Atypical case: Chinese startup Aiways hinted at leaving the Chinese market

Founded in 2017, Chinese electric vehicle startup Aiways has yet to succeed in its home country or Europe. This week, the company changed its CEO, Aiways now connects its future mainly with foreign markets.

Startup Aiways was founded by Fu Qiang (aka Samuel Fu), a former CEO of Volvo Cars China and an executive at Mercedes-Benz, Skoda and FAW-VW. For the role of chief engineer, the startup hired former supercar developer Roland Gumpert. Aiways' first model was the U5, a mid-size front-wheel-drive crossover that debuted in 2018, and last year the U6 coupe crossover went on sale, technically the two models are nearly identical.

Aiways is headquartered in Shanghai, the assembly plant is in Shangrao (Jiangxi province), the European division of Aiways Automobile Europe GmbH is based in Munich, the company's development center is also located here. Aiways entered the European market in 2020, but was not successful either here or in China: sales are in the hundreds, maximum thousands of cars a year — we did not find exact numbers in open sources, it is only clear that things are not going well.

Aiways U5

Last year, according to Electrive, Aiways changed its CEO twice, and this week a third one, Hugo Zhu, has been appointed. The company's founder, Samuel Fu, continues to serve as president. Hugo Zhu's predecessor Zhang Yang (aka Charlie Zhang) used to work at Nio and tried to promote Aiways in the Chinese market, where local brands are now doing very well and taking share from European, American, Japanese and South Korean brands.

Aiways U6

Unfortunately, due to Aiways' financial difficulties, Charlie Zhang's strategy didn't go well. Around February of this year, the company generally began to “freeze”: there were delays in paying salaries, some of the employees were transferred to remote work so as not to pay for office rent. The plant, too, is rumored to be running erratically, with all the signs of an imminent collapse.

In July, however, the company acquired an unnamed new investor, and the new CEO is likely his creation . A fresh press release from the German office of Aiways says that the company will «shrink» and strengthen overseas business. Work in China will continue for now, but only at the level of customer support, new investments and, apparently, there will be no new models from Aiways here.

In fact, Aiways is waiting for a complete reboot, but it is not yet clear what exactly it is going to do more. Sales of Aiways U5 and U6 crossovers are still ongoing, U5 costs in Germany from 37,569 euros, U6 — from 45,500 euros.