Summary of Key Points
Last August, the company made a high-profile announcement about its ambition to build the fastest car in the world. However, in less than a year, it faced a devastating setback: the project team was reduced from nearly a thousand members to just about 100, with large portions of the office space left idle. Dozens of senior executives were seeking new jobs, and the car-making plans came to a standstill. The prototype cars couldn't be driven, the land for the factory was overgrown with weeds, and there was no progress in outsourcing, financing, or international expansion. All three car-making divisions (Starry Sky Plan, Starry Future, and Interstellar Journey) encountered failures, and even the associated battery companies were laying off employees. This seemingly doomed endeavor had almost failed before it even began.
I. From High-Profile Announcements to a Rapid Decline: A “Light-Speed” Fall
The high points of the company's car-making efforts were the official announcement in August 2024 and the unveiling of the prototype car at the CES in January 2025, but the turning point came unexpectedly:
- May 2025: An article on a self-media platform titled “The Collapsing Old Man” exposed the company's well-known internal difficulties—local governments began to investigate the company's relationships, and public opinion put a stop to its ambitious plans.
- June onwards: Large-scale layoffs started, with 25% of the staff cut each time, leaving only about 100 people by August (from a peak of nearly a thousand).
- Current Situation: The company's official WeChat account stopped updating in May, with the last post announcing “The Berlin conference in May is coming soon,” but there was no further news.
Employee Li Da said, “At first, we really wanted to build cars, but the progress was incredibly slow; the plan to start mass production in 2027 was simply unattainable.”
II. Internal Chaos: Empty Offices, Escaping Executives, and Fewer Delivery Orders
Journalists visited the company's office space in the Suzhou industrial park and found a desolate scene:
- Office Space: Two-thirds of the desks on floors 9 to 11 were empty, with no office supplies on the tables. Chairs in the live broadcast area were piled up, and trash bins were scattered everywhere.
- Garage: The garage was once filled with parking spaces, both above and below ground, but now many were vacant.
- Talent Loss: Headhunters reported that since May, dozens of senior executives had posted their resumes on job recruitment websites (for example, over 40 searches for “Starry Sky Plan Director” on a certain site), covering core departments such as product development, finance, and supply chain. Most of these executives had worked there for only half a year to a year.
- Local Feedback: People in the industrial park said that the company had been laying off employees recently, and the number of delivery orders had significantly decreased in the past two months.
Employee Chen Meng joined the company in April from another automotive company and didn’t expect to encounter layoffs so soon; now, only about 100 people remain.
III. The Car-Making Plans: A House of Cards
The company's claims about its car-making progress were largely empty:
- Prototype Cars: The red “new cars” in the garage were actually models that couldn’t be driven. The company had custom-made 10 of them, each costing 3 million yuan.
- Factory Construction: The 410,000-square-meter land designated for the “Starry Sky Project” was still overgrown with grass when visited in May; it was mostly farmland.
- Key Issues: There was no progress in building the factory, raising the first round of funding, or securing outsourcing partnerships (there were rumors of a collaboration with Chery, which was denied twice).
- Decision-Making: Employees said that the company adopted a “horse-racing” approach, trying to build the factory, find an outsourcer, and establish an overseas factory simultaneously, but without clear leadership from Yu Hao, no progress was made.
IV. The Traps of Multiple Divisions: All Three Car-Making Teams Failed, and Related Businesses Suffered
The company launched three car-making divisions simultaneously, all of which failed:
- Starry Sky Plan: The core team was reduced to just executives dealing with supplier debts.
- Starry Future: The office space was empty, and the new desks and chairs showed no signs of use. The company’s official WeChat account only had one article stating that the person in charge had left.
- Interstellar Journey: There was almost no news about this division; it was reportedly merged into the “Industrial Research Institute,” but employees said this was just a public facade.
- Related Businesses: The two battery companies (Guangnian Engine and Jinghe Energy) were also laying off employees, and the mobile phone division had very few remaining staff.
The so-called “platform-based organization upgrade” was merely a polite way of describing a series of failures.
V. Reflections: Lack of Respect for the Industry, and Talent Being Exhausted
This failure teaches two important lessons to the industry:
- Respect for the Industry: Employee Li Da pointed out that although the company offered high salaries, it lacked respect for the automotive industry’s technical realities. “They didn’t follow the rules of the game, progressed too slowly, and made hesitant decisions.” In the future, when choosing a startup, he would look for companies that show respect for the industry.
- Harmful Talent Utilization: Headhunter Sheng Jinlong noted that the company’s rapid expansion followed by a sharp contraction was a waste of talent and a disregard for the healthy competition in the tech industry. “Whether successful or not, they should have tried to maintain a decent image in the tech community.”
The car-making dream of Chery Zhi Mei turned out to be a costly fiasco, serving as a warning to all companies considering entering the automotive industry. The crown of industry leadership is not something that can be claimed lightly; without respect and practical capabilities, even the most high-profile announcements are just bubbles that will burst.