The new Zhidou Rainbow should launch in the second quarter of this year which is a remarkable resurrection for a company which was once China’s second largest NEV producer but filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and has been dormant ever since.

Zhidou was one of the early birds with microcars and so it’s no surprise that that the Zhidou Rainbow is very much in the style of the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV. A 3-door four seater it has a length, width and height of 3224/1515/1630 mm respectively and a wheelbase of 2100 mm. However the car is larger than both the Wuling car and also Geely’s Panda.

Power comes from a 20kW electric motor, and the car uses a lithium iron phosphate battery from Gotion.

Zhidou has been restructured from bankruptcy by Geely and Aima Technology Group with Geely chairman Eric Li (Li Shufu) and Aima chairman Zhang Jian playing key roles. Aima is a company involved in producing e-bikes. It is believed that Zhidou will use Aima sales channels.

According to Fast Technology Zhidou was founded in 2006 and the company’s European website says it was a joint venture between Geely Holding Group, XDY Machinery and Electronics Group and GSR Ventures. Zhidou previously sold a range of two seater microcars, e-bikes and electric tuk-tuks.

Zhidou was one of the first new energy vehicle companies to achieve more than 100,000 accumulative sales. The company’s best year was 2017 when the company ranked as China’s second best selling new energy vehicle company with sales in China of 42,000. Fast Technology claim the cars were also widely exported to Europe and other countries.

The company was a victim of changes of regulations in 2017 which meant all electric cars with ranges of less than 250 km were no longer eligible for subsidies. Sales fell abruptly and by 2019 the company only sold just 2,005 cars in the first half of the year leading to its bankruptcy.

Editor’s note:

It’s surprising that after such a long period since going bankrupt and no one being interested in rescuing the company or buying the assets that Geely and Aima have decided that now is the right time to resurrect the brand. It just goes to show that it is very difficult to kill a car brand in China despite there being far too many of them.

Microcars are now very popular in China and so this may well be a success especially given that Aima has 30,000 stores across the country. Under the new company structure Zhidou should benefit from supply chain and research resources of both companies along with the sales channels of Aima.

It also goes to show how much the NEV market has moved in China. Back in 2019 it was not possible to sell a low range EV car without subsidies but now companies can produce them without subsidies for a price that is very attractive to consumers. It will also help that the new car is a four seater, previous Zhidou cars seem to have all been two seaters which limited appeal.

One very curious aspect with Zhidou is that the international website for the company seems to be still active despite the company not producing cars since 2019.