BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s Geely and Baidu said on Friday they would help the management of their troubled electric vehicle venture Ji Yue Auto to solve disputes with employees including over social welfare and severance payments.
The statement issued by both companies on their Weibo accounts came a day after videos and livestreams circulated on social media showing Ji Yue Auto’s CEO Xia Yiping surrounded at the company’s Shanghai headquarters by dozens of people, some wearing employee lanyards, demanding to know when they would be paid.
Ji Yue said on Wednesday it would seek to raise new money and carry out some operational adjustments to cope with fierce market competition, becoming one of a number of smaller start-ups to admit to struggles amid a bruising price war in the world’s largest auto market.
Media representatives for Ji Yue have declined to comment on the scenes at the headquarters or about workers not being paid.
Baidu and Geely founded the company in early 2021 to develop smart EVs incorporated with Baidu’s autonomous driving technology and Geely’s expertise in vehicle hardware.
Geely and Baidu will “ensure normal use, after-sales and maintenance services of users’ vehicles,” Friday’s statement said, adding that they will push for other issues to be dealt with in a reasonable and legitimate manner.
(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh. Editing by Jane Merriman and Susan Fenton)
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