
Image source: pixabay
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

Recently, the official claimed that Fengyun T9 had more than 40,000 pre-sale orders, and the pre-sale price was reduced by 5,000 yuan on the basis of 20,000 orders, that is to say, it was reduced by 25,000 yuan on the basis of the pre-sale price, and the starting price came to 134,900 yuan, and the top price was 174,900 yuan. This price is still very competitive when it comes to BYD Song Plus DM-I.
The trunk of the 5-seat model has a large volume, which can be fully used. The depth of the trunk of the 7-seat version is much smaller. The third row of seats supports 5/5 ratio reclining, which can be completely leveled, further expanding the use space. The second row of seats is also reclined, and the maximum volume can be extended to 2065 liters.
Fengyun T9 is based on the super hybrid platform of Mars architecture, designed with Oriental luxury aesthetic design language, with full overall shape, rhythmic grille on the front face, and slightly weird lines in the interior, which is also the place that is frequently spit out at present. The cornice waistline is adopted on the side, and the window lines are designed to rise behind the C-pillar, with dome wheels, dense spokes with good shape, rounded and simple tail, and the taillights of the through covered bridge have good recognition. The new car offers five colors to choose from: smoky green, starry night black, floating white, sunset blue and still shadow gray.
The interior is simple and generous, the layout of T-shaped central control is reasonable, the center console is designed in steps, and it has a good sense of hierarchy. It is equipped with D-shaped, 10.25-inch LCD instrument and 15.6-inch 2.5K floating central control panel, and the screen display effect is exquisite. The built-in 8155 chip supports voice recognition control, CarPlay and HiCar connection, electronic pocket release space, and provides fast charging for 50W mobile phones.
In terms of configuration, the whole system comes standard with 7 airbags (including far-end airbags, the length of the penetrating side air curtain is 2060mm), panoramic sunroof, 4G network, remote control of mobile APP, SONY stereo, automatic air conditioner and rear seat air outlet, etc. The body-in-white part is made of 85% high-strength steel, of which 21% is thermoformed steel, and an oversized aluminum alloy anti-collision beam and an auxiliary anti-collision beam to prevent pedestrians from being involved are provided. The passive safety part is in place.
In the power part, Fengyun T9 is equipped with Chery Kunpeng Super Hybrid C-DM system, which consists of the fifth-generation 1.5T high-efficiency hybrid special engine+stepless super hybrid DHT hybrid gearbox. The maximum power of the engine is 115kW, the peak torque is 220Nm, the motor power is 150kW, the peak torque is 310Nm, 265kW, and the comprehensive torque is 530Nm, with zero acceleration.
The new car will be officially launched on May 21st. According to the current scheduled orders, the final starting price is 134,900 yuan. There are still a few days before the official launch, and the order is expected to be rushed again. I wonder if there will be more surprises in the price then.

























