As Aichi Motors gradually moves towards shutdown, employees, car owners, suppliers, dealers, and investors all suffer huge losses, and ultimately can only digest them separately.

　　The latest news has come from Aichi Motors, which is trapped in the vortex of "unpaid shutdown".

　　On May 18th, Aichi Motors issued a notice to employees working from home stating that: firstly, the company is working hard to solve the issue of social security and provident fund payment in April, and will notify them separately after clarification; Secondly, in order to ensure that there will be no interruption of social security and provident fund for newly hired employees in May and beyond, a self funded payment channel for social security and provident fund has been opened. The agreed employee's labor contract has been changed to Shanghai Yiwei Home Company, and it is required to make the payment to the relevant account before May 25th. Employees who disagree need to wait for the company's financial situation to ease before making up the payment.

　　After two consecutive months of unpaid wages, even the social security and housing fund cannot be paid anymore, which undoubtedly confirms that the financial situation of Aichi Automobile is further deteriorating.

　　In addition, the app of this new car making force is currently unable to display properly, and it has been exposed that it has defaulted on payments to suppliers and agent dealers. Behind this series of abnormal phenomena is the challenge faced by Aichi Automobile.

　　Aichi Automobile, once a strong military force, is considered the most reliable new force in car manufacturing. It has not only attracted star shareholders such as Tencent and Ningde Times to invest, but also founder Fu Qiang and a group of executives have glorious records in the automotive industry. However, in the end, they have come to the brink of a precarious fate.

　　Undoubtedly, the automobile industry in 2023 is going through a brutal "elimination race". Before that, Skyline and the self touring family are gradually disappearing. Later, Weima is dying, and Hengchi Automobile has stopped production. Especially, with the decline of new energy policy dividends and the transformation of traditional automobile enterprises from defense to attack, the Lebensraum of new forces is constantly being squeezed, and the survival war has come to a critical juncture.

　　However, some new forces have left in a gloomy manner, while others have entered with ambition and enthusiasm. However, in the second half of the knockout stage, the competition will only become increasingly fierce, and only a few will laugh until the end.

　　01. Who is suffering losses?

　　On April 10th, the Human Resources Department of Aichi Automobile released a notice on the delayed payment of wages in March, exposing its shortage of funds in the spotlight. Faced with public opinion, Aichi Automobile responded to the media that the salary was delayed and the company's operations were normal.

　　On May 6th, Aichi Motors issued an email informing employees that the Yangpu headquarters will begin temporary maintenance and repair of system lines from 17:00 on May 6th, and requesting headquarters employees to temporarily implement home work from now on.

　　However, according to employees of Aichi Automobile, working from home is a last resort because Aichi Automobile has suspended operations and has been in arrears with over a million yuan in rent, property fees, water and electricity bills due to a shortage of funds. Due to power outages, headquarters employees have to leave the office to work from home.

　　On May 10th, the Human Resources Department of Aichi Automobile issued a notice of delayed salary payment for April; On the 18th, a week later, Aichi Automobile released a message asking employees to advance social security and provident fund at their own expense.

　　Undoubtedly, the employees were the first to be injured when Aichi Automobile encountered operational difficulties. At present, multiple employees of Aichi have gone to social media platforms to defend their rights, with the most concentrated appeal being the desire to get their rightful salary back. In addition, some netizens have revealed that the issue of unpaid wages on the job has been uniformly handed over to the Labor Bureau for handling.

　　Employee rights protection and salary seeking also means that the company's operations are in a state of suspension.

　　At present, the Aichi Automotive APP is unable to log in to the account normally, and multiple sections of content have been cleared. Multiple services such as maintenance service packages, vehicle lifetime warranty benefits, and charging guns are no longer available for normal use. According to the owner's feedback, the car is currently unable to use the APP program.

　　In addition, the supplier also suffered significant injuries. According to media reports, since the end of last year, Aichi Motors has suspended payment to suppliers. Some suppliers have pulled down banners in the Aichi office building to recover their debts, while others have anonymously stated that they won the arbitration but could not receive the payment. They will only pay after the application is enforced.

　　The situation at the dealership is not much better. According to a dealer who told the media, the repair and test drive rebates promised by the Aichi manufacturer, totaling 500000 yuan, have not yet been credited, and none of the cars have been sold this year.

　　According to internal employees of Aichi Automobile, a core executive confirmed that "Aichi's bankruptcy is almost a matter of certainty", and now there is only one official announcement left.

　　At this point, the situation has escalated, causing significant losses to employees, car owners, suppliers, dealers, and investors. Once Aichi Motors turns around with no hope, this loss can only be absorbed separately.

　　02. Why did you take this step?

　　As an early new power player, Aichi Motors shares similarities with Weima.

　　Firstly, it had strong financing capabilities in the early stages. Aichi Automobile has received a total of 9 rounds of financing exceeding 10 billion yuan, including investors such as Tencent, Ningde Times, and Didi Chuxing.

　　The second is to build a self built factory to focus on production. In July 2019, Aichi Automobile acquired 50% equity of Jiangling Holdings for 1.747 billion yuan and obtained production qualifications. In December of the same year, Aichi's first mass-produced car U5 was launched. Founder Fu Qiang stated at a press conference that marketing is not Aichi's strongest strength, but car manufacturing.

　　However, shortly after the delivery of the U5, it caught up with the epidemic, and Aichi Automobile shifted its focus to expanding into the European market.

　　Many industry insiders believe that Aichi Automobile's strategy is quite clever. On the one hand, it avoids the pressure of domestic new energy vehicle "internal competition", and on the other hand, the U5 is already benchmarking with European car companies, making it easier to open up foreign markets.

　　On a technical level, Aichi Motors did not choose pure electric or hybrid modes, but instead invested 2 billion yuan in a methanol hydrogen fuel cell project and opened a factory, hoping to further enhance Aichi Motors' product competitiveness.

　　However, the cost of new technology feedback to the product end was that the U5 was priced at 197900 to 292100 yuan after being subsidized, which was difficult to impress consumers.

　　Although Aichi Motors has stated that it has completed its sales layout in 155 overseas locations in 20 countries, sales data shows that Aichi Motors officially exported from May 2020 to November 30, 2022, with only 5984 vehicles sold in approximately two and a half years; On the contrary, the domestic market sales are better: since delivery in 2020, the total sales have been 8527 vehicles.

　　The initial heavy asset investment and dismal sales have made Aichi's "bleeding" increasingly serious.

　　Data shows that as of March 31, 2019, Aichi Automobile's total liabilities were 2.407 billion yuan, with an asset liability ratio of 97.5%. Since 2020, Aichi Automobile has been repeatedly exposed to default on employee salaries and supplier payments, which has been difficult to sustain until now.

　　On the one hand, the sluggish sales have led to a less optimistic financing situation. Aichi Motors had planned to list on the US stock market through reverse borrowing, but the failure only exacerbated the subsequent financial crisis.

　　On the other hand, the insufficient strength of U5 products also makes it unable to compete with BYD, Nezha Motors, and others that have already laid out their presence in overseas markets.

　　The turbulence in the management of Aichi Automobile in 2022 brought a fatal blow.

　　In January 2022, Aichi Motors, which urgently needed "help", received a financing of hundreds of millions of dollars from its old shareholder Chen Xuanlin, who began to take over Aichi Motors. However, it is also due to Chen Xuanlin's personal reasons that new investors are no longer easily entering.

　　Zhejiang Zhongtong Holdings Group, which is actually controlled by Chen Xuanlin, has also ceased operations, and its 19 luxury and joint venture 4S stores have all been closed.

　　03. 'Cold air' is spreading

　　The current survival dilemma of Aichi Automobile is just a microcosm of the new forces. According to statistics from AC Motors, nearly 30 new forces have been "disappearing" in the past four years.

　　From the perspective of the new forces absent from this year's Shanghai Auto Show, including Weima Motors, Evergrande Motors, Tianji Motors, Jiangnan Motors, and Aichi Motors, most of them have encountered financial problems.

　　Weima Motors has been in a difficult situation since. AC Motors has described in detail in the article "Weima Becomes a" Dangerous Horse ", losing 100000 yuan on a single unit, and franchisees taking brand authorization is like gambling?" However, recent information shows that Weima Motors has been frozen for 12.3 million yuan, and all Haikou 4S stores have closed, making maintenance and repair difficult for over 2000 car owners.

　　At the end of March, Tianji Automobile disclosed a "Tianji Automobile Suspension Notice" document, stating that some positions in the company will be suspended from production starting from April 1, 2023.

　　Evergrande Motors disclosed in its April announcement that due to insufficient funds, the Tianjin factory has temporarily suspended the production of the Hengchi 5. The next day, Evergrande Motors announced that it would use "China Evergrande plans to acquire Evergrande Motors related projects for 2 yuan and acquire approximately 24.8 billion in debt" to overcome the difficulties. In May, Evergrande Motors spun off its real estate business and will concentrate resources on betting on Evergrande Motors.

　　In early May, Reading Motors filed for bankruptcy reorganization. Prior to this, Li Guoxin, the founder of Reading Automobile, reported in real name that Reading Automobile was forced to falsely report its industrial and sales output value of 4.683 billion yuan. Afterwards, the Redding car dealer revealed that they had defaulted on the payment, and there were also media reports that Li Guoxin had moved overseas.

　　In addition, in April, the official app of Ziyoujia Automobile announced the cessation of service, and the official website of NIUTRON did not display "Unable to find server". The official Weibo account has also been reset to zero. In December last year, Ziyoujia Automobile announced that the new car could not be delivered and gave a refund to the scheduled customer. It can be said that the new car collapsed on the road to building without being delivered.

　　Of course, the huge dividends of new energy vehicles still attract entrants.

　　In February of this year, Junyao Group announced the joint construction of vehicles through its subsidiary Jixiang Airlines and Yundu Automobile; In March, Huolala responded to the car manufacturing project in its Hong Kong prospectus, and as early as 2021, Huolala had already launched a car manufacturing project to recruit talents in the field of new energy trucks.

　　However, since 2023, the price war in the automotive industry has become increasingly fierce, and some new forces are biting their teeth to sell cars at a loss and also want to win the opportunity to stay on the table.

　　Xiaopeng Automobile CEO He Xiaopeng once bluntly stated that the annual sales scale of 3 million vehicles will only be a ticket for car companies; Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth Motors, also stated that there may only be a window period of about 2 years for new forces in car manufacturing.

　　For latecomers, the lessons left by the new forces of exit can certainly help them avoid detours, but the more fiercely competitive market also requires them to have the strength to gnaw down hard bones. In this knockout match, it will take time to verify who can stay, but I believe it is not far off.