Once China’s second largest EV producer, Zhidou is now on the comeback road after filing for bankruptcy in 2019.
The company’s first car will be the Rainbow and no doubt Zhidou will be searching for a pot of gold at the end of it. Thanks to information from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology we now know more details about the Zhidou Rainbow which will launch in April.
There are in fact two versions of the diminutive three door four seater car. As previously reported there is one with a 20 kW electric motor but we now know that the range of this version is 201 km not the 205 km previously reported. That 205 km range, yes all of 4 km more, is reserved for the 30 kW electric motor version. Not surprisingly the two versions carry slightly different sized battery packs – 17.18 kWh for the 20 kW motor version and a massive 17.3 kWh for the 30 kW version.
The listings put the weight of both versions at 800 kg and maximum payload is 300 kg -enough for four not too heavy adults and a bit of luggage. Going through the information it seems a steering wheel airbag is not standard on all versions of the car and there is also some form of event data recording system (EDR). The car is available with 13-inch and 15-inch wheels and the steel rims seem to be optional. Despite a poster showing the car suitably painted as a rainbow it seems that regular versions will be available in a two tone paint job. One prominent feature of both the front and rear light clusters are the Y shaped inserts.
Although larger than similar cars such as the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV and the Geely Panda Mini EV the Zhidou Rainbow is still tiny with a body size of 3224×1515×1630 mm (l/w/h) and a wheelbase of 2100 mm.
Zhidou’s teaser poster of the Rainbow does produce a mystery with the company name being spelt in English on it as Zhido rather than Zhidou. It may be that it was just misspelt but equally the brand now might be Zhido in English!
Additionally an article on IT Home spreads more light on the company restructuring. The company is now known fully as Nanjing Zhidou New Energy Automobile Company Limited and Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue serves as the chairman of the company. Showing how complicated Chinese business workings are the MIIT listing shows the company name as Lanzhou Zhidou Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd. Lanzhou is about a thousand kilometers away from Nanjing and is in Gansu Province in the north-west.
Nanjing Zhidou’s largest shareholder is a company called Hangzhou Jicheng Enterprise Management Consulting, which holds 84.2% of the shares. Established in May 2023 the four largest shareholders are Zhejiang Geely, Zhang Jian the CEO of Aima, Bao Wenguang the founder of Zhidou, and Hangzhou Jizhi Enterprise Management Co., Ltd.
“Showing how complicated Chinese business workings are…”
How true you are, Mark.
And back in 2018, when the Zhidou 2 and Zhidou 3 models were removed from the, “Catalogue of, New-Energy Automobile Models Exempt from Vehicle Purchase Tax”, it ultimately lead to lots of court proceedings, and the four and a half year hiatus of Zhidou’s business.
Anyway it’s amazing that founder of Zhidou, Bao Wenguang of former parent of Zhidou, Xindayang Electrical and Mechanical Group Co.,Ltd., has hung on this long, and is now content to be just a minor shareholder.
Does this remind anyone of Geely’s rescue of Lifan, morphing it into Livan, without the tweaking of the name?
From what I can work out Geely were also involved in the original company but to what percentage stake I’m not sure. Certainly these days Geely have their fingers in so many pies.
I have this as 2016 shareholdings:
31,5% XDY Electromechanical
6,5% Bao Wengguang (XDY CEO)
26,5% Li Shufu (one of his personal investment funds)
+ others
Before that time, the 31,5% XDY shareholding was held by Bao personally.
Sorry, my mistake. Zhidou ownership:
Before 2015: Wholly owned by XDY
January 2015: 50/50 joint venture between XDY and Geely Holdings (fund of Li Shufu)
June 2016: the above shareholding. I don’t know who the others are, maybe local government fund?
Bearing a 2018 copyright, the following website page may shed some additional light upon this “comeback” company:
https://www.zd-cars.cz/zhidou-en.html
Other early investors Leo, included, GSR Ventures (a venture capital investment company, Geely’s “Zhejiang Jirun”, and Geely’s “Shanghai Huapu”.