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After stumbling for eight years, Dong Mingzhu, the "Iron Lady", has taken another step forward in the road of cross-border car building.

According to Tianyancha information, on October 11th, Shanghai Gree Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. was established, with Zhong Chengbao as the legal representative and a registered capital of 20 million RMB. Its business scope includes auto parts research and development, auto parts and accessories manufacturing, industrial robot manufacturing, industrial robot sales, intelligent robot research and development, etc.

According to the information of equity penetration, Zhuhai Gree Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Jieyingtu New Material Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Gree Electric, jointly hold shares, holding 51% and 49% respectively. Earlier, Gree Electric said that Gree Intelligent Equipment has provided one-stop intelligent manufacturing solutions for many industries such as automobile new energy.

The establishment of Shanghai Gree Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. is not surprising, because as early as 2016, Dong Mingzhu announced that he would personally invest 1 billion yuan in Gree Titanium New Energy Co., Ltd. (called "Yinlong New Energy Co., Ltd."), thus embarking on the road of building a car.

Unfortunately, behind the unsatisfactory achievements of Gree Titanium, the outside world has always been full of doubts about Dong Mingzhu’s persistence. Now, with the establishment of the new company, Gree Electric has been further expanded in the field of automotive technology. Will this make its next road to building cars go smoothly?

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Making a car has many twists and turns.●

It seems that every famous industry leader with a surname has a dream of building a car, such as Lei Jun of Xiaomi, Li Yanhong of Baidu, Huang Hongsheng of Skyworth, etc. Therefore, it is reasonable for Dong Mingzhu of Gree to want a piece of the action, and even her entry is not too late.

Dong Mingzhu’s relationship with making cars can be traced back to 2016. At that time, Dong Mingzhu pushed Gree Electric to buy Yinlong New Energy because it was very optimistic about the prospects of the new energy vehicle market.The plan of the meeting was that Gree Electric planned to acquire 100% equity of Yinlong New Energy by issuing shares, with a transaction consideration of 13 billion yuan.

However, the proposal was rejected at the shareholders’ meeting, which made Dong Mingzhu puzzled. She even spoke at the 2016 (15th) annual meeting of Chinese business leaders, saying, "Why did (shareholders) object? Because he is short-sighted, he only looks at the three points in front of him. If the acquisition is successful, I may work harder. If the acquisition is not successful, I will do less. (But) we must be a new energy vehicle! "

Soon after, Dong Mingzhu announced that she would invest in Yinlong New Energy in her own name. This time, she also brought Wang Jianlin’s Wanda and Liu Qiangdong’s JD.COM together. They jointly invested 3 billion yuan in Yinlong New Energy, and Dong Mingzhu became the second largest shareholder of the company, holding 17.46%.

However, after Dong Mingzhu entered Yinlong New Energy, a series of negative events such as debt collection and layoffs occurred in the latter. Even in November 2018, Yinlong New Energy also exposed its "domestic ugliness".Wei Yincang, the former chairman, and Sun Guohua, the former president, were found to be suspected of encroaching on the company’s interests by illegal means, amounting to more than 1 billion yuan. The company has filed a lawsuit and reported the case to the Economic Investigation Detachment of Zhuhai Public Security Bureau.

As the second largest shareholder, Dong Mingzhu can only "clean up the door" constantly, and admitted that it was a "hole" only after entering Yinlong New Energy, but said that he did not regret building a car.

In this way, it went through many years, until September, 2021, Gree Electric announced that the company won 30.47% equity of Yinlong New Energy by participating in judicial auction and public auction, and Dong Mingzhu also entrusted Gree Electric with the right to vote corresponding to its equity of Yinlong New Energy, and Yinlong New Energy became a holding subsidiary of Gree Electric. Less than two months after the acquisition, Yinlong New Energy was officially renamed as "Gree Titanium New Energy Co., Ltd.".

But even if it has stabilized, Yinlong New Energy has not been able to gain many successful "records" in building cars.Its first pure electric MPV model "Effie" was officially launched in May 2019, and its sales volume was quite bleak. In that year, the sales volume was only 2,708, which rebounded in 2021, but it fell back in 2022.

In addition, Yinlong New Energy is also full of challenges in terms of profitability. According to the announcement, in 2022, its operating income was 2.587 billion yuan and its net profit was-1.905 billion yuan. In the first half of 2023, the operating income was 1.44 billion yuan and the net profit was-171 million yuan. In the first half of this year, Gree Electric’s green energy business revenue decreased by 31.84% year-on-year, which means that Gree Titanium’s new energy business declined.

Therefore, when many netizens mention Gree’s cross-border car building, they will repeatedly question: "Are you sure you want to go black?"

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The story continues.●

Interestingly, the market loves to compare the big names who build cars across the border, among which Dong Mingzhu and Lei Jun are often tied together. Because they had a high-priced "gambling game" before, and then they all chose to enter the car-making industry.

At the 2013 CCTV Annual Economic Person Awards Ceremony, Lei Jun and Dong Mingzhu made a bet in front of the national audience. Lei Jun said: "If Xiaomi’s operating income beats Gree within five years, Mr. Dong will lose me a dollar." Dong Mingzhu replied strongly: "Don’t mention a dollar. If you want to gamble, you will bet 1 billion."

After five years of gambling, the results came out. In 2018, Gree Electric’s total revenue was 198.12 billion yuan, and Xiaomi’s was 174.9 billion yuan. Judging from the revenue data alone, Dong Mingzhu won the bet.

But now, in terms of building a car, it seems that Lei Jun has "won the hemp".In September 2021, Xiaomi officially registered Xiaomi Automobile Co., Ltd. with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan, and Lei Jun personally served as the legal representative. Only in the past three years, the monthly delivery volume of Xiaomi Automobile has steadily exceeded 10,000 vehicles, which far exceeds Gree in both performance and word of mouth.

But as Lei Jun once said, the car is a century-old track. As long as you are optimistic about the automobile industry, it is never too late.Maybe if we persist a little longer, Dong Mingzhu’s car-making industry can wait for a "bumper harvest". At present, Gree Electric focuses on different angles, focusing on the core components of new energy vehicles.

For example, in 2022, Gree Electric invested 3 billion yuan in Dunan Environment, which is a leading enterprise in the refrigeration component industry. The company’s main business is divided into two parts: refrigeration parts business, refrigeration equipment business and thermal management business of new energy vehicles. This move is regarded as the company’s intention to cut into the field of thermal management of new energy vehicles.

In December last year, Gree Electric added new energy and increased its holdings of Gree Titanium. It was announced that the company had signed the Share Transfer Agreement with 12 counterparties on December 19, 2023, and planned to receive 271 million shares of Gree Titanium, which accounted for 24.54% of the total share capital of Gree Titanium, and the transaction consideration was 1.015 billion yuan.

There is also the newly established Shanghai Gree Automobile Technology Co., Ltd., which is located in Lingang New Area of Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. Its business covers technology promotion and application services, including industrial Internet data services, intelligent robot research and development, software development, technology intermediary services, as well as sales and manufacturing of refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment and research and development of auto parts.

The establishment of this company marks the further expansion of Gree Electric in the field of automotive science and technology, especially in the research and development of automotive parts, showing Gree’s in-depth layout in intelligent manufacturing and technological innovation.

Obviously, even if we hit a wall repeatedly, we still can’t erase Dong Mingzhu’s determination to dig deep into the automobile market. Her story of building a car is still going on, and it will take time to give an answer as to the ending.

Author | Ber Ber

Source | CarVisibility