An der Schwelle des Zusammenbruchs von NIO Auto

At the end of a working day in November 2024, the emergency call center of the police in a small eastern Chinese town received a call.

“Hello, is this 110? I want to file a complaint against XXX from NIO Auto for corruption and bribery.” The caller spoke with uncontrollable anger: “I can present all the invoices.”

A witness who was present at the meeting reported that the call was made in a conference room in the office building of NIO Auto. Besides Zhang Yong, the then CEO of NIO Auto, several other high - level managers were also involved in the meeting.

During the call, Zhang Yong constantly tried to interrupt the caller. His voice changed from gentle persuasion to angry shouting: “Hang up immediately, you crazy person!”

The call ended, but the argument in the conference room had just begun.

This was an internal meeting of NIO Auto after the liquidity crisis. The meeting was led by Zhang Yong, the then CEO. The people against whom the call was made were, besides Fang Yunzhou, the absent chairman, also Zhang Yong himself.

There are many ways for a star company to fall into a crisis. But it is rare that an internal meeting of high - level managers turns into a kind of “farce” in which the participants threaten each other, file complaints, and finally end the meeting unsatisfactorily. However, this was the epitome of the internal turmoil of NIO Auto before and after the liquidity crisis.

This automobile company founded in 2014 delivered over 150,000 new vehicles in 2022 and was thus the winner among the new automobile manufacturers. But only two years later, starting in 2024, the production lines at three locations were shut down or the production of complete vehicles was stopped. The employees didn't receive their salaries, and the suppliers couldn't be paid.

In the evening of April 21, 2026, a special report titled “Attract investments or cause damage?” was broadcast on the program “Focused Conversation” on CCTV, which brought NIO Auto back into the public eye. In the program, the camera showed the 600 - mu site of the NIO factory in Yichun, which had already been abandoned. The production lines were shut down and covered with dust.

The downfall of NIO Auto from the top of the sales lists to insolvency and restructuring cannot be attributed to a single reason. The external competition became increasingly fierce, the product strategy failed several times, and the organization and management were in chaos for a long time. These factors together have brought the company to its current situation.

Based on several internal documents and information from people close to the high - level managers, there are some details that have not been fully told so far. They all point in the same direction: During the time when NIO Auto was on the verge of collapse, the biggest enemy may not only have been the market, but a group of people who ate from the same bowl but had different intentions.

“If we all eat from the same bowl, we will perish if we fight among ourselves.”

The call was made at the end of November 2024. The caller was also a high - level manager of NIO Auto.

According to a witness who fully understood the meeting, the purpose of the meeting was originally to clarify some invoices, evaluate parts of the company's business, and make transitions. But within less than half an hour, these experts who had been in business for many years experienced the “absurd” scene described above.

Before the participants entered the conference room, the downfall of NIO Auto had already been underway for a whole year.

After the Chinese New Year in 2024, some employees of NIO Auto reported that the annual bonuses that Zhang Yong had promised to pay out in the first week after the New Year had not arrived. Zhang Yong replied that the annual bonuses would be paid out in March due to the review and confirmation process. The end of his answer was rather black - humored: “Maybe some employees of the company are not used to living in difficult times. It seems necessary to spread the cold to everyone.”

These words were like a premonition. In October 2024, the cold not only reached everyone but froze the entire company.

At this time, NIO Auto was in a salary crisis and couldn't pay the suppliers. The factory in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, was practically shut down, and the factories in Nanning, Guangxi, and Yichun, Jiangxi, had stopped the production of complete vehicles. Since the vehicles couldn't be delivered, many customers canceled their orders, and the sales revenue almost completely disappeared. Some shareholders of NIO Auto only learned at the beginning of October, when employees reported the problems on the Maimai platform, how dangerous the situation was and had many doubts about the company's management.

Therefore, the trust between some shareholders and the company's management was almost broken even before the meeting.

A witness said that Zhang Yong hadn't been in the company for a long time before he led this meeting. The shareholders and limited partners had constantly called Zhang Yong and asked why he wasn't working anymore. They speculated whether he was in conflict with Fang Yunzhou. Some even used a bad tone and harsh language.

In the face of the pressure from investors and shareholders and the tight liquidity, NIO Auto began an internal review. A document showed that high - level managers might have misused their power to gain personal benefits. “However, in contrast to normal cases of embezzlement and bribery, these actions were very hidden and misleading.”

At the beginning of the meeting, Zhang Yong set criteria: The interests of the shareholders, the company, and the team must not be violated. A witness said that Zhang Yong believed that everything else outside these conditions would not be a problem.

He didn't hide his reluctance to participate in the meeting. Zhang Yong said: “If it weren't for this problem, I wouldn't come to the company anymore.”

In this year, more and more doubts were raised about Zhang Yong. Between 2021 and 2023, the parent company of NIO Auto, Hozon New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., had a total net loss of 18.3 billion yuan. In 2023, the sales of NIO Auto decreased by 16.16% compared to the previous year, the profit margin was - 14.9%, and the operating cash flows were minus 4.35 billion yuan.

Shortly after the start of the meeting, someone read out a series of affiliated companies that belonged to a high - level manager present. Most of these company names contained the word “NIO”, some were investment platforms, some were foreign funds, and for some, it was not clear what they were actually for.

The person who read out the company names demanded that the high - level manager present the capital flow data and explain some things. The high - level manager suddenly erupted, and thus the “complaint” scene described above occurred.

After the call ended, the situation still got out of control. The high - level employee was emotionally upset and accused his colleagues of “uncleanliness”.

The situation turned into a mutual bickering. On the one hand, Zhang Yong tried to prevent the situation from getting out of hand: “We all eat from the same bowl.” On the other hand, he defended everyone equally and accused the employee who was investigating the capital flows: “What gives you the right to investigate people?”

A detail described by the witness was very impressive. When it came to the fact that a high - level manager had two Hong Kong companies in his name, he said that he knew nothing about it and suspected that it might be a case of name duplication. Someone else said that his name was indeed on it and suggested that he look it up on the Internet. Then he suddenly asked: “Why should I spend 50 yuan to look it up on the Internet?”

There was a short silence in the conference room. Zhang Yong said: “It's okay, I'll pay.”

The meeting lasted almost an hour. Although the questionable assets and capital flows were resolved piece by piece, it always ended up in a dead - end when it came to possibly illegal issues.

Zhang Yong finally gave the final opinion on the entire meeting: If we fight among ourselves, we are lost. The tone for this matter is a peaceful separation. “What does it matter if there are still a few million yuan missing in the end?”

He concluded that no violation of the above - mentioned interests of the shareholders, the company, and the team was found. Some problems belonged to the internal distribution issues.

The meeting started with mutual threats and complaints and ended with the conclusion that there were no problems.

“Mr. Fang knows nothing about it.”

Let's go back one month in time before this meeting took place.

Fang Yunzhou was in Hong Kong for a roadshow. This was one of the many days when he was looking for money for NIO Auto, and it was nothing special. Until suddenly a message appeared on his phone screen: NIO Auto can't pay the salaries.

It was around the tenth anniversary of the company's founding. He immediately returned and also contacted Zhang Yong, whom he had personally hired more than four years ago and to whom he had entrusted the entire company management, and asked him to also come back and find a solution together.

Zhang Yong suggested hiring a lawyer for the liquidation.

According to a person close to Fang Yunzhou, Fang Yunzhou told this story on the evening of December 3, 2024, when he invited all the managers who might participate in his second company founding to a meeting. The meeting lasted from 8:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., and he cried in front of all the attendees.

“I didn't think that Mr. Zhang would think like this. I've worked on this company for ten years, and it's like my own child. Now he says he wants to give it up. I can't do that.”

This was the late disappointment of a founder. But this disappointment itself is a problem that needs to be investigated: How can it be that the chairman of a company only correctly assesses the attitude of his CEO when the company is dying?

To understand the problem behind this disappointment, we have to refer back to the basic interaction between Fang Yunzhou and Zhang Yong.

In 2018, Fang Yunzhou invited Zhang Yong to work as the CEO of NIO Auto. At this time, Hozon New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. had already been founded for four years. Fang Yunzhou was a typical technology - oriented founder who liked to stay in the background and focus on research and development. An employee once said that Mr. Fang (Fang Yunzhou) doesn't speak good Mandarin and that it might be difficult to understand his meaning. He is more suitable to work behind the scenes and not for marketing.

Zhang Yong had more than twenty years of experience in the sales industry at BAIC and Chery and was good at marketing, which Fang Yunzhou lacked. To win Zhang Yong over, Fang Yunzhou offered him a salary that was many times his salary at his previous employer. According to the prospectus, Zhang Yong's salary from 2021 to 2023 was 11.663 million yuan, 23.635 million yuan, and 30.994 million yuan. At the same time, he fully trusted him and gave him full control of the company.

Professional managers are constantly doubted by investors whether they are strongly enough attached to the company and have enough motivation to work. To some extent, the later events confirmed the concerns of the investors.

This delegation of decision - making power was evident in many places. When NIO Auto got into the liquidity crisis and an internal review was carried out, a series of cost items were uncovered. A person close to Fang Yunzhou said: Mr. Fang doesn't know many things.

The company once had a financial product worth 20 million US dollars. After the liquidity crisis, Fang Yunzhou sent someone to Hong Kong to get the money back and then found that the originally signed agreement was not repayable. But according to the person close to Fang Yunzhou, the dealer had told Fang Yunzhou during the report that it was “repayable”.

A high - level manager of NIO Auto had raised external capital in the name of the company and founded a fund that had raised a total of over 2 billion yuan. But when the company tried to clarify the legal relationships behind this money, it found that no one could say where the money from the limited partners came from. If the person who raised the capital quit, Fang Yunzhou wouldn't even have the contact information of some limited partners.

Moreover, a series of reimbursement costs were taken out of the OA evaluation records: Purchase invoices from Hermès were reimbursed as investor visit costs; Invoices for the purchase of Fendi bags were reimbursed as travel and visit costs; The expensive parking fees of 2,700 yuan per time occurred more than once...

After the liquidity problems occurred, NIO Auto quickly split into two camps. One group wanted to save NIO Auto, while the other group wanted to exit as soon as possible. The wave of departures began in November 2024: Liu Yepeng, the deputy director, and Li Peng, the deputy general manager of the product center, left the company one after another. Starting from mid - December, Yu Songyao, Zhang Qi and other R & D managers as well as the CTO Dai Dali also left the company. The above - mentioned high - level manager who filed the complaint also submitted his resignation during this time.

Fang Yunzhou took at least two actions. One was to continue looking for money, and the other was to invite the managers whom he believed would participate in his second company founding to a meeting.

According to a person close to Fang Yunzhou, Fang Yunzhou heard many complaints from the managers about Zhang Yong at the meeting.

An old employee said that he had once become “heartless” and wanted to leave; A manager remembered the disorderly expansion and closure of direct sales: “I said at that time that it would definitely lose money, but he didn't listen.”; Others also expressed their slowly accumulated...