Bankruptcy Notice No. 31: The Last Chapter of China’s First Premium Brand

Qoros Auto Enters Bankruptcy Review: 50 Billion Yuan Burned, Nothing Left but a Mess

In January 2026, the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province posted a bankruptcy review notice that pulled the long-silent Qoros Auto back into public view. The petitioner was Shenzhen Xinben Supply Chain Co., Ltd., a creditor that had been waiting too long for unpaid invoices and finally turned to the courts. The case number is impersonal, but it points unambiguously to the end of a carmaker.

This is not the first time Qoros has appeared in court announcements. By the end of 2025, the company had 31 equity-freeze orders against it, freezing total equity of more than 35 billion yuan (roughly $4.8 billion). It was listed as a dishonest judgment debtor 36 times, involving over 136 million yuan in total claims, and had 37 enforcement cases on record, with accumulated amounts exceeding 760 million yuan. For an automaker that sold fewer than 100 vehicles in its last full year, those figures left almost no room to manoeuvre.

Qoros did not start from a low base. It was formed in 2007 as a joint venture between Chery Automobile and Israel Corporation, to build a premium global brand. R&D centres were set up in Shanghai and Munich, and senior talent was hired away from BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo to lead design and management. In 2013, the first production model, the Qoros 3, was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. That same year it scored the highest rating in the Euro NCAP crash tests, the first time a Chinese brand had ever earned five stars. The car also won a Red Dot Design Award. European automotive media gave it decent reviews. Chinese consumers did not buy it.

Pricing was one of the sticking points. The Qoros 3 was priced almost on par with similarly sized joint-venture models, yet the brand lacked the story needed to support those numbers. From 2014 to 2016, annual sales hovered around 10,000 units, and losses totalled 6.6 billion yuan over three years. In 2017, Yao Zhenhua, chairman of Baoneng Group, acquired Qoros for 6.63 billion yuan and became its controlling shareholder. That year, the company declared it would invest 10 billion yuan annually in new-vehicle development.

Sales suddenly jumped to 63,000 units in 2018, a year-on-year surge of 320 percent. But the bulk of those vehicles were not sold to individual buyers. They were absorbed internally by Liandongyun, Baoneng's own car-rental platform — essentially moving money from one pocket to the other. Once the rental channel was saturated, the numbers dropped just as fast. Sales fell to 22,700 in 2019, then to 13,100 in 2020, to 5,200 in 2021, and to fewer than 100 in 2023. Factories went from shortened shifts to shutdowns and then full stoppages. Dealerships, unable to obtain cars or parts, began terminating their franchises and demanding redress. Unpaid wages for employees became routine.

Baoneng itself was contracting. After 2021, its property and financial-services arms were squeezed by tightening regulation, and liquidity pressures mounted. Tianyancha corporate records list Baoneng Group as an enforcement target 67 times, with total enforcement amounts exceeding 34 billion yuan. At a 2021 forum, Yao Zhenhua said the group had spent more than 50 billion yuan on its auto venture since 2016. Today that sum corresponds to bare body-in-white shells left inside idle factories, unsettled payment terms on suppliers' books, and labour arbitration rulings still waiting to be enforced by workers.

In early 2026, the bankruptcy review petition filed by Shenzhen Xinben Supply Chain was accepted by the Suzhou Intermediate People's Court. Qoros Auto's last official Weibo post is dated 2023. Its website once carried the brand slogan "Independent & Forward." The page no longer loads.