A copycat maker, a Mazda joint venture, a well-funded electric start-up and a factory built for 300,000 cars: four Chinese brands and the different ways each ran short of money.
Zotye, Haima, Weltmeister and Aiways are four Chinese car brands that stalled after running short of money. Zotye entered liquidation proceedings in 2021, Haima piled up losses and shed assets, WM Motor, which makes Weltmeister, went bankrupt in 2023, and Aiways announced in 2024 that it would leave China to focus on Europe.
Aiways poured 13.3 billion yuan into a factory at Shangrao that can build 300,000 cars a year. In May 2024 it announced that it was leaving its home market, citing extreme price competition, and that Europe would be the focus instead. The factory stayed exactly where it was.
That reversal is the sharpest of four. Zotye built its business on cars that looked like other people's cars. Haima began as a Mazda joint venture and kept leaning on Mazda technology. Weltmeister raised money from Baidu and Tencent and still ran dry. Each ran short of cash by a different route.
What is Zotye Auto, and why was it known for copycat cars?
Zotye Auto is a privately owned manufacturer from Yongkang in Zhejiang, established in 2005 by Zotye Holding Group. It moved from exporting parts into building whole cars, and in the late 2010s its look-alike models sold well in rural areas and in China's third and fourth tier cities. Its first car, the RX6400, was later renamed the Nomad and resembles the Daihatsu Terios.
Some of the borrowing was paid for. The M300 was a licensed, rebadged Fiat Multipla, and the Z200 and Z200HB were the old Fiat Siena and Palio, whose platforms Fiat sold to Zotye in 2008. Nanjing Fiat had built those cars in China from 2001 to 2006 with little success, and Zotye bought the tooling. Cheaper still was the Jiangnan Alto. Zotye bought Jiangnan Auto in 2009, inherited its facelifted Suzuki Alto and in late 2010 priced it at $2,830, a price that made it the cheapest car in China, and quite possibly anywhere.
Elsewhere the resemblance was left to the eye. Much of the media saw the Audi Q5 and the Volkswagen Touareg in the T600 crossover, launched in December 2013. The SR7 echoes the Audi Q3, the SR9 the Porsche Macan, the Domy X5 the first Volkswagen Tiguan and the Traum MEET3 the first Mercedes-Benz GLA-Class. The T700 flagship, in production from May 2017, was among the first original designs to leave the company, and in Vietnam it is sold as the Z8.
Exports and electric cars followed. The Nomad went abroad as the Hunter and, in India, as the Premier Rio with a Peugeot TUD5 diesel, built from kits supplied to Premier Limited. An electric 5008 reached Europe as the Luis 4U. At home the E30, a tiny electric car that looks much like the older Smart Fortwo, carried a 17.6 kWh battery and an 18 kW motor. Zotye claimed a top speed above 80 km/h and a range of 150 km, and reported sales of 3,471 in 2016, against 13,154 for the even smaller E200.
A day after a Shanghai court accepted the bankruptcy application, owners lost access to the WM Motor app, the website stopped working and the support centre vanished
How did Zotye go from Fortune China's list to liquidation?
In 2018 Zotye ranked 352nd on Fortune China's Top 500 list, with revenue of 20.80 billion RMB and profit of 1.13 billion RMB. After 2020 sales fell rapidly, and in 2021 the company entered bankruptcy and liquidation proceedings following worsening debt. Production was reportedly restarted in December 2022.
Commentators pointed to one weakness in particular. Zotye still depended on Mitsubishi combustion engines while competitors were developing their own engines or electrifying their drivetrains. The 1.3 and 1.5-litre petrol engines of the T200, rated between 92 and 115 hp (69 and 86 kW), were reportedly Mitsubishi units.
The comeback has been thin. In 2024 the company reported a loss of 1 billion RMB on revenue of 558 million RMB. Agreements to expand in Russia and Algeria were announced in July 2024, yet by June 2025 liquidity problems had left it unable to continue vehicle production. Four people have run the company since 2018; the latest, Hu Zeyu, known as Ryan Hu, took over in 2023.
What is Haima Automobile, and what is its link to Mazda?
Haima is a Haikou-based maker of passenger cars, which started life in January 1992 as Hainan Mazda Motor, a partnership between the island province's government and Mazda. The name is a portmanteau of Hainan and Mazda, and it also means seahorse in Chinese. FAW Group bought Mazda's share in 2006, but Haima kept the right to build older Mazda models.
The 2006 deal came with strings. Haima could keep making and selling older Mazda models, and use Mazda technology under its own designs, but it could no longer use the Mazda marque. The back catalogue shows how much it took: the Freema was a rebadged Mazda Premacy, the Family a rebadged Mazda 323 or Familia, and one station wagon a rebadged Luce. In April 2009 Reuters reported that Haima was selling a car resembling one of Mazda's models, without consent, under a partnership that had been set up to bring technological help.
At its height Haima was a mid-sized player. It listed on the A-share market in 2005 and by 2012 had capacity for about 400,000 vehicles a year: two plants of 150,000 each in Haikou and Zhengzhou, plus a third in Hainan, started in August 2008, for 100,000. In 2013 it sold 157,242 passenger cars in China, the 28th largest-selling brand in the country and the 12th largest Chinese one. It also built outward. Derways opened a knock-down kit plant for the Haima 3 in Cherkessk, Russia, in November 2010, and in December 2016 Haima announced a Bulgarian plant from 2018, which would have been the second Chinese factory in Europe after Litex Motors, the Great Wall distributor.
Why did Haima run into financial trouble?
By 2019 Haima Group had accumulated losses over several years and began selling off property and equity stakes, including its Shanghai research institute and Haima Property. Sales fell again in 2020 despite efforts to control losses, and at one point the company faced delisting. In July 2021 FAW handed 49 percent of FAW Haima to Hainan Development Holdings without charging for it.
Haima had also become a contract builder. From 2018 to 2021 it built early XPeng models, the IDENTY X and the G3, in Zhengzhou. Its own line is small now: the 8S crossover and the 7X and 7X-E people-carriers. In 2023 Toyota and Haima began cooperating on fuel cell vehicles, and Ming Qin became chief executive in March of that year.
What happened to Weltmeister and WM Motor?
Weltmeister was the electric car brand of WM Motor Technology, founded in Shanghai in January 2015 by Freeman Shen, a former Geely manager and former president of Volvo's Chinese branch. Baidu and Tencent were among its investors. The EX5 SUV was its first production car, shown at the Beijing show in May 2018, and in mid-October 2023 the company announced bankruptcy.
The build-out was fast. The Wenzhou plant in Zhejiang began mass production on 28 September 2018 and has capacity for 100,000 units a year. A second factory at Huanggang in Hubei was due in early 2020, with planned 2022 capacity of 150,000 vehicles; the pandemic intervened and it produced only 10,000. The range grew from the EX5 to the larger EX6 in 2019, the W6 in spring 2021, the E5 sedan, and the M7 sedan in November 2021. By October 2019 the company's GETnGO app had registered 200,000 public chargers, among them State Grid's.
The second half of 2022 brought rising debt and losses despite the wider range. WM Motor ended production of every model at the end of the year, laid off staff and closed most of its sales points. A search for new financing and a savings plan in 2023 both failed. Freeman Shen named the economic effects of the pandemic, a stagnant capital market and rising raw material prices as the factors that kept the company from staying in business.
The fallout reached drivers directly. A day after a Shanghai court accepted the bankruptcy application, owners lost access to the WM Motor app, the website stopped working and the support centre vanished, leaving after-sales service in doubt. In January 2024 the court accepted an application to move from pre-reorganisation to reorganisation. In September 2025 a new owner appeared, later becoming the restructuring investor and a shareholder in four of the company's entities.
Why did Aiways leave China?
Aiways said in May 2024 that it was exiting the Chinese market because of extreme price competition, and would concentrate on Europe and other overseas countries. The decision followed a financial collapse in mid-2023 that suspended employee salaries and stopped production, and a change of president in August 2023 that brought a restructuring plan.
The company was founded in Shanghai in 2017 by Fu Qian and Gu Feng, with electric SUVs as its stated aim. The U5, a 4.68m mid-size SUV, appeared in March 2019 and reached Chinese buyers that December. In January 2020 the company said it would be the first fully Chinese brand to officially sell an electric car in Europe. Geneva was cancelled by the pandemic, but sales in western Europe were scheduled for August 2020, with a first shipment of 500 U5s due in Corsica for a rental fleet. The U5 is sold today in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Israel, Switzerland and La Reunion. A U6 SUV coupe, styled by the former Ferrari stylist Ken Okuyama, followed in April 2021, and a December 2022 deal with Phoenix EV, a Thai e-mobility provider, covers up to 150,000 EVs.
The engineering was ambitious. Aiways designed its own battery pack in house, using 24 modules from CATL, and calls it a sandwich structure because layered protection separates dry areas from wet ones. Bosch supplies the U5's electric power steering, and Benteler developed its body from a mix of aluminium and steel. Cars were meant to travel to Europe by train rather than ship, cutting transit from six weeks to 16 days. In Germany they were to be sold through Euronics, a cooperative of independent electronics retailers, with A.T.U. handling maintenance and spare parts. At Shangrao, robots deliver 90 percent automation.
Then the money stopped. A new president, appointed in August 2023, pulled the company out of the domestic market and set about rebuilding its European plans. At the start of 2024 Aiways stood close to bankruptcy; in March it was protected from it and, together with Haima and Zhidou, secured stable financing to resume full-scale operations. A side venture, Gumpert Aiways, was created in 2017 with the German entrepreneur Roland Gumpert, and planned a hybrid coupe called the RG Nathalie for 2021. It did not materialise, and the company has been inactive since.
Four stalled brands side by side
| Brand | Founded | Based | Backing | Scale at its best | What went wrong | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zotye | 2005 | Yongkang, Zhejiang | Zotye Holding Group (private) | 2018 revenue of 20.80 billion RMB | Sales dropped after 2020; reliance on Mitsubishi engines | Liquidation proceedings in 2021; production reportedly restarted December 2022; liquidity problems June 2025 |
| Haima | 1992 | Haikou, Hainan | Hainan government and Mazda; FAW from 2006 | 157,242 cars sold in 2013 | Accumulated losses and asset sales; delisting crisis | FAW gave 49 percent of FAW Haima to Hainan Development Holdings in 2021 |
| Weltmeister | 2015 (WM Motor) | Shanghai | Baidu and Tencent among investors | Wenzhou plant for 100,000 units a year | Debt and losses; production ended end of 2022 | Bankruptcy in October 2023; new owner found in September 2025 |
| Aiways | 2017 | Shanghai | CATL and DiDi among investors | Shangrao plant for 300,000 vehicles a year | Finances collapsed in mid-2023; price competition | Left the Chinese market in 2024; European focus |
What do the four stories show about China's car market?
Each of the four ran short of money, and each by a different route. Zotye leaned on borrowed designs and bought-in engines, Haima on Mazda technology and heavy losses, Weltmeister on fast expansion and debt, and Aiways on a vast new factory in a home market it later described as too price-competitive.
The stated reasons differ. Commentators tied Zotye's fall to Mitsubishi combustion engines in a market that was moving to electrified drivetrains. Aiways blamed extreme price competition. WM Motor's founder pointed to the pandemic, a stagnant capital market and costlier raw materials. Haima's own record shows years of losses and asset sales.
Size gave no protection. Haima sold 157,242 cars in 2013 and Zotye made the Fortune China list in 2018; both were in trouble within a few years. Outside money then decided what came next: FAW passed nearly half of its Haima venture to a new shareholder in 2021, and a restructuring investor took shares in four WM Motor entities in 2025.
What does a stalled brand mean for the people who drive its cars?
The clearest answer comes from Weltmeister. When the bankruptcy application was accepted, owners lost the app that ran their cars' services, and phone and web support disappeared with it. Aiways took a different approach in Europe, arranging retail through Euronics and maintenance and parts logistics through A.T.U., and the U5 went on sale in nine markets.
Parts of the picture are still moving. Haima's current range is just two models, the 8S and the 7X, and it builds for others as well. Zotye's Russian and Algerian agreements date from July 2024, but its production was stopped again in 2025.
What are Zotye, Aiways, WM Motor and Haima planning now?
Zotye is aiming abroad. On 9 September 2026 it announced an international version of the Wink Y01, based on the earlier Jiangnan U2 from Jiangnan Automobile, a company it owns. Its styling matches the Qingcheng Shidai VC and the Ruixiang Hoen O2, and the car is aimed at international markets rather than China.
Aiways announced a plan to list on Nasdaq through a $400 million deal with Hudson Acquisition, an American acquisition vehicle, by the end of 2024. After the merger its headquarters would move to Europe to handle marketing, sales and finance, while research and production continue in China, and CATL and DiDi would stay on as shareholders. WM Motor says it aims for full production capacity again in 2026. Haima, meanwhile, is working with Toyota on fuel cell vehicles.
