BEIJING (Reuters) – The chief executive of Chinese electric car maker Ji Yue, a joint venture between Baidu and Geely, was questioned on Thursday by many employees concerned about whether they would be paid, videos posted online show , after the company announced it would streamline its operations.

Ji Yue’s management announced on Wednesday that it would seek new financing and scale back projects, adding to the ranks of start-ups facing a bitter price war in the world’s largest auto market.

Several videos as well as live broadcasts from the automaker’s headquarters in Shanghai were broadcast online, showing dozens of people, some wearing employee badges, surrounding CEO Xia Yiping as they demanded to know when they would be paid .

The joint venture did not mention any issues regarding wage settlements on Wednesday but asked suppliers for support. The group also did not directly mention job cuts, but said it was considering merging departments and positions that were duplicative.

Xia Yiping, whose face is clearly seen in the videos, was filmed calmly chatting with employees, asking them not to get upset. He also responded several times that he was looking to resolve the issues.

Reuters was able to confirm the location where the videos were filmed but not the date or the identity of the people surrounding the general director. The group employs around 5,000 people, according to local media.

The manufacturer’s communications team declined to comment. Geely, which owns 65% of Ji Yue, and Baidu, which owns the remaining 35%, did not respond to requests for comment.

The difficulties encountered by the sector risk “accelerating the disappearance of small brands which are marginalized” in a market which has more than 130 active brands of electric and hybrid vehicles, estimates John Zeng, head of market forecasting for China at GlobalData , a consultancy company based in London.

Consumers will increasingly turn to current market leaders, he added.

Baidu and Geely founded the company as Jidu Auto in early 2021 and renamed it Ji Yue last year. It produced two models: the Jiyue 01 EV and the Jiyue 07 EV, which had total sales of 9,767 units in September, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Brenda Goh; with Shanghai bureau and Wang Jiawei; by Mara Vîlcu, editing by Kate Entringer)

Copyright © 2024 Thomson Reuters