AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)11/23 Report--

On November 23, Aichi made personnel changes to three senior management. The details are as follows: informed by the office of the board of directors and by the resolution of the shareholders' meeting and the board of directors, Chen Xuanlin was agreed to resign as chairman of the company and continue to hold the post of director. Zhang Yang was appointed chairman of the company and will no longer hold the position of CEO. Qiu Xiaochuan was appointed as CEO of the company to assist Chairman Zhang Yang in charge of the daily operation and management of the company. The above appointments will take effect from now on.

It is worth mentioning that it has been less than five months since Chen Xuanlin took over the post of chairman of Aichi Automobile from Fu Qiang. According to Tianyan investigation, on July 19, the industrial and commercial change took place in Aichi Automobile. Founder Fu Qiang stepped down as legal representative and chairman of the board, and Chen Xuanlin took over. At the same time, Wang Dongchen, Gu Feng and Wu Jing withdrew from the senior management team, adding Jin Xin and Zhang Yang.

In this personnel adjustment, Chen Xuanlin, as an investor, resigned as chairman and was replaced by Zhang Yang. Fu Qiang's position remains unchanged. It is understood that although Chen Xuanlin has been involved in the automotive field, he is not a professional. By contrast, Zhang Yang has worked deeply in the automotive industry for many years, and before joining Aichi, he served as vice president of the development of the automobile industry in Xilai. Starting from the development of Aichi Automobile, it may be more appropriate to be led by professional people.

Data show that Aichi Automobile Co., Ltd. was established in February 2017. it was once known as Jiangxi Aichi Yiwei Industrial Co., Ltd., with a registered and paid-in capital of 868 million yuan. It is one of the new car-building enterprises, but its sense of existence is far less than that of NIO, ideal, Xiaopeng and other brands, and even many Chinese have never heard of this brand. According to Tianyan check, Aichi has experienced eight rounds of financing since its establishment. According to the publicly disclosed amount of funds, the total amount of financing has reached nearly 10 billion yuan. The last round of financing can be traced back to November 3. It is rumored that Huaxia Boya will be the substantial controlling shareholder of AIWAYS Holdings.

Like Weimar, Aichi founder Fu Qiang is also a car mogul. Before founding Aichi, Fu Qiang held important positions at FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Skoda, Beijing Mercedes-Benz, etc., and the previous position was President and CEO of Volvo (China) sales Co., Ltd. is fully responsible for Volvo's sales and service activities in China. Shanghai Aichi Yiwei Technology Co., Ltd. was established in October 2016, jointly invested by Fu Qiang, Xu Chao and Tencent, of which Fu Qiang served as CEO. In January 2018, Shanghai Aichi Yiwei Technology Co., Ltd. changed its name to Aichi Automobile Co., Ltd.

After Aichi was founded, Fu Qiang was not eager to build a car, but first poached Gu Feng, who once served as CFO of SAIC, as the co-founder and CEO of Aichi. Perhaps the time is ripe, Fu Qiang began to build cars and chose to acquire the qualification of car production through acquisition. In July 2019, Aichi acquired a 50 per cent stake in Jiangling Holdings for 1.747 billion yuan to become the largest shareholder, while Jiangling and Changan Motor both diluted their holdings to 25 per cent. In contrast, ideal Motor spent 650 million yuan on Lifan and 1.18 billion yuan on Weima Motor to acquire Huanghai. At that time, Aichi's acquisition of Jiangling Holdings set a record of the highest cost for a new force in domestic car building to obtain production qualifications.

In December 2019, Aichi U5, the first volume production car, was officially put on the market. The new car was positioned as a pure electric medium-sized SUV with a price of 19.79-292100 yuan. In terms of power, Aichi U5 is equipped with a permanent magnet synchronous motor with a maximum power of 190hp, a maximum torque of 315N ·m, and a mileage of 503km under NEDC conditions.

After entering 2020, the Aichi car crisis began to appear. In May 2020, Cai Jianjun, Executive Vice President of Aichi Automobile, said in a long post on Weibo that "Aichi, who is leaving his post for more than a year, has not only disrupted the pattern of the industry, but also changed the concept of life of many people. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, I have not been with my family for three months, which makes me have to rethink the relationship between work, life, career and family." So I decided to take a personal rest for a while! " In this regard, Aichi co-founder and president Fu Qiang said that although reluctant to give up but respect his decision.

In October 2020, a PPT picture of Aichi's senior executives carrying goods and full-staff marketing plan caused a heated discussion on the Internet. The picture shows that the annual assessment of Aichi Automobile requires senior executives and employees to take goods and sell cars collectively, and employees of all levels will have the number of assessment indicators in 2020. among them, the annual index of senior executives of the members of Aichi Automobile Management Committee is 8, the annual index of L1-VP level is 5, and the annual index of L2 director is 3. It is understood that the annual assessment is linked to salary performance, and the above-mentioned senior executives will be delayed by 50% of their monthly salary before completing the annual target. If the target for the current year is completed by the end of the year, all deferred wages will be reissued and the normal monthly wage payment standard will be restored. However, in Fu Qiang's view, it is only natural that executives and employees endorse corporate products everywhere.

As mentioned earlier, Aichi has a very low sense of existence in the domestic market, and even many Chinese people have never heard of this brand. It is understood that at present, Aichi car models on sale include U5 and U6 models, of which U5 is priced at 16.69-249900 yuan and U6 is priced at 21.99-237900 yuan. The U6 concept version was released as early as March 2020, but it was not officially listed until October 23, 2022. According to the insurance figures, Aichi sold a total of 661 cars in the first 10 months of 2022, down 56.28% from the same period last year, all contributed by U5.

Because of its low sense of presence at home, Aichi mainly focuses on overseas markets. According to incomplete statistics, since the first models were exported to France in May 2020, Aichi cars have landed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden and other countries.

After a change of blood at the top, is there still a chance for Aichi cars? On January 3, Aichi received a new round of financing from Chen Xuanlin and his Dongbai Group, with a financing amount of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the official website of Aichi Automobile, founder Fu Qiang continues to serve as president of Aichi Automobile, but Chen Xuanlin takes over as chairman, and Zhang Yang, former vice president of Xilai Automobile, serves as CEO.

According to public data, Chen Xuanlin is also the legal representative of more than a dozen companies and is now the chairman of Shanghai Vientiane Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Although Chen Xuanlin has always been involved in the automobile industry, he is not a professional. He is better at investment management and operation. By contrast, Zhang Yang, who serves as CEO of Aichi Automobile, is more professional. He has served as vice president of industrial development in Shanghai Lulai, and has publicly shared his exploration of business model and industrial development many times, hired him as CEO or took a fancy to his previous work experience.

In fact, there is a reason why Aichi lags behind the market. First of all, Aichi entered the game late, and the product launch missed the best window, resulting in not much product competitiveness after the U5 launch. the first product was launched in December 2019, when both Ulai and Xiaopeng had delivered new cars. Secondly, in order to solve the problem, Aichi needs to update and iterate the backward products and technologies, but this is undoubtedly a huge investment, and what Aichi needs most is capital. In addition to the lack of money, the channel construction of Aichi car is very slow. Although the location of offline stores is the same as "Wei Xiaoli", they all choose to open in the business circle, but there is a big difference in the number of people entering the store to see the car. From the industry's point of view, Zhang Yang is promoted to chairman or in order to solve this problem. After all, Zhang Yang is relatively clear about NIO's business model, but whether it can achieve results in an increasingly competitive environment is still unknown.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat