AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/16 Report--

Recently, an "Open letter from Jiangsu Dealers to the Joint investigation team of Reading Province and City" (hereinafter referred to as "Open letter"), signed and sealed by Reading car dealers, spread among Reading car dealers. The "open letter" enumerated many unreasonable operations of Reading cars in the course of operation, resulting in dealers losing millions of yuan.

The open letter lists six things about Reading:

1. As soon as the Reading Company went public in a high profile, it owed production and stopped production, and when the government loan and the dealer's full payment were still there, there was no money for production, which was not in line with the business logic.

2. Under the circumstances that the supply of the products exceeds the demand and the full order cannot produce the car, the high cost invested by Hunan Satellite TV is not in line with the reality, and is suspected of washing the line.

3. Under the condition that the Redding Company could not produce the car at all, it deceived the dealer to continue to pay for the car and schedule the car, and collected more money from the dealer or did not use it for production and did not supply it.

4. As the founder of an enterprise, Li Guoxin, from setting up a new shell company and giving up all his shares and rights and interests in the new company, went abroad to register some low-cost companies. This is a preparation for premeditated escape from the beginning of the operation of the company.

5. when the production has been in arrears for more than half a year, and it is impossible to meet the supply at all, we continue to deceive investment and absorb car money from dealers.

6. Each dealer who owes the seal directly causes economic losses of nearly millions.

Based on the above, Reading dealers believe that "Reading has been a fraud company from the very beginning, and every step of its operation is a well-planned scam." The dealers said, "the dealer is the victim of the Reading scam, and the Jiangsu dealer asked the joint investigation team to strictly investigate the matter and give them an explanation."

According to the data, Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd. was established in October 2012, with a registered and paid-in capital of 100 million yuan, the legal representative is Wang Dejin, and the company was formerly known as "Shandong Maillard Energy Power Technology Co., Ltd." the controlling shareholder is Bidwen holding Group Co., Ltd. According to SkyEye, Li Guoxin, the sponsor of Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd., stepped down as a legal person, executive director and general manager of Bidwen Holdings Group Co., Ltd in December 2020.

In April 2018, Reading acquired Shaanxi Qinxing Automobile Co., Ltd. and obtained the qualification for the production of new energy commercial vehicles and special vehicles. In January 2019, Reading acquired Sichuan Auto Mustang for 1.45 billion yuan and obtained the production qualification of new energy vehicles, traditional oil passenger cars and passenger cars. Two acquisitions successfully helped Reading solve the problem of car production qualification.

After obtaining the passenger car production qualification, Reading launched three pure electric vehicles in 2019: i3 (498-62800 yuan), i5 (75800 yuan) and i9 (115800 yuan). However, the unaffordable price and the continuation of the "old man happy" design, Reading has not achieved remarkable results.

After the collapse of the I series, Reading continued to set its sights on the mini-car market, launching the "Reading Mango" model in May 2021, which is located in a five-door, four-seat pure electric minicar with a price of 2.98-54900 yuan, directly targeting Hongguang MINIEV, Chery QQ ice cream and other models. In March 2022, Reading launched the mango Pro. The new car offers 130km and 200km mileage with a price of 3.98-56900 yuan. It is a direct counterpart to the Hongguang MINIEV macaron version. With its high performance-to-price ratio, the mango series has indeed achieved certain results in a short period of time. According to the retail data of the Federation of passengers, 30467 read mangoes were sold in 2021, making it into the top 15 of the list of new energy cars.

Shandong Maillard Energy Power Technology Co., Ltd. changed its name to Reading Automobile Group Co., Ltd. in September 2021. Thanks to its outstanding market performance, Redding set an ambitious sales target and announced that it would sell 2 million vehicles by 2025. However, affected by the epidemic, skyrocketing raw materials and other factors, the sales of Reading cars fell off a cliff in 2022, and the company was once in crisis.

Since 2022, Reading has been frequently exposed to be caught in a negative storm. In May, the middle and senior management of Reading began to apply for a voluntary pay cut, with a pay cut of 50% for middle-level cadres and 60% for vice ministers and ministers to tide over the crisis. In September, it was revealed that Reading was suspected of stopping production, and both upstream and downstream were launching a "debt recovery" against Reading. In October, Reading was listed as the person subject to enforcement by a number of courts for failing to meet its legal obligations on time. In December, Reading announced the completion of round A financing, with an amount of 3.2 billion yuan, but the arrears to dealers and related lawsuits also intensified.

According to the China referee Writing Network, the Reading Automobile Group has been ordered to freeze funds many times so far because of a dispute over the sale and purchase contract. Since 2023, Reading has been executed for a total of 13 times, of which the maximum amount of execution has reached 13.2507 million yuan, and the enforcement court is the people's Court of Changle County. In addition, Reading was sued by the supplier for delinquent payment. In December 2022, the people's Court of Changle County, Shandong Province ruled that Reading Motor paid 845224.6 yuan and interest to Taizhou Jinna Axle Co., Ltd.

The judgment shows that Taizhou Jinna Axle Co., Ltd., as the designated supplier of Reading, provided spare parts to Reading according to the product quality requirements during the cooperation, but the defendant did not pay any payment after the agreed payment node was due. Reading argued that the plaintiff's payment was not delayed for no reason because of the company's operational difficulties.

New energy vehicles are still a big tuyere in today's market, and many new forces have eaten up the early market dividends, but today's Reading cars, whether from the point of view of consumers, or from the point of view of suppliers and dealers, want to invigorate themselves, it's still very difficult.

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