In Shandong, it is not a matter of gnashing your teeth and stamping your feet for an ordinary old man to buy a "luxury car" of the same model.
Behind this, I would like to thank Reading Automobile, a company with "not bad money", for bringing the "Laotoule" scooter to the market and helping many men and women realize their dream of "owning a car".
Once upon a time, Li Guoxin, the founder of Reading Automobile, commented that the players in the domestic car-making market either cheated the country's money or set up capital.
He is different. He always insists on three noes: no boasting, no financing and no blood transfusion.
In the car circle, where money is burning like running water, he even released wild words: there is never a shortage of money for reading.
In 20 17, Li Guoxin also spent 345 million yuan on a painting, which seemed to be "not short of money".
At that time, Li Guoxin would not have thought that six years later, he finally turned against the local officials who had been sheltering the automobile industry for money.
Boss Li, who was short of money, turned to report and sued government officials for using car companies to inflate local GDP, which was likely to break the net.
What is even more embarrassing is that the former scooter giant, now without the guaranteed loan provided by the government, has reached the desperate situation of stopping production.
Many people wonder why this car company can be so crazy.
With "no financing, no money", why did you end up in such a mess?
Reading's failure has long been a signal that the government is not responsible.
For three consecutive years, electric vehicles have sold the crown, which is known as "not bad money"
When it comes to domestic new energy vehicles, Redding's reputation is far less than that of Wei Xiaoli and other car companies.
Although it can't be ranked among the new energy vehicles, Reading used to be a giant of low-speed micro-electric vehicles, with a well-known product-the old man's head.
200 1, Bidwin, the predecessor of Wenwen Automobile, stepped on the outlet of electric bicycles and saw business opportunities earlier than its peers.
Before BYD obtained the new energy patent and Tesla "attacked" the China market, Bidwin established Reading Automobile Company, which took the lead in producing low-speed three-wheeled and four-wheeled electric vehicles.
Reading found her own position when she was born: aiming at the travel needs of 600 million people.
Reading directly becomes a "luxury car" in three rounds, and the old man can join the wild army without walking.
Before the appearance of Wuling Hong Guang MINI, the music of the old reading people had already swept through the third-and fourth-tier township markets and walked freely in rural cities.
The ultra-low price of thousands of dollars, no insurance and no driver's license made the old man once a road tyrant.
In 20 18, when there were only more than 2 million new energy electric vehicles in China, there were already 3 million "le laotou" vehicles in a province of Shandong.
On the road, pedestrians may encounter a suspicious mini Hummer at any time and slip by quietly.
Even in the vicinity of railway stations and stations, old people can be found in high spirits, fighting for jobs with taxis.
This pocket-sized, convenient and cheap oriental car has even spread overseas and become a beacon for foreigners to travel.
At that time, Wenwen Automobile was a leader in the electric vehicle industry.
From 20 16 to 20 18, the sales of low-speed electric vehicles in Reading were 15000, 2 10000 and 287000 respectively, ranking first in electric vehicle sales for three consecutive years.
According to the data of Shandong Automobile Industry Association, in 20 17, the total output of low-speed electric vehicles in Shandong was 756,000, and the output of Redding alone accounted for 30% of the market.
Stepping on the bonus period of the old man's head music, the reading car has gone all the way up and become an industry giant. In reading 20 18, the total revenue for the whole year was as high as1200 million yuan.
But the good days will soon be over.
With the development of new energy vehicles, no matter the product quality or cost performance, the advantages of Laodu Ledu are no longer available.
In particular, the accidents of the elderly are frequent, and the scenic cars of the elderly in the village suddenly become road killers.
The national standard has been rectified, and it is forbidden to increase the capacity of electric vehicles. The good days of studying came to an abrupt end, and Li Guoxin's strategic plan to build "the first car in the country" also came to an end.
Since the rectification, Reading's sales began to decline, making it more and more difficult to operate.
In desperation, Reading was forced to transform and started the road of building cars with new energy.
However, in the era of automobile competition, the rhythm of product release, market launch and quick start of various automobile enterprises has been rolled up. Reading, who joined as a novice, didn't master the game method so quickly.
Bragging about selling 2 million cars, and now you can't even hand them over.
Reading, who has just turned into a car, is still immersed in the joy of the old man's success.
For the transformation of the car, Reading directly carried out a simple and rude coin operation, which showed everywhere: I am not short of money.
It has successively acquired Shaanxi Qin Xing, Beiqi Mustang and other enterprises, thus obtaining the qualification to build cars, bidding farewell to the low-speed electric vehicle market, and formally joining the "real army" from the "wild road".
With the qualification to build a car, Reading spent another 20 billion yuan to build a production base.
In this process, the local government made great efforts to help each other, providing a one-time guaranteed loan of 65.438+0.3 billion yuan, and Reading became the only enterprise in Weifang with the qualification of new energy vehicles.
Conversely, reading also gives the government a long face. Compared with PPT players, Reading is very reliable and delivered a new car to the market in one year.
I have broad channels and successful experience before, and the double guarantee of government qualifications and funds has given me great confidence in reading.
Li Guoxin, who worked hard, was even called the "reed" of Weifang by the media.
On 20 19, Reading launched the Reading I series while the iron was hot.
However, due to a series of problems such as short cruising range, Reading sold only 3,387 vehicles in 2065,438+09, which was severely hit by the market.
Faced with such achievements, Li Guoxin has always held the initial intention of building a car for 600 million people, and declared that this is only the beginning, and there will be more big moves in the future.
It was not until April 20021year that the so-called "big move" appeared, or after Wuling's mini-car was a great success.
Followed by, Reading Auto immediately launched the reading mango series products, focusing on the A00 pure electric mini-car market.
Even intensive brand marketing bombing, please Huang Xiaoming as a brand spokesperson, appeared in the variety "Chinese Restaurant".
This wave of marketing success has driven sales. In 202 1 year, the sales volume of reading articles reached 30,400 vehicles, which broke into the sales list of new energy vehicles 15.
The expanding Li Guoxin claims that by 2025, the total sales of Reading will exceed 2 million vehicles.
However, the good times did not last long. Reading, which focuses on low-cost strategy, saw its sales plummet, which brought a great crisis to Reading.
Li Guoxin, once proud of Reading's abundant cash flow, is no longer full of confidence.
Starting from 10, dealers around Wenwen Automobile said that after receiving the full payment, Wenwen did not start the car, and news about Wenwen Automobile's arrears, salary reduction and capital chain break kept coming out.
In the "Statistics of Redding's Arrears to China Dealers" table, the accumulated arrears exceed 20 million yuan.
According to the survey data of Tianyan, the total amount of reading execution in June 2022 exceeded1120,000 yuan.
Founded in 14, with an annual income of nearly1200 million, Reading, who was not short of money, began to worry about money.
Reading without money, even if you have money, it is difficult to "come back to life."
Li Bin, the founder of Weilai, complained that 20 billion yuan was not enough for the car circle, and Reading had to admit that the car industry was a gold-devouring beast.
With the rising price of raw materials in the upstream of making cars, the cost of making cars is also increasing.
According to the report of consulting firm AlixPartners, as of May 2022, the average raw material cost of electric vehicles was 58,600 yuan per vehicle.
Even the hot-selling Wuling Hong Guang mini electric car basically doesn't make money, and the profit of each car is only about 100 yuan.
This is even worse for car readers with poor sales, and they can only keep raising prices! Price increase! Price increase!
From 20021year 10 to the end of 2022, Reading experienced five rounds of price increases, with an average price increase of 2,000 yuan every two months.
Even so, it can't save the reading that is at the forefront.
This time, the reading "exploded" because of the financing problem, but it has already been revealed.
From the end of 20021,the economic situation of reading cars showed danger signals. After entering 2022, the problem of overdue payment continues to appear.
Studying under siege is in urgent need of financing blood transfusion.
On June165438+1October 2 1 2022, Yuewen Automobile announced the completion of Series A financing, with an overall financing scale of 3.2 billion yuan.
However, according to Li Guoxin, this kind of financing is conditional, that is, the government will provide Reading with a mortgage loan to renew the loan.
If the loan is not renewed, the financing capital will not be able to enter the market, which is why Li Guoxin, who is in a hurry, is willing to fight with the local government.
Reading, which can't get funds at present, is in a very passive position, and the production line has been seriously affected, so it can only stop production.
In addition, the reading also announced that after the completion of this round of financing, it will be started according to the specific situation, and subsequent rounds of financing will be carried out one after another.
This means that the reading car has completely embarked on the road of relying on capital blood transfusion.
However, short-term blood transfusion seems difficult to bring reading back to life.
In the final analysis, the biggest problem of reading cars is that their products are not competitive enough.
Reading, who had no skills in the early days, had to spend huge sums of money to buy technology from buy buy in order to enter the new energy track.
In the face of rivals such as Wuling Hong Guang, Chery and Chang 'an, Reading's brand awareness, technical strength and financial capacity are all impatient.
Fighting for the brand, in the public cognition, reading the text has long been in the low-end brand image of "selling the old money and making a fortune".
Fighting for technology, Changan Automobile invests 80 billion yuan in R&D every year. After the transformation, Reading made up for the technical shortcomings by acquiring Mustang, but it has been insufficient in product research and development.
Even in the car configuration, Reading was hung up.
Official website shows that Redding Mango is only equipped with airbags at the highest level, which is much higher than other brands.
Many users also complain that Reading's car experience is not good, and there are some basic car problems, such as abnormal brakes, no brake lights, and the central control screen crashing.
Even if it is directly connected to the consumer's server, there are great hidden dangers.
By the end of 20021,there were about 3,000 distribution outlets in Reading, more than half of which were franchisees.
In traditional car companies, service is an important part of brand survival, and the new force of reading is obviously missing in this part.
New energy vehicles are still on the cusp, and new forces, traditional car companies and technology giants are increasingly involved in this field and can't wait to show their talents.
Yuewen Automobile is expected to launch a series of new models in 2023, covering cars, SUVs, MPVs and even sports cars, and still needs a lot of capital investment.
Today's 3.2 billion financing is simply a drop in the bucket for new energy vehicles.
Even with the support of local state-owned assets, it is not easy for Reading to want deus ex.
After all, the old player "Wei Xiaoli" is still in the whirlpool of losses.
In the next few years, it is still unknown whether Reading can embark on the road of building a car.
Reading's thunder also reminded players of new energy vehicles that strength is the last word.
Otherwise, anyone may be the next "reading material" for the reform of the automobile industry.
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Author | Renee