Under the tide of national entertainment to death carnival triggered by "Super Girl", there is a company that has stepped into the automotive industry early and is unanimously considered by economists to be the most likely to succeed in the automotive field as a "layman", and is preparing to withdraw from the car-making industry.

Under the rapid development of China's economy, logistics and transportation have developed rapidly, especially the rise of export trade and express delivery business has contributed to the prosperity of logistics.

In this context, Chunlan Group aimed at the pain points of the market, and launched the so-called "heavy truck in the medium truck" product in 2001, which was very popular in the market.

The price of medium trucks and the loading capacity of heavy trucks have made Chunlan Truck jump to the second place in the medium truck market in just two years, ranking only behind Dongfeng Truck, the industry leader, and becoming a new profit growth point for Chunlan Group, with an annual net profit of more than 100 million yuan.

Chunlan's successful transition from a home appliance company to a truck manufacturer is inseparable from the cooperation from Hino Motors.

When domestic truck cabs are generally simple and rough, Chunlan introduces Hino technology to create a comfortable and luxurious cab environment, which greatly adds points to its products.

In the field of trucks, it has always been firmly controlled by the three giants of Dongfeng, FAW and Sinotruk, but in recent years, emerging companies such as Foton and Chunlan have challenged it, and the two giants have been picked off in the field of light trucks and medium trucks, and they are both ready to impact the field of heavy trucks.

In the context of everyone's unanimous optimism about the continued development of Chunlan Automobile, Chunlan Group has made a strategy of retreating from the automotive industry.

Someone once said that a person's success, in addition to self-effort, must also be considered in combination with the background of the times.

Chunlan Group's luck is really bad, they step in the right direction every time, but they always step on the wrong rhythm, resulting in the end of failure that cannot escape.

Almost at the same time as Zhonghua Group stepped into the field of motorcycle market, and successively aimed at the automotive industry, but also around 2000 optimistic about the chip and LCD project, even the MBO restructuring is on the right road, but Chunlan Group will always encounter a variety of unexpected situations that lead to project failure.

Returning to the Chunlan Automobile project, they are now encountering the situation of "the right time, the right place and the right people".

First of all, the "governance overload" action carried out across the country at the beginning of the year made Chunlan's proud medium-sized card positioning lose its luster.

Since the end of last year, the small-scale implementation of the "control overload" action has begun to heat up into a unified national action, and the seven ministries and commissions of the State Council have issued a document to carry out a major rectification of the national transportation industry, and will strictly crack down on the phenomenon of overloading for a period of one year.

There is an unspoken rule of "large tons and small standards" in the domestic truck industry, that is, trucks that can carry 8 tons of goods will be marked as 3 tons for sale when they leave the factory.

This is inseparable from our national conditions, because the national road maintenance fee collection standard is calculated according to tonnage, and the more heavy the tonnage, the more fees will be paid.

For example, an 8-ton truck needs to pay 1,000 yuan/year for road maintenance, but if it is changed to 3 tons, it only needs to pay 200 yuan/year.

In addition, when dealing with bridges, tolls and illegal fines, the labeling of small tonnage vehicles can greatly reduce costs.

The root cause of the trigger is that our country's truck loading standards are under the division and management of departments, and there are several regulations of different calibers, which gives manufacturers and even consumers room to fish in troubled waters.

"There's no problem with my 3-ton truck pulling 10 tons of goods, the more I pull, the more I earn, and I can't make money at all if I don't overload! Everyone does this, and if you don't do it, you're a big fool!"

As a truck driver, running long-distance transportation has become a good channel for many people with low education to make a fortune. Often when a driver returns to his hometown to build a house in a village, he will bring out more than 10 fellow villagers to follow him on the new road of truck drivers.

When the reporter asked why it was overloaded, the driver, who looked honest, lit a cigarette and replied with a big grin.

"Large tons and small standards" allow Chunlan trucks to identify market demand, greatly cater to the practicality of overloading, and many goods that originally need to be transported by heavy trucks can be transported through medium trucks, resulting in a significant reduction in costs.

After entering the year 2000, China ranked first in the world in the number of deaths due to traffic accidents every year, and after the internal reference of more than 100,000 deaths for four consecutive years was put on the prime minister's desk, the improvement of transportation has become a major problem that needs to be solved urgently.

"China has 500,000 traffic accidents every year, and the number of deaths due to traffic accidents is more than 100,000, statistics show that every 5 minutes a person dies in the wheel, every 1 minute there will be a person disabled because of a traffic accident, and the economic loss caused by traffic accidents every year amounts to billions of yuan. ”

Such shocking figures are enough to make any ruler pay attention.

In 2004, the number of cars in China was 30 million (plus 100 million motorcycles, agricultural vehicles and other motor vehicles), a seven-fold gap compared with the 200 million cars in the United States. However, the number of deaths due to traffic accidents in the United States is in the early 40,000s, while in China it is 100,000, and the strong contrast cannot but arouse the government's great concern.

In addition, there is another important reason that cannot be ignored is to plug the loopholes of tax evasion, so as to increase the state's fiscal revenue.

In order to rectify the national traffic order, the "control overload" action was introduced.

First of all, it is required to redefine the division of truck load, and manufacturers can no longer engage in small actions of "large tons and small standards", and all registered vehicles will re-approve the tonnage number. Secondly, carry out a nationwide highway investigation and punishment of overloaded vehicles, and find that overloaded vehicles will be detained and punished, and ordered to change before they can be back on the road.

In this situation, the medium truck market in the logistics field began to shrink, and heavy trucks regained national policy support and began to replace medium trucks and became the main force of national freight.

In terms of timing, Chunlan lost the first battle.

The misfortune is not singular, in terms of people and aspects, Chunlan continues to suffer heavy losses.

In 2001, Chunlan promoted its MBO program in a high-profile manner, and once the news of a large number of millionaires was created after the restructuring, they became the target of the reform of national state-owned enterprises, causing the Ministry of Finance to stop the endless MBO programs in various places.

In order to alleviate the pressure of public opinion, Chunlan announced that she would postpone her MBO plan from time to time, but the whole company was still full of confidence in MBO.

Finally, in 2005, Chunlan was ready to restart the MBO restructuring, but she did not expect to encounter the "Lang Gu dispute" again, and the MBO and the full stock ownership plan were stranded again.

After two consecutive MBO plans failed, Chunlan announced the indefinite postponement of the MBO, Chunlan lost her enterprising spirit, and it can be said that the spiritual aspect of the entire enterprise collapsed.

Coupled with the fierce competition in the home appliance industry, Midea, Gree, and Haier have issued encirclement and suppression to Chunlan in the field of air conditioning, and corporate profits have plummeted, and there are no development prospects for enterprises.

Air conditioning, as the main business, can no longer give blood transfusion to the side business, and Chunlan Automobile's technology research and development investment is very small, and it is beginning to struggle.

Under the conditions that the weather is not good for people and people, Chunlan Automobile decided to continue to insist and desperately plan to use the only resources to enter the heavy truck industry that is optimistic about the market.

As a large state-owned enterprise in southern Jiangsu Province, the CEO of the enterprise was once an alternate member of the central committee, and he thought that he would definitely have an advantage in terms of geographical advantages, but he did not expect to encounter Waterloo again.

At the end of 2004, a cooperation agreement has been signed with the foreign Hino Automobile, and the local government has also strongly supported it, and the management of the enterprise has unanimously agreed that the new automobile factory with 300 acres of enclosure has been built in advance, and it can be officially launched after the routine approval of the state.

Unexpectedly, this life-saving grass project, which was considered to be nine out of ten, was finally yellow and ruthlessly rejected by the National Development and Reform Commission.

The reason is that Toyota Motor acquired Hino Motors' shares last year and became its major shareholder, and according to China's automobile policy, Hino Motors should be considered as Toyota. Once Hino insists on the joint venture with Chunlan, it will occupy a place in Toyota's commercial vehicle joint venture in China.

Toyota Commercial Vehicle has already used up a spot in the production of Coaster buses with Shuchuan Motors, while Hino Motors also formed a joint venture with Shenjing Bus when it entered China before.

According to China's current automotive policy, after Hino is merged into Toyota, the two combined will have used up the joint venture quota for the two commercial vehicles.

If the Chunlan Hino project is really to be adhered to, Hino and even Toyota must cancel the existing joint venture project before they can continue to apply for a new joint venture.

In fact, after Toyota intervened in the joint venture project between Chunlan and Hino, the decision was no longer in the hands of the two parties, but the car predator Toyota.

As an auto giant, one of Toyota's major experiences in the Chinese market is to cooperate with strong local partners, and even Tianjin Automobile is considered incompetent by Toyota, not to mention half-way monks like Chunlan Motors.

Toyota was reluctant to cancel the existing commercial vehicle joint venture, and naturally the Chunlan Hino automobile project was beaten back by the National Development and Reform Commission, and the automobile joint venture project was yellow, giving Chunlan Automobile a desperate blow.

In fact, Toyota is not unwilling to continue to develop commercial vehicles in China, but they have long been looking for a good home for Hino Motors, which is the GAC Group, which is a happy joint venture with Japanese brands.

GAC is a good match for Hino, and Chunlan Automobile is not in Toyota's consideration.

The time and place are favorable, and the three major aspects are very unfavorable to Chunlan Group, especially the main business of air conditioning began to face operating pressure, and this year may be unprecedented hundreds of millions of losses, which makes the management of Chunlan Group plan to break the arm of the strong man and sell the automobile business to stop loss.

In the context of the country's liberalization of car control, Lifan Group has recently obtained the qualification of car production is proof, Chunlan Group, which has been looking forward to entering the field of car production, and finally forced to adjust its strategy under financial pressure, giving up the opportunity to enter the car market, and also intends to completely withdraw from the automotive industry.

This makes anyone who is familiar with Chunlan Automobile feel embarrassed.

"The path of diversification is right, but it is not suitable for the current situation of Chunlan, we must reshape the main business, and then talk about diversification after keeping the foundation. ”

At the company's management meeting, Tao Jianxing, who was full of words in Chunlan Group, made a speech on strategic transfer.

could have gone further in his career with the middle candidate, and it was possible to become a new billionaire in China with the MBO restructuring, but by mistake, these beautiful visions were far away from him, which made Tao Jianxing a little unhappy, and he also lost his enterprising spirit.

Since it was going to be sold and wanted to sell at a relatively reasonable price, Chunlan Group privately began to look for a receiver.

Zhonghua Group, which has just carried out large-scale mergers and acquisitions during the year, has taken buses and heavy trucks into its arms with a series of dazzling operations, which is naturally an ideal target for Chunlan Automobile to sell.

Zhonghua Group has developed very rapidly in recent years, but it has only made achievements in passenger cars, and has just entered the field of commercial vehicles this year, and Chunlan Automobile's accumulation in medium trucks will help it improve its product line.

To be honest, Han Hao was a little incredulous when he learned that Chunlan Group took the initiative to contact him and planned to sell the car business.

You must know that Chunlan and Zhonghua Group entered the field of motorcycles and automobiles at the same time, but Zhonghua Group was lucky to squeeze into the field of sedans early to gain a firm foothold, and Chunlan Automobile's medium truck also has a reputation in the market. In the brand value evaluation back then, Chunlan Automobile was the dominant force of Huaxia and Zhonghua Automobile.

It's just that after a few years of development, things are not people, and Zhonghua Group is thriving, but Chunlan is determined to withdraw from the automotive industry.

Chunlan plans to sell the car project as a whole, including factories, workers and even technology, hoping to recover blood through the car and reserve ammunition for the market competition in the main air conditioning industry. Their car factory is located in the capital of Suwu province, where the Chunghwa Group has a base for the production of micro-cars. If the assets of Chunlan Automobile can be obtained, it can be integrated quickly.

Therefore, Han Hao himself is quite interested in Chunlan Automobile after research.

It's just that there is a gap between the two sides in terms of price, Chunlan asked for 500 million yuan at too high a price, on the grounds that they have invested as much as 700 million yuan in the automobile business, and now the price is very favorable.

But Han Hao is definitely unwilling to spend 500 million to acquire a mess like Chunlan, you must know that Chunlan Automobile has fallen into a deep loss situation, and it is expected to lose more than 100 million that year. After becoming the owner, he also had to be responsible for the after-sales service of the trucks sold by Chunlan, which was another large expense.

Of course, Tao Jianxing will not only look for Zhonghua Group, he knows the truth that only by selling three goods can he compete for a high price, and he also found truck companies such as FAW, Dongfeng and even Foton.

In the face of the aggressive offensive posture of the Zhonghua Group, commercial vehicle giants such as FAW and Dongfeng have also become interested in Chunlan Automobile for defensive considerations. As for Foton, they have an advantage in light vehicles, but if they can win Chunlan at a low price, they can also consolidate their market position.

Even if they don't succeed in the end, they can still bring a lot of trouble to the Zhonghua Group by raising the price.

In the end, around the ownership of Chunlan Automobile, a dark war broke out between several state-owned automobile giants.