AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/23 Report--

According to the US technology media "The Verge", Bi Fukang, the current CEO of FF and former chairman of Baiteng, revealed the "underlying reasons" for resigning as chairman of Baiteng at a media event held at FF's headquarters in Los Angeles.

Bi Fukang, known as the father of BMW i8, started his own business after BMW resigned. In 2016, Bi Fukang joined FMC, a new car company, along with Dai Lei, who also worked at BMW. At that time, Foxconn and Tencent were investors in FMC. However, due to various reasons, Tencent and Foxconn withdrew one after another, and Bi Fukang and Dai Lei had no choice but to inject capital into FMC and named the company "Baiteng Automobile".

Under the continuous financing of Biden, Biden announced the completion of round B financing in June 2018, with a financing scale of US $500m, of which FAW Group accounted for the largest proportion, with an investment of US $265 million.

According to revelations, Bi Fukang said FAW interfered too much. FAW owns 15% of Baiteng, and FAW lends Baiteng tens of millions of dollars, in response to FAW's right to use Baiteng's manufacturer equipment and other assets and technologies in China.

Bi Fukang said in an interview that he felt that FAW was driving Baiteng to shut down completely so that it could retain Baiteng's factory in Nanjing and Baiteng's electric car technology. Bi Fukang also said that all expenses of Baiteng had to be approved by FAW, so many of Baiteng's engineer team left the company. He stressed that "do not want Baiteng to fail, as one of the founders of Baiteng, Bi Fukang still owns Baiteng shares, but the future of this share is still under discussion, but his discussions with Baiteng and FAW are" not friendly. "

A spokesman for Baiteng denied Bi Fukang's accusation, "FAW is indeed the company's main investor, but FAW has a smaller stake than Bi Fukang, and there is only one seat on Baiteng's board of directors."

It also shows that "Baiteng has nearly 500 employees at the R & D center in Santa Clara, the vast majority of whom are engineers." We also have hundreds of engineers in Nanjing R & D center and production facility.

Dai Lei, another founder of Baiteng, took over as chairman of Baiteng after Bi Fukang left. Interestingly, Dai Lei's comments on FAW were very positive. Dai Lei said that the cooperation with FAW was very suitable. And said that FAW would respect Baiteng's independence. He was surprised at Bi Fukang's departure, but blessed his future.

According to Baiteng's plan, the trial production workshop of the Nanjing factory was officially opened in April, and the first batch of trial production prototype cars of Baiteng project have been taken off the line, and it is expected that hundreds of trial production prototype cars will be handed over by the end of this year. In addition, the pre-production of Baiteng's first mass production model will be achieved in the first half of 2019 and will be officially launched in the fourth quarter of next year.

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