Huatai Automobile: From an off-road leader to an account balance of only 132,000 yuan, what has it experienced?

How did Huatai Auto, which was once so prosperous, end up where it is today? Let’s talk about it today.

The predecessor of Huatai Automobile is Shandong Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory established in February 1991.

In 1996, Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory reached an agreement with Hyundai Seiko to cooperate in the production of Alban off-road vehicles. The Korean side will provide the main components, while the Chinese side will produce the body and assemble it. Passed the provincial appraisal one year later.

This project has received strong support from Shandong Province, which even allows trial sales in the province while applying for qualifications. However, Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory failed to apply for the qualification. In desperation, it affiliated with FAW Group in April 1999. Curve obtained the birth certificate. The "Aoben" brand was also replaced by the "Jiefang" brand, code-named CA6470W, and 120 vehicles were produced that year.

The former Alban off-road vehicle has become the "Liberation Land Cruiser". It is understood that the car is equipped with a 3.0L Mitsubishi V6 multi-point electronic injection engine made in South Korea, with a maximum power of 161 horsepower and a retail price of 283,000 yuan. With its outstanding performance, Jiefang Land Cruiser is in short supply.

During this period, Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory also introduced the FRP trailer production project of the American Eagle-Kellibo Automobile Company in August 1998, and started mass production in March of the following year. 150 units were exported that year.

In addition to the CA6470W off-road vehicle and FRP trailer, Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory produces the CA6410 van.

(CA6410)

Data show that in 1999, Rongcheng Automobile Modification Factory completed a total industrial output value of 34.81 million yuan, a sales revenue of 19.43 million yuan, and a profit of 1.24 million yuan.

Everything seems to be moving in the right direction. However, not long after the affiliation, FAW Group withdrew and was acquired by Baotou Hengtong Group in the same year, and Rongcheng Huatai Automobile Co., Ltd. was established.

It should be noted that this Hengtong Group has nothing to do with Chongqing Hengtong Bus. It was founded by Zhang Xiugen, and its main business is real estate and coal.

After leaving FAW, the Liberation Land Cruiser became Huatai Yoshida. With this car, Huatai accounts for 10% of the SUV market, ranking third among domestic SUV models.

In 2002, Huatai built a new factory in Yanbian, Jilin, and obtained the production rights for Hyundai's new SUV model Traka with a total investment of 1.172 billion yuan.

In 2003, Huatai Traka was offline. The car bears the Hyundai logo, uses a non-load-bearing body, and is equipped with 2.5L and 3.5L V6 gasoline engines and a 2.5TCI diesel engine. With this car, Huatai Automobile continues to be among the best.

While producing SUVs, Huatai Automobile also introduced modern automotive technology and produced Greenborder buses and Kandi medium-sized buses at its Yanbian factory.

In 2005, Huatai Automobile obtained the production rights of Hyundai Santa Fe, and it was officially launched the next year, still hanging the Hyundai logo.

Although this approach increased sales, for Huatai Automobile, it lost brand growth opportunities. Therefore, Huatai later began to modernize and began to use its own logo. Another reason for this was because at that time Hyundai had already established a joint venture with BAIC to form Beijing Hyundai. If Huatai continued to display the Hyundai logo, it would affect the joint venture to a certain extent.

Perhaps for this reason, Huatai has never introduced modern models after Santa Fe. This also made Huatai have no new products for a long time, and it has been struggling to maintain itself by relying on old models.

In 2009, Huatai Santa Fe C9 and Terraca T9 based on Santa Fe and Terraca were launched, but their market performance was average.

A year later, Huatai launched its first Bentley-like car, the B11. This car has a relatively advanced human-computer interaction system, and it also has a diesel version for the first time, but still no one cares about it.

In 2011, Huatai had a very short marriage with Saab and planned to make domestic Saab 9-3, but it ended after only 9 days.

In the same year, Huatai launched the Baolige with a front face that resembled a Bentley and an overall shape similar to the Cayenne. However, consumers did not buy it because the imitation was too heavy.

Since then, Huatai has successively launched new Lusheng E70, Lusheng E80, Lusheng E90, Lusheng S5, Santa Fe 5, Santa Fe 7 and other models, but the market performance is still sluggish.

It is worth mentioning that the sales volume of Huatai Automobile has always been a mystery. From 2008 to 2010, the number of registered vehicles of Huatai Automobile was 45,000, but the sales volume reported to the China Automobile Association was as high as 183,000. ! In May 2011, due to Huatai Automobile's long-term false sales data, the China Automobile Association refused to accept its production and sales data and replaced it with 0.

Although the automobile business is not very profitable, Huatai Automobile's coal business has made a lot of money with its automobile business.

In 2005, Ordos, eager to change the single industry structure, introduced Huatai Automobile. As an add-on to the investment, Huatai obtained the mining rights of two coal mines at a price lower than the minimum transfer price. According to statistics, the subsequent transfer of these two coal mines brought Huatai at least 4 billion yuan in cash income.

Later, Huatai also obtained billions of yuan in subsidies and extremely low-priced land from local governments by establishing operations in Tianjin and Jiangyin. It also obtained higher credit lines by investing in banks.

Perhaps because of the high subsidies for new energy vehicles, Huatai Automobile began to transform into new energy in 2018. It acquired 19.77% of the equity and 21.27% of the voting rights of Sugon and became the largest shareholder. Through a weak alliance, In this way, it has obtained the production qualifications for new energy passenger vehicles and new energy commercial vehicles, and launched a number of new energy models.

However, industry insiders generally believe that the reason why Huatai acquired Shuguang was actually for a backdoor listing. However, problems arose during later operations, which led to problems in the capital chain.

According to statistics, as of the end of March 2019, Huatai Automobile had interest-bearing debt of 29.4 billion yuan, of which short-term debt accounted for 68%, and the debt repayment pressure was huge.

In July 2019, R&F Real Estate intended to invest in Huatai Automobile and signed a strategic cooperation agreement. However, a month later, R&F said that the cooperation had been tentatively decided.

In the same year, Huatai Automobile’s shares in Sugon were frozen, and the total bank deposits of Huatai Automobile Group were only 132,000 yuan. Huatai Automobile's main production bases in Rongcheng, Shandong, Tianjin, Ordos, Inner Mongolia and other places have also stopped production.

The once prosperous Huatai Automobile has reached a dead end.

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