Compared with the fixed pattern, it is indeed a matter of benefiting the country and the people to be able to continuously expand the new force of building cars. However, the cars produced by the new car company at that time could only meet people's transitional needs from scratch. Most of them have no accumulated design experience, strong capital reserves and basically come from abroad, and most of them are copied. There are also some car companies that advertise their bluffing foreign ancestry.
Young cars playing with fire, the unbearable test of water.
Want to say one? But judging from the brand name, it can give people a strong taste of imported goods, and Youth Lotus is one of them. Pang Qingnian, the original founder and entrepreneur of Youth Car, founded it. In 2004, Youth Automobile cooperated with Guihang Group (yes, it is the parent company of Guizhou Skylark), and then obtained the qualification of car production. At that time, the experience of young cars was somewhat similar to Geely's lofty sentiments. In the private automobile industry, this is not only a test for Pang Qingnian to build a car, but also the "first experience" of many private automobile companies.
At the beginning of the new century, many domestic car companies like to engage in the practice of "linking" and "foreign core, Chinese trademark". In the history of young cars, the most advantageous business is of course commercial vehicles. Its most famous product is the German neoplan bus introduced by young people, which once became the main choice in the domestic luxury bus market. I believe many people have taken this exotic luxury bus (many eyes).
At the same time, in order to expand the passenger transport market, Youth Auto cooperated with British Lotus Automotive Technology Engineering Company to set up Youth Lotus Joint R&D Center. Although there was a trademark dispute between the young lotus and the English lotus some time ago, which ended with the English lotus being renamed as "Lotus", if we dig deep, the young lotus does have a foreign origin of "English Lotus". Because British Lotus Automotive Technology Engineering is a technology company, and it is indeed a company with the orthodox Lotus Automobile (now translated as Lotus) that once belonged to Malaysia Proton Company. Therefore, the Youth Lotus is actually a collaboration between the Youth Group and Proton, which is supported by the Lotus Project.
Because of this relationship, in publicity, Young Lotus directly claimed that it has the lineage of British Lotus cars, and some stores directly hung Lotus logo. Later, when Lotus entered China, it could only be renamed "Lotus". Although the lotus has shown that it is independent of the young lotus, there is no other relationship between the two except for cultivating the chassis for the young lotus, but it was once regarded as an ambiguous relationship by the people, and the lotus is therefore not worthy of the name. Another mustang with a similar fate is Ford.
So the most direct result is that the people who eat melons equate the young lotus with the lotus, and the young lotus does misappropriate the labels that originally belonged to the lotus, such as performance and control. However, after so many years, the products of Young Lotus did not explode, and even gradually faded out of the stage of "sports family car". It seems that only L3 launched in the early stage has achieved good results.
Then this article will review the bumpy history of those young lotus flowers. First of all, after the establishment of Youth Lotus Automobile, with the help of the east wind that started in the domestic family car market, aiming at the broader family car industry, we jointly developed and produced the first model-Lotus L3. Officially, it is defined as a compact A-class car with sports performance, and a domestic family car with the best handling performance in the domestic price range of 654.38+ 10,000 yuan.
No matter how hard you fight, the young lotus without strength is empty.
Aside from the illusory advertising words of Lotus L3, it may be more meaningful to look at the parameters directly. The first is the handling performance that the official is proud of. Both the sedan version and the hatchback version are equipped with campro65438+7.7L/ naturally aspirated engine. The maximum horsepower is only 1 12 horsepower (82kW), the maximum torque is only 149 Nm, the acceleration time is 10.5 second, and the comprehensive fuel consumption is achieved.
From the data point of view, this kind of power does not have much advantage in the same class and belongs to the normal power range. However, it is worth noting that L3 models in early 2009 were hatchbacks, and 10 models were sedan models. The sense of motion control of hatchbacks is well known. L3 hatchback was really aimed at the old-school heavily controlled family cars such as Fox and Mazda 3 at that time.
In fact, Young Lotus has no technology research and development capability and has always relied on Proton's research and development technology. L3 is a bid change of Proton II. The predecessor layout is adopted, and the modeling, power system and platform are all Proton technologies. Later, the youth car directly imported L3 prototype, named RCR. But after careful study, this car is still selling dog meat.
The future of Youth Lotus is getting worse and worse, but as a car company, it has not given up, and it also knows that only by constantly introducing new models can it not be completely indifferent. In the hot SUV wind of 20 10, Young Lotus got on an SUV model T5, but finally launched a car L5, which missed the opportunity. However, a very impressive scene is that the young Lotus once built a 360-degree raceway to promote the performance of L5.
Another big news about the young Lotus car, which I believe car lovers must have heard of, is the farce of Saab's acquisition. At that time, young cars pulled huge cars, followed by a group of independent car companies such as BAIC, full of confidence, and planned to buy bankrupt Saab cars. However, due to various reasons, all Chinese-funded youth cars were rejected, and all the earlier promises came to you. In the end, only BAIC bought several platforms and engine technologies, and launched a series of BAIC treasures, oh no, BAIC Sic treasures.
The Youth Lotus Car founded by Pang Qingnian came to the end of its life around 20 17. However, since 20 13, it has been reported that the young lotus car that once emphasized its "lotus blood" in Britain once disappeared. Until recently, Dongjie Intelligent announced that, as one of the creditors, it received a ruling from the Xiaoshan District People's Court of Hangzhou to accept the bankruptcy liquidation case of Zhejiang Youth Lotus. It is such a tragic situation that the young lotus appears in the news again after many years. The young lotus that has experienced ups and downs will eventually go bankrupt and liquidate.
Facts have proved once again that independent brands must have core technologies if they want to play well.
After the collapse of Youth Lotus, the last time I heard about youth cars was the "water and hydrogen technology" that made a lot of noise in the automobile industry last year. Probably Pang Qingnian used some unrealistic "black technology", just added boiling water to a heavy truck, and then he could run away ... Seeing this news, the author shouted: The youth car is really a brain hole! Water becomes hydrogen, and hydrogen becomes water again. It's a perpetual motion machine! Unfortunately, such daydreams only exist in the fantasies of young cars.
Soon, this scam was also exposed, and the youth car finally fell into the abyss of perdition. In fact, the root cause is the pattern of young cars. In the early days, everyone started from the reverse platform and made a fortune. They all experienced various hardships. However, Geely, Great Wall, Changan and other car companies that are good at independent research and development and good at management survived. In this way, the car companies that once held the bombing of the king closed down one after another.
If in the development process of Young Lotus, there are fewer routines to compete for trademarks and more sincere cooperation with British Lotus and Proton Group, and learn from the cooperation between Geely and Volvo, and the cooperation between BYD and Daimler, can this ending be reversed? Everything is unknown. Of course, behind many closed independent brands, it also gives a revelation to many car companies that are still panting, that is, the core of a car company and a brand is always the core technology in their own hands. Without technology, everything will be empty talk and bubbles. ...
Conclusion:
In fact, under the background of supply-side structural reforms in various fields, not only Youth Lotus Automobile, but also the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission and other departments have clearly stated that the list of enterprises in zombie car will be gradually announced after 20 13 and 20 15. At that time, there were about 100 data bureaus, many bad assets, and the old car companies with debts of hundreds of millions were lamentable, but the survival of the fittest was indeed a good thing for the healthy development of the automobile industry.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.