. They are located in Quanzhou, Fujian, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and Changsha, Hunan.

　　The Shaoxing base was put into use in 2019 and was initially used to produce the Sky ME7 pure electric medium SUV.

　　According to the official description of Skyline, this factory is manufactured in strict accordance with the technological standard of "German luxury brand". At the same time, according to the industrial 4.0 standard, it has introduced domestic top production equipment such as skid-free intelligent coating workshop. The planned annual capacity of Phase I is 60000 vehicles.

　　At the end of December 2019, the first Skyline ME7 was launched in Shaoxing base.

　　The latest factory of Skyline is located in Changsha, Hunan. The construction of the factory was started in the second half of 2019, because the epidemic related report of the reporter of the Xiangjiang Morning Post on April 14, 2020 was well known.

　　During the first wave of epidemic in China, Changsha reporters used drone to take aerial photos of the factory site during the interview

　　The Changsha project covers a total area of 500 mu, with a total construction area of about 135000 square meters and a total investment of 5.1 billion yuan. It will be put into use in June 2021. The plant area includes welding workshop, coating workshop, general assembly workshop, etc., which can be called complete facilities.

　　Counterfeit cars, real money/compensation fraud, are familiar topics in the new energy automobile industry in the past decade. But anyone who has a little knowledge of Skycar will find that although there are many problems in this enterprise, it is fundamentally different from those "PPT companies".

　　They are not only building cars, but also building their own production base from the very beginning, without considering the shortcut of OEM production. Even the initial development of Weixiaoli has proved that it is reliable and can significantly reduce risks.

　　When the product has not been recognized by the market, it is the product of the thinking of the last era to ensure the production capacity.

　　Zhang Hailiang, who has worked for SAIC for more than 20 years and served as the director and general manager of Shanghai Volkswagen and vice president of SAIC Group, is the most standard and professional head of an automobile enterprise. He not only has a bachelor's degree in automotive engineering, but also has the title of senior engineer.

　　After leaving SAIC, he joined LeEco Super Auto as the global CEO. Since October 2017, he has served as the chairman of Tianji Automobile. No matter his education or resume, he is the most typical "old auto man".

　　The technology and products are quite persistent, and the automobile enterprises must lay a solid foundation for production and manufacturing, and have a very strong idea. After the chairman of Tianji Automobile, he reflected that after the initial completion of product development, he invested a lot of energy and capital to promote the construction of production base.

　　In addition to Zhang Hailiang, chairman of the board, Niu Shengfu, CTO of Tianji Automobile, is also an "old auto man" who has worked for Shanghai Volkswagen for more than 20 years. Its product research and development and quality can be described as painstaking efforts, and its supplier screening is strictly controlled.

　　It is precisely because of the above characteristics of the enterprise leaders that the R&D teams of Skyline Auto are mostly from traditional main engine manufacturers and parts companies such as Volkswagen, General Motors, Delphi, Bosch, and Continental. It is almost the story of a fuel team building new energy vehicles.

　　This is also why this enterprise has repeatedly encountered difficulties on the issue of money. Lei Jun wants to build his own production base for Xiaomi cars from the very beginning, so he has prepared more than ten billion yuan on his books. But what about Skyline? Only 5 billion yuan has been collected, and the stall is still as large.

　　Elegy of the old age

　　Up to now, only ME5 and ME7 new-energy SUVs have been actually mass produced by Skyline.

　　ME7 is a medium-sized pure electric SUV. Its overall characteristics are relatively mediocre, its endurance and other performance are not outstanding, and it does not have those very attractive features or functions. However, its selling price reached 2388-269800 yuan, which is really not low.

　　Skyline ME7

　　This car first appeared at the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of 2018. It was pre-sale at the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2019 and officially launched in September 2020. By the end of 2020, the cumulative sales volume of this model was even less than 100.

　　"At present, the biggest problem of Skycar is its brand power." In 2021, when Chongqing media visited the Starlight Times Square store of Skycar at 28 Jiangnan Avenue, Nan'an District, the long-suppressed sales consultant could not help confessing.

　　"Product power" has always been the biggest problem of Skyline. Even, most of the time, it is not even enough to talk about the level of product power - because those who know about Skyline Auto are almost as thin as water chestnut when they go outside the auto industry. Many people know this name for the first time, even because they accidentally found its store while shopping, and then went in for a walk.

　　so what? Of course, there is no "then".

　　At that time, there was only one ME7 car in the store, and the price after subsidy was between 2388 and 269800 yuan. No matter two years ago or now, this price is not cheap. The price of its high-end model is only 10900 yuan lower than the starting price of the domestic Tesla Model Y.

　　If users are not obsessed with SUV models, whether Tesla's Model 3 or Xiaopeng's P7, there are some products with more competitive prices and higher popularity.

　　Ranked first in story-telling ability of today's car company boss

　　Starting from "storytelling", to continue the popularity of PUSH brand and products, and to help enterprises through the long cycle from official announcement to car building, product announcement to new car launch, is the common choice of almost all the new forces that are still successful at present.

　　During this period, through continuous PUSH and event marketing again and again, a batch of iron powder was absorbed and transformed, and the brand power was continuously improved under the promotion of these spontaneous communicators. After the delivery of the real car, as long as the product can basically fulfill the initial commitment and the quality is acceptable, the new force can naturally complete a positive cycle.

　　Tesla goes without saying. Looking at Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, all of these new forces have been successful so far, and none of them is based on this way. However, it is difficult for us to find any bright spots from its announcement during the whole process of the listing of the company.

　　Everything is like that kind of state-owned enterprise advertisement ten years ago, and it can hardly make C-end customers look at you

　　In terms of the verbal skills and storytelling ability of making hot spots, this guy actually ranks among the top three "auto companies"

　　Many of the old car owners despise or even despise the product promotion and promotion. Many people still firmly believe that the so-called "Peach and Plum do not speak, but make a new product", and believe that as long as we do a good job of products, we can open the market. However, this understanding is reasonable only in the specific historical period and environment of that year.

　　Of course, the old Autobots of that generation have their fields of expertise and strengths. But what is certain is that it is not marketing. I don't know how to 2C or even 2B, and I don't understand that in this era, the "storytelling" that is essential for the new forces to start from scratch, and I don't know how to take advantage of the wave of the popularity of the Internet to root their brand image into the hearts of every target.

　　On the contrary, the experience and habit of dealing with foreign partners and government departments all the year round have made them develop a serious path dependence. Some people can't even distinguish the fundamental difference between GR and PR.

　　In fact, after realizing the problem, Skyline didn't consider making changes. ME5 with extended range mode and ME-S with B-class pure electric sedan concept car checked by Porsche 918 Spyder designer can be seen from the product level.

　　Although regretful, ME-S is destined not to be mass produced

　　However, in terms of brand image building, Skyline has not made any substantive breakthrough.

　　The consequences are extremely serious. In 2021, the total sales volume of Skyline was only 1778. Although the performance in 2022 has improved, the total sales of 5321 sets can not make any investors hope for the future of the brand.

　　Two years ago, the commune interviewed Zhang Hailiang. When asked what the label of the Skyline brand was, he thought for a moment, and then replied, "Be a popularizer of electric SUVs with more than 200000 yuan.".

　　Maybe until then, he hasn't figured out what to do... What about now?

　　However, no matter now, whether the leader has a clear direction and set a realistic tone for the product, it is too late in terms of time.

　　How many people can survive this leap?

　　In 2023, the "national subsidy" is doomed to exit. China's new energy automobile industry, as well as all relevant enterprises inside and outside the industry, must shake off the crutch of "subsidies" and immediately learn to rely on their own legs to move forward.

　　A huge battle of elimination and merger is about to begin. I just regret that Skyline may have been doomed to go further.