AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/22 Report--

Baoneng, which has been repeatedly reported for unpaid wages, layoffs and shop closures in the past year, finally made a new move in 2022. On January 22nd, Baoneng unveiled two new cars at the new car product appraisal conference, one is the GX5 (code name GX16) from the new luxury smart new energy vehicle brand "BAO", and the other is the Guanzhi 6 (code C21) from Qoros.

In February 2021, Baoneng executives said in an internal email that the new high-end car brand would be launched within this year, and the first all-electric model of its counterpart Tesla and NIO would also be released and sold in 2021. In June, 2021, Baoneng Automobile Group announced that its new luxury intelligent new energy vehicle brand is called "Baoneng Automobile" in Chinese and "BAO" in English. According to the plan, the BAO brand will launch at least 16 models within five years, including SUV, sedan, MPV, sports car and other models, gradually covering the high-end electric vehicle market segment. According to Baoneng, BAO will launch two new cars in 2021, including an all-electric model and an add-on model. The first model (internal code name GX16) is a medium-sized all-electric SUV based on a large all-electric platform developed by Baoneng. The model will provide rear-drive and all-wheel drive power, with expected mileage of 700km and 800km, respectively, and the first pure electric products for Peugeot and Tesla.

However, Baoneng did not release a new car within 2021 as scheduled, while more negative news such as unpaid wages, layoffs and store closures were exposed. According to public reports, Baoneng Automobile Group began to optimize its staff at the beginning of last year, and a large-scale layoff was carried out in July 2021. The automobile sector cut about 8400 people from about 23000 a year ago. The group and its stores are "hardest hit" for layoffs. The proportion of layoffs is more than 65%, while those who remain have not received their wages and owed social security for several months. On social networks, there are many voices of Baoneng Automobile employees demanding wages. Even Baoneng's official Weibo has closed its comments, as the comments below have been related to salary demands since August last year. At the same time, on the people's Daily-leadership message board, there are also many employees claiming to be Baoneng Automobile Group denouncing unpaid wages, unpaid social security, provident fund and so on.

In addition, media visited Baoneng Automobile's manufacturing bases in Kunshan, Jiangsu, Kunming, Yunnan and Xi'an, Shaanxi, where the manufacturing bases in Kunshan, Jiangsu and Kunming, Yunnan were in a state of construction interruption. In July last year, China Finance visited the Baoneng Xi'an factory and found that the factory did not carry out production and the large workshop was empty. The reporter learned from the interior of Baoneng that the Xi'an factory originally arranged the production plan of Zengji Guanzhi 3 and Guanzhi 5, as well as the first SUV of Baoneng new energy BAO brand, but did not put into production because the funds were not in place.

At the same time as layoffs and unpaid wages are the stores that Baoneng continues to close. According to the latest news, Tianjin Dasi Dian, the earliest and most important provincial-level store established by Baoneng Automobile, has formally signed an agreement to terminate the labor contract on December 19, 2021. This has also been seen as a microcosm of Baoneng's business rout across the country.

Yao Zhenhua announced Baoneng's foray into car-building in 2016 and acquired Qoros in 2017. According to financial data, Guanzhi Motor lost 2.2 billion yuan, 2.5 billion yuan and 1.9 billion yuan respectively from 2014 to 2016. Although it lost money for years, Yao Zhenhua finally took a fancy to Yao Zhenhua. In 2017, he acquired a 51% stake in Guanzhi Motor for 6.63 billion yuan, becoming the largest shareholder. Yao Zhenhua said at the time that Baoneng would spend 10 billion yuan a year on Qoros research and development from 2018 to 2022 and is expected to launch 26 new models by 2022. Since then, however, Qoros has launched only one new car, Qoros 7.

Baoneng Holdings Guanzhi Motors also failed to realize its dream of building a car. Data show that Qoros sales rose 320 per cent year-on-year to 63179 units in 2018 after the acquisition of Qoros, when the growth came not from the end market but from Baoneng's linked cloud rental platform. Since then, Qoros sales have declined year after year, with sales of 22700 and 13100 respectively from 2019 to 2020 and only 4380 in the first half of 2021.

Relying on the car-building project, Baoneng has built domestic products in many places one after another. At present, it has production bases in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Kunming and Xixian New area, covering an area of 423mu, 3000 mu, 6300 mu and 1933 mu respectively. In terms of production capacity, the total planned capacity of Baoneng's four production bases is close to 3.3 million vehicles, but according to Baoneng's performance, it has serious overcapacity.

With the stagnant factory market, unpaid social security and provident fund, and shrinking service stores, Baoneng Automobile Group still firmly publishes luxury, smart and high-end brand models, which is admirable. Despite many difficulties, Yao Zhenhua's dream of building a car has never disappeared. Yao Zhenhua said at a symposium held in September 2021 that Baoneng has invested more than 50 billion yuan since it entered the automobile industry in 2016. the company will strive to build a global first-class new energy automobile enterprise group with strong competitiveness and international influence in 10-15 years.

With the popularity of new energy vehicles, more and more enterprises cross the border to enter this new track, not only the "lane change" of traditional car companies, but also the "cross-border" entry of Internet companies, such as Xiaomi, Baidu, Huawei and so on. Evergrande, which is also a real estate carmaker, has the same uncertain future. according to the current plot development, can Baoneng cars with luxury brands "come back from the dead"?

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