AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/20 Report--

On August 19th, ST Zhongtai announced that it signed a cooperation agreement with the people's Government of Bishan District, Chongqing, and the two sides will build a deep cooperative relationship in the field of intelligent network connection new energy vehicle project development and construction. According to the agreement, ST Zhongtai will establish an intelligent network joint new energy vehicle R & D and production base project in Bishan, and transform and build an annual production base of 100000 new energy vehicles.

According to the announcement, ST Zhongtai and its wholly-owned subsidiary Hunan Jiangnan Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiangnan Automobile"), the government of Bishan District signed the "Intelligent Network Union New Energy vehicle R & D and production Base Project Cooperation Agreement" on August 19th. It is understood that ST Zhongtai leased the original Chongqing Zhongtai Automobile Industry Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chongqing Zhongtai") production line and carried out technical transformation to build an annual production base of 100000 new energy vehicles. Bishan District government fully cooperated with ST Zhongtai to resume production and introduce new models, and gave corresponding support in accordance with the law within the scope of power and responsibility, while subsidizing the actual rent generated two years before the company rented the original Chongqing Zhongtai related assets. In the follow-up, the local government will give the company a certain subsidy according to the sales of the models produced by ST Zhongtai and the newly imported models.

It is worth mentioning that Chongqing Zhongtai mentioned in the announcement is not a company or affiliated unit of ST Zhongtai. Data show that Chongqing Zhongtai Automobile Industry Co., Ltd. was established in 2015, is the core supplier of one of the branches of Yongkang Zhongtai, and Yongkang Zhongtai is a wholly owned subsidiary of Zhongtai Automobile. It is understood that the Chongqing Zhongtai Factory is the production base set up by Zhongtai Automobile in Chongqing Bishan High-tech Zone in 2015. The project is undertaken by Chongqing Zhongtai Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., with a total investment of 4 billion yuan. After completion, it is expected to form a whole vehicle manufacturing industry chain with an annual output value of 50 billion yuan, including Zhongtai T300 and Zhongtai T300EV models.

ST Zhongtai said that the move is to implement the company's plan to resume work and production, which will contribute to the company's research and development and technology accumulation in intelligent network-connected new energy vehicles. In the early stage of the project, the company will only transform the original Chongqing Zhongtai production line, which will not have a significant impact on the financial situation and operating results of the company this year.

Zhongtai Motors has indeed left a very special stroke in the history of the development of Chinese automobiles. With its superb copying ability, it became famous after launching a number of models in 2016, such as the T600 sports version, SR9, New Damai X5 and so on. In particular, after SR9 went public, it pushed Zhongtai Motor to the best part. It sold a total of 333100 vehicles that year, an increase of 50% compared with the same period last year, which is the peak sales since its inception.

There was a joke in the market that a young man liked Porsche, but his income was not high, so he bought a Zhongtai SR9 for 100, 000 yuan and replaced it with a Porsche. Who would have thought, unexpectedly attracted a large number of girls to take the initiative to chat up, found 17 girlfriends in two months.

It is this "Baoshi Tai" development concept that caters well to the majority of consumers whose consumption power can not catch up with consumer demand, and makes Zhongtai Motors very popular. However, success is also Zhongtai, defeat is also Zhongtai. Zhongtai Motors, which became popular because of imitation, was destined not to go very far. Later, due to the outbreak of product problems, word-of-mouth declined, and sales began to plummet. After a decline in 2017, sales fell to 154800 in 2018 and only 116600 in 2019. After entering 2020, Zhongtai Automobile production and operation business almost stagnated, many of its subsidiaries and parent companies were liquidated.

After entering 2021, due to the company's liquidity drying up, bankruptcy restructuring, vehicle production and operation basically stagnated. According to the financial report, Zhongtai achieved an operating income of 825 million yuan in 2021, with a net loss of 706 million yuan belonging to shareholders of listed companies, and a net loss of 2.109 billion yuan after deducting non-recurrent gains and losses. According to the semi-annual report, the operating income in the first half of 2022 was 298 million yuan, with a net loss of 277 million yuan. By the end of June 2022, the net assets belonging to the shareholders of listed companies were 3.165 billion yuan, compared with 3.442 billion yuan at the end of 2021.

Although Zhongtai Automobile has the foundation of automobile manufacturing, its imitation and copycat genes have been proved to be no longer adapted to the current industrial environment in which independent brands achieve upward development through scientific and technological innovation. In the field of new energy vehicles, both software and hardware have developed by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and Zhongtai has left a lot of homework. Therefore, Zhongtai Motor has no chance of winning at all. What is more cruel is that the automobile is an industry with a highly concentrated competitive pattern, the head brand will take away most of the market, and the back-row enterprises may not even be able to drink soup in the end, and the basic law of the automobile industry will not change, that is, scale. in the end, the number of global automobile industry enterprises will not be too many, only large-scale enterprises can survive, and Zhongtai is destined to have little hope.

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