Zhang Hailiang joins the electric star Jia Yueting's LeTV car ecosystem shrinks across the board

The news that LeEco Auto CEO Zhang Hailiang officially took charge of Diancha Auto has brought LeEco Auto and its helmsman Jia Yueting back into the spotlight. On October 16, Diancha Auto held a partner conference in Shanghai. Two of the executives were from LeEco Auto: Diancha Auto Chairman Zhang Hailiang, previously the global CEO of LeSEE; and Diancha Auto CTO Niu Shengfu, previously the CTO of LeEco Auto.

With the departure of senior executives, financing difficulties and project setbacks, Jia Yueting's "all-or-nothing" LeEco automotive ecosystem has gradually deviated from the grand blueprint he had drawn at the time. Jia Yueting once spent two years building LeEco's seventh ecosystem - the automotive ecosystem, which included high-end, mid-range and low-end electric vehicle manufacturing, electric vehicle time-sharing leasing, auto e-commerce, charging pile operations and Internet travel platforms.

On July 6, Jia Yueting announced his resignation as chairman of LeTV and all positions in listed companies, and took on the role of chairman of LeTV Auto Ecosystem, taking full responsibility for LeTV Auto's financing, building a global management team, corporate governance, product research and development testing, and production support .

Three months have passed. Is the ecosystem built by LeEco Auto still in place? According to Tencent's "First Line" survey, the answer is not optimistic.

Automobile: Frequent personnel changes and no prospect of a new round of financing

Ding Lei, Zhang Hailiang and Niu Shengfu - these automotive practitioners who created the miracle of "Shanghai GM" and "Shanghai Volkswagen" in China were once regarded as a "golden signboard" for LeTV to enter the automotive field. Ding Lei joined LeTV Auto in September 2015 as the founder and CEO of LeTV Super Car in China, and then introduced Zhang Hailiang and his team to join.

In fact, in July this year, LeEco Auto announced the resignation of Zhang Hailiang and Niu Shengfu in a small circle of mid-level and above management. At that time, the news of their resignation spread immediately, but LeEco Auto denied it. Three months later, Zhang Hailiang made a public appearance at Diancha Auto, and the official said that he still served as the vice chairman of LeEco Auto, assisting LeEco Auto in top-level strategic formulation and overall business planning.

This is exactly the same as Ding Lei's resignation: first the official denied it, then announced the resignation a few months later, while retaining a position similar to an advisory role.

Ni Kai, the former Baidu driverless car director, announced in March 2016 that he had joined LeEco as the vice president of LeEco Supercar (China) intelligent driving. Now, HoloMatic, the company he founded after leaving LeEco, has received tens of millions of dollars in angel round financing from investors including Siwei Tuxin and IDG Capital.

A former LeEco executive told Tencent's "First Line" that usually, the former executives will sign a silent period agreement with LeEco, which usually lasts for 3 months. The high penalties for violations always keep these former executives silent when they just leave.

Almost at the same time as Zhang Hailiang announced the news of starting a new business, Faraday Future (FF), the US electric car project invested by Jia Yueting, also announced a series of new personnel appointments: Caroline Banzali, who was a senior vice president of a private equity firm in Los Angeles, was appointed as the global tax director of FF; Pablo Ucar, a senior director of FF, was appointed as the procurement director of FF; Crystal Peterson, the first employee of the human resources department, was promoted to the head of FF human resources operations; Mike Cooperman, the former partner and strategic director of NineDezine, was responsible for global corporate communications. Tencent's "First Line" learned from sources that Jia Yueting had just recruited Gao Mengxiong, a former senior executive of Maserati China.

Along with this round of personnel appointments, Tom Wessner, FF's senior vice president of global supply chain, who was promoted just two months ago, has disappeared from the executive team of FF's official website. He became FF's vice president of supply chain in November 2014 and was just promoted in September this year. Prior to this, he had worked at Ford, Mazda and Tesla. During his time at Tesla, he established Tesla's global procurement standard system.

A month ago, at a closed-door meeting of LeTV Auto attended by LeTV Auto China COO Gao Jingshen, LeTV Auto Network CEO He Yi and management, Gao Jingshen announced that LeTV Auto will focus on five core businesses in the next stage: applying for domestic new energy vehicle production qualifications, building the LeSEE Moganshan factory, planning and building a research and development system in parallel with the United States to enhance vehicle R&D capabilities, further opening up the Sino-US cooperation system in R&D, manufacturing, supply chain and other fields, and assisting FF in formulating and implementing the FF91 domestic sales strategy and making sales preparations.

The meeting also announced that LeEco Auto's financing was going smoothly and might be finalized in the near future. Previously, FF planned to raise $1 billion in Series A financing. Jia Yueting flew from the United States to Hong Kong on September 15th. One of his main tasks was to meet with investors to negotiate for the financing of the automotive business, especially FF. A month has passed, and neither LeEco Auto nor FF has announced any news of a new round of financing.

The Nevada plant located in the APEX Industrial Park was originally planned to invest $1 billion, but due to a shortage of funds, in order to ensure the timely delivery of products, it was officially shut down in July this year. FF's new plant in Hanford officially started construction on August 7. There is a saying that the plant was converted from a waste tire plant.

Invested vehicle projects: Withdrew one after another

In addition to "FF" and LeTV Auto, Jia Yueting has also invested in two new electric vehicle brands in the field of complete vehicles: Lucid in the United States and Diancha Auto in China.

Lucid was originally named Atieva. Jia Yueting invested in the company in July 2014, holding about 13% of the shares, making him the second largest shareholder. At that time, another Chinese automobile company, BAIC New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of BAIC Group, invested in the same round as Jia Yueting, holding 25.02% of the shares.

As Lucid has not launched its products yet, BAIC transferred its shares in Lucid to Jia Yueting. People familiar with the project told Tencent's "First Line" that compared with FF, which was founded just over two years ago, Lucid, founded in 2007, has better technology and talent reserves. Jia Yueting's plan at the time was that FF and Lucid would eventually merge.

But plans can never keep up with changes. Due to the spread of too many stalls, LeEco Auto was stretched to its limits in terms of funds, forcing Jia Yueting to sell his shares in Lucid in June 2017.

In China, in addition to LeEco Auto, Jia Yueting has built a low-speed electric vehicle manufacturing and an investment network in the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain through Faraday Future (Beijing) Network Technology Co., Ltd. (later renamed LeEco Auto (Beijing) Co., Ltd.). Industrial and commercial data show that LeEco Auto (Beijing) has pledged its registered capital of 8 million yuan to Beijing Yinye Jinhong Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership).

Jia Yueting's low-end electric car project in China, Diancha Automobile, has been taken over by Zhang Hailiang, a senior executive of LeEco Auto. Industrial and commercial data show that in July 2015, LeEco Auto (Beijing) invested 7 million yuan, accounting for 35% of the registered capital of 20 million yuan, ranking second as the shareholder. In August 2017, LeEco Auto (Beijing) and Beijing Jiecheng Technology Co., Ltd. each invested 14 million yuan, accounting for 50% of the shares.

However, LeEco Auto (Beijing) withdrew on September 4, 2017. The three legal shareholders of the recent new investors, namely, Ruineng Huichi Technology Hong Kong Co., Ltd., Ningbo Haicheng Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Ningbo Mingneng Investment Management Partnership (Limited Partnership), were largely established by the senior management team headed by Zhang Hailiang.

Diancha Automobile focuses on the pure electric economical passenger car market segment and was established on June 23, 2015. In the early days of its establishment, Diancha Automobile and Zotye Automobile cooperated to produce Zotye Zhima E30 electric vehicles; later, Southeast Automobile manufactured EV10.

Judging from the time of Diancha Automobile's establishment and the earliest registration information, Diancha Automobile was initiated and invested by Jia Yueting at the beginning. The early investors and registered address of Diancha Automobile are closely related to another project invested by LeTV Auto at that time - Dianzhuang Technology. The CEO of Dianzhuang Technology is also the co-founder, early investor and COO of Diancha Technology. Most of the executives of Dianzhuang Technology hold positions in Diancha Automobile.

Investment in the industry chain: debt-equity swap, reduction of holdings or freezing

In the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain, Jia Yueting has also invested in electric vehicle time-sharing leasing, automotive e-commerce, charging pile production, charging pile operation and Internet travel platforms, but LeTV's capital influence on these companies has declined significantly.

In January 2015, LeEco Auto (Beijing) invested 10 million yuan to establish an electric car time-sharing rental platform, Lingpai LeXiang Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and increased its capital by another 10 million yuan to 20 million yuan in July 2015. Tencent's "First Line" found that Lingpai LeXiang's PC official website is no longer accessible; all rental points on the APP currently show that there are 0 vehicles.

In July 2015, LeTV Auto (Beijing) invested 4.2857 million yuan to hold a 30% stake in Beijing Dianzhuang Technology Co., Ltd., a charging pile operator. Currently, LeTV Auto (Beijing) has invested 2.8571 million yuan in registered capital, and its shareholding ratio in Dianzhuang has dropped to 19.71%.

In October 2015, LeEco Auto invested US$700 million to acquire a 70% absolute controlling stake in Yidao. LeEco's capital chain crisis broke out, resulting in Yidao experiencing a period of "difficulties for drivers to withdraw cash and users to hail taxis". Private equity investment fund Taoyuan Capital announced in July 2017 that it would take over LeEco's shares. Under the guidance of the "de-LeEco" idea, many senior executives sent by LeEco to Yidao, including CEO Peng Gang, CFO Ren Ruxian, CTO Yuan Bin, Legal VP Liu Xiaoqing and HRVP Ma Dong, all resigned.

In July 2016, LeTV Auto (Beijing) invested 1.1765 million yuan to invest in Shanghai Zhida Technology Development Co., Ltd., a charging pile manufacturer, and held a 10% stake. At present, although it is unknown what the specific shareholding ratio of LeTV Auto (Beijing) in the company is, it is certain that LeTV Auto (Beijing) and other four companies currently hold 10% of the shares of Shanghai Zhida Technology, which also means that LeTV Auto (Beijing)'s shareholding ratio has decreased.

On June 8, 2016, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd., LeTV Holdings (Beijing) Co. , Ltd. and Zhongcheng Automobile Insurance Co., Ltd. jointly invested in Dasheng Technology Co., Ltd., with an initial investment of 1.4 billion yuan and an initial registered capital of 200 million yuan. LeTV holds a 40% stake, and this automobile e-commerce platform was launched on November 19, 2016. On June 29, the Shanghai High People's Court froze all the shares and dividends of LeTV Holdings (Beijing) Co., Ltd. in Dasheng Technology Co., Ltd. The freezing period for the shares and dividends is 3 years.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.