AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/16 Report--

It has been an unusually "cold" summer for senior executives to leave one after another, declining car sales, financial difficulties and so on.

Yesterday, Li Bin officially said that Zheng Xiancong, co-founder of Xilai Motor, will officially leave his post and will continue to serve as Li Bin's personal adviser after retirement, support Lai Automobile in the supply chain and partners, and will continue to serve as chairman of Xilai Drive Technology. Continue to strategically guide the development of technology.

According to public information, Zheng Xianchong worked at Ford for only 30 years before joining Ulay Motors. He served as the director of Ford's China joint venture Jiangling Ford Purchasing Department, Ford China Vice President and Changan Ford Purchasing Director, and Ford's Chief Purchasing Representative in China. Before leaving Ford to join Lulai, he was vice president of Fiat China Global Purchasing Center and general manager of Guangzhou Auto Fiat Automobile Co., Ltd.

It can be said that Zheng Xiancong has a wealth of experience in the automotive industry, leaving NIO Motor, the impact on NIO is not small.

The loss of senior executives in Xilai is not alone. In June this year, Zhuang Li, vice president of software development at Xilai, left. In July 2016, Zhuang Li joined NIO as vice president of software development in NIO, responsible for software development in China. Also leaving the post is Angelica Sodia, managing director of Ulay Motors in the UK.

At the end of last year, Wu Sili, chief development officer of Xilai, also announced her departure. In 2015, Wu Sili joined Xilai Automobile, together with Li Bin to promote the development of Lulai Automobile, which is also the core high-level of Xilai Automobile.

The continuous loss of senior management has caused a serious blow to the development which is not smooth.

According to the survey, Zilai has lost more than 20 billion yuan. the latest data show that the total revenue of Lvlai in the first quarter of 2019 was 1.63 billion yuan, down 53% from the previous quarter; the net loss was 2.6 billion yuan, of which car sales were 1.54 billion yuan, down 55% from the fourth quarter of 2018. Xilai expects a decrease of about 30.5% to 20.7% in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter.

At the same time, the share price of Xilai also plummeted, forcing the company to sell its FE Electric Formula fleet, lay off staff and sell related assets to save costs.

According to related reports, NIO will cut 1000 jobs, or 10 per cent of the total. NIO said that layoffs are a necessary stage in the company's current development, but the exact number of layoffs is still unknown.

In fact, Xilai has been cutting business costs for most of 2019. The five-year-old start-up announced in March that it would abandon plans to build a factory in Shanghai.

In addition, the spontaneous combustion of electric vehicles occurred three times in the past two months, which caused a lot of negative assets.

In June this year, due to spontaneous combustion incidents in Shanghai, Xi'an and other places, Xilai ES8 was forced to recall a total of 4803 vehicles of the ES8 produced from April 2, 2018 to October 19, 2018.

Affected by the recall, in July this year, Xilai delivered a total of 837 vehicles, down 38% from the previous month. Of these, ES8 delivered 164vehicles, making it the worst month for shipments since 2018.

At the same time, NIO also postponed the launch of the electric car ET7 indefinitely. During the 2019 Shanghai Auto Show, a preview version of the Lulai ET7 was officially unveiled, with the new car positioned as a medium-sized sedan. According to previous news, the new car will go on sale in the second half of this year to compete with Tesla Model 3.

At a time when ES8 is in trouble, Xilai is now pinning most of its hopes on ES6. Xilai began shipping the ES6 in June and delivered 1086 units in its first two months on the market. The start-up has also secured more indirect support from the Chinese government by reaching several agreements with other Chinese state-owned carmakers to design and produce electric vehicles.

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