Many brands were once active in our country's market. Although few of them survive to this day, they have all witnessed a period when our country's automobile market was full of vitality and continuous rebirth. For example, the gradual marginalization of Landwind Motors, the disappearance of Maple Motors, the complete disappearance of Shuanghuan Motors, etc. are all old news in the automotive industry that are worth lamenting.
Compared with the fixed pattern, the continuous growth of new car-making forces is indeed a matter of benefit to the country and the people. However, the cars produced by the new car companies at that time could only be said to meet people's transition needs from scratch. Most of them did not have accumulated design experience, strong financial reserves, and technology basically came from abroad. Most of them were plagiarized, and there were also some cars. The company advertises that it has foreign ancestry that is shocking.
Youth cars that play with fire, an unbearable test of the waters
You want to name one car company? But the brand name can give people a strong sense of exotic car companies, Young Lotus Cars have to count as one. Entrepreneur Pang Qingnian, the original founder of Youth Auto, founded it. In 2004, Youngman Automobile obtained the qualification to produce cars through cooperation with Guihang Group (yes, the parent company of Guizhou Skylark). At that time, the experience of Youngman Auto was somewhat similar to that of Geely. In the private automobile industry, this was not only Pang Youngman's test of building a car, but also a "first experience in building a car" for many private car companies.
At the beginning of the new century, many domestic car companies like to engage in the practice of "affiliation" and "foreign core, Chinese trademark". In the history of Youngman Auto's fortune, the most advantageous business is of course commercial vehicles. Its most famous product is the German Neoplan bus introduced by Youth, which once became the main choice in the domestic luxury bus market. I believe many people have ridden in this luxury bus with an exotic temperament (and many eyes).
At the same time, in order to expand the passenger market, Youngman Auto cooperated with the British Lotus Automotive Technology Engineering Company to establish the Youngman Lotus Joint R&D Center. Although Young Lotus had a trademark dispute with British Lotus some time ago, and it ended with British Lotus changing its name to "Lotus", if you look deeper, Young Lotus cars do have the foreign origin of "British Lotus" . Because the British Lotus Automotive Technology Engineering is a technology company, and it is indeed the same family as the orthodox Lotus Motors (now translated as Lotus), and once belonged to the Malaysian Proton Company. So Youth Lotus is actually a creation of Youth Group and Proton, with technical support provided by Lotus Engineering.
Due to this relationship, Young Lotus directly stated that it had the blood of British Lotus cars in publicity, and some stores directly hung the LOTUS logo. Later, LOTUS had to be renamed "Lotus" when it entered the country. Although Lotus has stated externally that it is independent of Young Lotus and has no other relationship with them except that it has trained the chassis for Young Lotus, the public once considered the two to have an ambiguous relationship, and Lotus also lost its "Lotus" This is his real name, and another person with a similar fate is Ford's MUSTANG.
Therefore, the most direct result is that the majority of consumers equate Youth Lotus with LOTUS, and Youth Lotus has indeed misappropriated the labels that originally belonged to LOTUS such as performance and control. However, after so many years, Young Lotus's products have not become popular, and have even gradually faded out of the "sports family car" stage. It seems that only the L3 launched in the early stage has performed well.
So this article will review the troubled history of those young lotuses. First of all, after the establishment of Young Lotus Automobile, it took advantage of the start of the domestic family car market and looked at the broader family car industry to jointly develop and produce the first model-Lotus L3. Officially, it is defined as a compact A-class car with an emphasis on sports performance. It is a domestic family sedan with the best handling performance in the domestic price range of 100,000 yuan.
No matter how much you play for a young Lotus without strength, it will all be in vain
Putting aside the vague advertising slogans of the Lotus L3, it may be more meaningful to look directly at the parameters. The first is the handling performance that the official is proud of. Both the sedan and hatchback versions are equipped with campro1.6L naturally aspirated engine. The maximum horsepower is only 112 horses (82kW) and the maximum torque is only 149 N·m. The acceleration time from zero to 100 kilometers is 10.5 seconds, and the comprehensive fuel consumption is 7.7L/100 kilometers.
From the data point of view, this kind of power cannot be said to have a big advantage among cars of the same class, and it falls within the normal power range. However, it is worth noting that the early 2009 L3 models were all two-box hatchbacks, while the 10 models were sedan models. The sporty handling of hatchback models is well known. At that time, the L3 hatchback was indeed targeted at the Focus and Mazda3. Waiting for a well-established family sedan with heavy control.
In fact, Young Lotus does not have any technology research and development capabilities. It has always relied on Proton's research and development technology. L3 is the rebadged version of Proton's GEN-2. It adopts a front-wheel-drive layout, and its styling, power system, and platform are all Proton technologies. Later, Youngman Auto even directly introduced the L3 prototype by importing it and named it RCR. However, upon closer inspection, this car is still misleading. The act of selling dog meat.
Life for Young Lotus will become increasingly difficult in the future, but as a car company, it has not given up. It also knows that only by constantly launching new models can it avoid being completely exhausted. During the hot SUV trend in 2010, Young Lotus launched a project for the SUV model T5, but in the end it launched a sedan L5, missing a good opportunity. But the scene that left a deep impression on me was that Young Lotus once built a 360° rolling track to highlight the performance of the L5.
Another big news about Young Lotus cars, I believe all car enthusiasts must have heard of it, is the Saab acquisition farce. At that time, Young Cars pulled a huge car, followed by BAIC and waited for a vote. Independent car companies are confident and planning to acquire the bankrupt Saab Automobile. However, due to various reasons, all Chinese investment was rejected, and Young Auto, which spent a lot of financial and material resources, was left empty-handed. All the previous promises came to light, and in the end, only BAIC purchased a few platforms and engine technologies, and launched the BAIC Kidney. Bao, oh no, BAIC Senova series.
Youth Lotus Motors, founded by Pang Qingnian, entered the end of its life around 2017. However, since 2013, there have been constant reports of employee salary arrears, factory shutdowns, and project paralysis. , Young Lotus, which once emphasized its British "Lotus blood", disappeared for a time, until Dongjie Intelligent issued an announcement recently, saying that as one of the creditors, it received a notice from the Hangzhou Xiaoshan District People's Court to accept the bankruptcy and liquidation case of Zhejiang Young Lotus. Young Lotus appeared in the news again after many years, and it was already in such a tragic situation. Young Lotus, which has experienced ups and downs, will eventually reach the stage of bankruptcy and liquidation.
Facts have once again proved that in order for independent brands to play well, they must have core technologies
After the closure of Youth Lotus, the last time I heard about Youth Car was the commotion in the automotive industry last year. The buzzing about “water to hydrogen technology”. Probably Pang Qingnian used some unrealistic "black technology" to just add boiled water to a heavy truck, and then it could run away... When I saw this news, the author said: Qingnian Car's imagination So big! Water turns into hydrogen, hydrogen then turns into water again. This is simply a perpetual motion machine! Unfortunately, such daydreams only exist in the fantasies of young cars.
Soon, this scam was exposed, and Young Car finally fell into the abyss of eternal destruction. In fact, the fundamental reason is still the pattern of youth cars. In the early days, everyone started their fortune from the reverse platform, and they all experienced various hardships. However, a group of car companies that are good at independent research and development and management, such as Geely, Great Wall, and Changan, have survived. But Young Lotus is like this. The car company that once held the king's title collapsed suddenly.
If in the development process of Young Lotus, there are less routines of competing for trademarks, more sincere cooperation with British Lotus and Proton Group, and more cooperation with Geely and Volvo, BYD and Daimler, Can this outcome be reversed? Nothing is known. Of course, behind the many self-owned brands that have gone bankrupt, it has also given a lesson to many car companies that are still gasping for air. That is, the core of a car company or a brand's survival is always the core technology in its own hands. Without technology, everything will be empty talk and in vain...
Conclusion:
In fact, under the background of supply-side structural reform in various fields, it is not just Young Lotus Cars Earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments also made it clear to the outside world that they would gradually announce the list of zombie car companies after 2013 and 2015.
At that time, there were nearly 100 companies in the data bureau. Many old automobile companies with a lot of non-performing assets and hundreds of millions of debts were lamentable. However, the survival of the fittest is indeed a good thing for the healthy development of the automobile industry.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.