Geely, Baidu pledge to resolve payroll points dealing with EV enterprise

BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s Geely and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) mentioned on Friday they might assist the administration of their troubled electrical car enterprise Ji Yue Auto to resolve disputes with staff together with over social welfare and severance funds.

The assertion issued by each firms on their Weibo (NASDAQ:WB) accounts got here a day after movies and livestreams circulated on social media exhibiting Ji Yue Auto’s CEO Xia Yiping surrounded on the firm’s Shanghai headquarters by dozens of individuals, some sporting worker lanyards, demanding to know after they could be paid.

Ji Yue mentioned on Wednesday it will search to lift new cash and perform some operational changes to deal with fierce market competitors, changing into one in every of quite a lot of smaller start-ups to confess to struggles amid a bruising worth conflict on this planet’s largest auto market.

Media representatives for Ji Yue have declined to touch upon the scenes on the headquarters or about employees not being paid.

Baidu and Geely based the corporate in early 2021 to develop sensible EVs integrated with Baidu’s autonomous driving know-how and Geely’s experience in car {hardware}.

Geely and Baidu will “guarantee regular use, after-sales and upkeep providers of customers’ autos,” Friday’s assertion mentioned, including that they are going to push for different points to be handled in an inexpensive and legit method.