Two years ago, FAW Group signed strategic cooperation agreements with 16 banks and obtained a total of approximately 1 trillion intended credits. Although the credit did not mean to directly give FAW a one-year credit. Credit cards with a limit of trillions can be spent casually, and loans need to go through a strict approval process. However, this number is so huge that it is almost the entire GDP of a city like Wuxi in 2019.

At that time, many netizens left messages below this news, hoping that FAW could spend money wisely, but things went counterproductive. Although FAW during the Xu Liuping era made very significant progress, what we are going to talk about today is The incident still reflects the stubborn problems of this giant company.

When "FAW Travel" conducted an asset inventory a few months ago, it was found that there were problems with more than 2,000 vehicles under its name. In addition to some common economic disputes, about 840 vehicles were judged to be "lost." , these lost vehicles are scattered in 31 provinces and cities across the country, and some are even on the China-Myanmar border. The possibility of being recovered is extremely low. FAW Travel, which expanded aggressively under the travel trend, ultimately left a mess.

We have compiled some major events before the official establishment of FAW Travel. They have also achieved some results along the way. After jointly establishing a company with Didi, the group came up with new ideas. They believed that the market for time-sharing rentals was small and limited in size, and cooperation with companies such as Didi required relying on their platforms, technologies and traffic. In other words, you are still just a "car seller", far from being a technology company. The eldest son of Heguo, who wanted money and resources, obviously would not settle for being a supplier for others, so the idea of ??"doing it yourself, one-stop service" came into being, and an independent subsidiary was fully responsible for the travel business. The company was established, and it was FAW Travel that later caused the "more than 840 vehicles missing" incident.

Internal priority is extremely high, except for red flags, it is travel

It is rare for traditional enterprises to seize an outlet that fits their own industry attributes, so they invested a lot of effort from the beginning and established internal It has been given a very high priority. It can be said that it requires money, money and people. The only red flag is travel. After FAW's great business in travel took off, it established joint ventures with a number of companies that have vehicle operating licenses. Many joint ventures have registered capitals of hundreds of millions of yuan, and FAW Travel also made paid-in capital contributions of tens of millions of yuan. At the same time, FAW Travel quickly set up branches across the country, and more than ten branches were established one after another. In addition, a large number of vehicle purchase expenses have become a major drain on cash flow. In 2019 alone, FAW Travel purchased nearly 40,000 vehicles. According to industry estimates, these vehicles cost nearly 4 billion yuan in total.

Vehicles are gathering dust in warehouses, and the "hundred-day attack" has sown disaster

Under the trend of travel, not only FAW is the only one company, but also thousands of troops. In 2019, Kaikai Chuxing and Yikai Chuxing had a bad year. One stopped serving, the other was abandoned by the group, and FAW Huidi, which had achieved good results, also failed to recover. The main reason is still in the car. When FAW cooperated with Didi, it provided mostly mid-to-high-end models, which obviously did not have much appeal to Didi drivers. What they needed was a fuel-efficient and economical compact family sedan. , so more than 1,000 cars were parked in the warehouse collecting dust without generating any revenue. In order to restore the increasingly low operating rate, FAW Travel launched the "100-Day Attack" plan, with the goal of increasing the operating rate to 80%. There are policies and countermeasures, and various regions have used various tricks to complete the task. This has also become one of the important reasons for lost cars.

The risk control system is lacking, and various illegal operations are rampant

Yes, as a heavy-asset company with a registered capital of 5 billion, FAW Travel had no risk control at all before losing the car. department. Without the constraints of risk control, FAW Travel encountered a lot of chaos on the way to expansion.

Let me give you two vivid examples

The first one is that according to insiders, at the end of 2019, a channel dealer hired more than 100 managers within a week. Rent a driver, and then the channel operator ran away with a deposit of one million and the rent for the month. The court has not been able to find anyone yet.

Second, according to a former employee of FAW Travel, he was sent by the city manager to a leasing company to conduct research and found that there was only one street-facing store with three people and three computers inside. Two of the computers were gray - obviously a temporary show-off. He asked to see the business license and license plate, but in the end he only had a few copies. After truthfully reporting the situation to the city manager, he was met with an ambiguous attitude and finally signed a contract with the leasing company. Later, the former employee saw the city manager drinking tea with the owner of the leasing company in the office, with a stack of cash under the cigarette case. Things like this are not uncommon. Since many powers have been delegated to city managers, rent-seeking of power will inevitably lead to corruption.

In addition to FAW Travel, many car companies have joined the travel wave, including Geely, SAIC, Dongfeng, Great Wall, BMW, Daimler, etc., basically covering everything from low-end to high-end. The unanimous operations of car companies are all out of a sense of crisis for the industry. After experiencing a growth of tens of percent, today's car market has a tendency to develop into a stock market. In other words, the profit margin of the global car industry will As prices are getting lower and lower, anxious car companies are committed to finding new directions, and the travel industry is inherently tied to cars. It is not a wrong move to make this move, not to mention that everyone else is doing it.

In addition to these traditional car companies entering the market, players such as Didi Chuxing, Shouqi Taxi, China Private Car, Yidao, Dida Chuxing, Meituan Taxi, and Hello Travel also have a certain say. , and its operating model is more convenient and efficient compared to the asset-heavy OEM team.

But unfortunately, the travel industry as a whole is currently losing money. Let’s talk about Didi Chuxing first. It is a representative company in the travel field. It has burned more than 50 billion yuan from its establishment to the present. It still has not achieved overall profitability and continues to lose money. Many people question why it is still losing money when it takes so much commission. Uber on the other side of the ocean also shed tears of confusion. Like Didi, it has been losing money. The financial report shows that its losses have expanded from US$600 million in 2014 to US$8.5 billion in 2019.

In addition to technology companies like Didi, it is difficult for traditional car companies to find profitability in the field of travel. Not to mention self-diggers like FAW Travel, popular players like Caocao Travel, a subsidiary of Geely, are also It is profitable only in some cities, but overall it is losing money.

Written at the end

I wonder if you still remember the "Zhangzi Island Scallop Escape" incident. It was also a state-owned enterprise. In October 2014, in order to find an excuse for financial losses, Zhangzi Island The Dao Group announced that all the scallops they raised worth 1 billion yuan were gone because the water temperature in the North Yellow Sea, where the scallops are grown, was extremely cold. Later, the China Securities Regulatory Commission used Beidou satellite to monitor Zhangzidao and determined that the company had inflated profits and imposed penalties.

The more than 800 cars lost by FAW Travel this time were nicknamed by netizens as the Zhangzidao Incident in the automotive industry. Netizens were saddened by the loss of state-owned assets but were helpless. Many state-owned enterprises spent a lot of money. Even with the best resources, nothing can be done that can reach the industry average. FAW Travel has not yet officially responded to this matter. We will continue to pay attention to how this matter will end.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.