Text/Song Shuanghui

Another new car company has collapsed. I have used this sentence no less than two or three times this year. This time it is Yangtze Motor's turn.

It is estimated that many people have never heard of this company, let alone seen their electric vehicles on the street. But Yangtze Motor has indeed had a glorious history, and it was once dubbed "Li Ka-shing's Car Builder".

No amount of halo can save it. Recently, the bankruptcy documents issued by the People's Court of Yuhang District, Hangzhou City showed that Hangzhou Changjiang Automobile Co., Ltd. was ruled by the court and officially entered the bankruptcy liquidation process.

Today, Yangtze Motor can only be associated with the words "wage arrears", "liabilities" and "consumption restrictions". However, a few years ago, it was the chosen one favored by Li Ka-shing. Holding the "dual qualifications" of new energy vehicles in hand, there is unlimited glory.

The Hangzhou Bus Factory saved by Wulong

Changjiang Motor’s predecessor was the Hangzhou Bus Factory founded in 1954, and it was also a backbone enterprise in the bus field. In the mid-to-late 1990s, it went into decline and entered the list of enterprises to be eliminated by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It was not until 2013 that a noble man appeared.

This year, Wulong Electric Vehicle injected capital to reorganize the company and changed its name to Hangzhou Changjiang Automobile Co., Ltd. to engage in the production and manufacturing of new energy commercial vehicles.

Li Ka-shing’s relationship with Yangtze Motor is also because of the Wulong electric vehicle. In 2010, the visionary Li Ka-shing began investing in the new energy vehicle industry and became the major shareholder of Wulong Electric Vehicles, thus indirectly becoming an investor in Yangtze Motor.

Originally, Yangtze Motor just made electric commercial vehicles. Later, it became more ambitious and set its sights on the passenger car market, and successfully obtained licenses to produce new energy passenger vehicles in 2016 and 2017. "Dual qualifications" began to enter the passenger car market.

You must know that at that time, there were very few companies that could obtain "dual qualifications", so Yangtze Motor began to reach the peak of its life. Wulong Electric Vehicle spent more than 5 billion to build factories for it, and local governments also Extend an olive branch to seek cooperation and settlement.

In 2016, the Yangtze EV brand was released, and the Hangzhou factory was put into production with a first-phase production capacity of 100,000 vehicles and a second-phase production capacity of 300,000 vehicles. Subsequently, subsidiaries such as Guizhou Changjiang, Shenzhen Changjiang, and Chengdu Changjiang were established one after another.

Has everything, except cars

Changjiang Motor's commercial vehicle business once developed quite well. It appeared on the stage of the Hangzhou G20 Summit and was also exported to Europe. However, the passenger car business has always been a mirror image.

In April 2016, they released a small pure electric SUV called Yikou. At first glance, it was one of the many small electric vehicles that were subsidized that year, but it was not even delivered.

In 2018, Yangtze Motor, which had been dormant for two years, made a high-profile appearance at the Beijing Auto Show, launching three passenger cars and six commercial vehicles. However, these passenger cars were only concept cars, and they looked different at first glance. The kind that may be mass-produced, and that is indeed their fate.

In this year, new energy subsidies began to decline, the pure electric market entered a reshuffle period, Yangtze Motor also began to have financial difficulties, and the sales of commercial vehicles became worse and worse.

In 2019, Yangtze Motor, which has the qualifications and factories, began to OEM for another new car, Leapmotor. However, the sales volume of Leapmotor is not large, so it cannot be a big deal for Yangtze Motor. role.

After that, various news about wage arrears and production suspensions began to appear in the newspapers, and Yangtze Motor came to an end.

What’s the use of holding a golden rice bowl?

In those days, new energy vehicle companies with "dual qualifications" were like getting gold medals from the royal family. However, the few companies that have really emerged today did not have the qualifications back then, and they don't even have them now.

Let’s first take a look at the companies with “dual qualifications” that year: BAIC New Energy, Yundu New Energy, Jiangling New Energy, Zhidou, Yangtze Motor, Qiantu Motor, Hezhong New Energy, Chery New Energy , Jinkang New Energy, Guoneng Automobile.

Look at the top three new car sales today: NIO, which delivered more than 5,000 units in October; Li Auto, which delivered 3,692 units in October; and Xpeng Motors, which delivered 3,040 units in October. The sales volume of NIO is reaching new highs. NIO’s cars still bear the name JAC Motors, and the qualifications of Ideal and Xiaopeng were obtained by saving the country through curves.

Looking back at the rise and fall of Yangtze Motor, we can see that apart from core technology and star products, it lacked everything, and in the end it starved itself to death holding the golden rice bowl.

The story of the newly built car is really as wonderful as a fable.

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