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【Written by/ Caiquan Circle&Dao Ge Auto Talk Ma Jianyu】In the first half of 2026, the most surreal story in the automotive industry is that Zotye Automobile, which produced no cars, achieved profitability. Referring to other automakers that continued to lose money or turned from profit to loss in the first half of 2026, if ranking automakers by profit, Zotye Automobile that produced no cars would even leave everyone far behind.
Even more surreal is that Zotye Automobile, which has paused its whole-vehicle business for a long time, is beginning to export its car-making capabilities to overseas markets. This is also a slap in the face to many domestic automakers, because Zotye Automobile proved one thing to them — exporting KD for Chinese automotive enterprises is not difficult, and automakers that have been out of production for years can also achieve it.
On July 16, Zotye Automobile's official public account published a post stating that Zotye Automobile and India Kaly Emotors formally signed a KD strategic cooperation master agreement, planning to jointly build an SKD construction cooperative project with an annual capacity of 30,000 sets. This means Zotye Automobile's car-making capabilities are starting to be exported to Indian local automakers.
And will this also become the beginning of Zotye Automobile transitioning from inflated profits to real profits?
Exporting Car-Making Capabilities to India, Just Connected with Indonesia Not Long Ago
As the global automotive industry enters the transformation of electrification and intelligence, China's automotive industry is rising quietly, and Chinese automobiles have gained an unprecedented status in the global automotive market with the three words "New Energy". Against this backdrop, China's automobile exports have repeatedly hit new highs, ranking first in the world for three consecutive years. Even many automakers are starting to support sales with exports.
Against this backdrop, Chinese automakers' car-making capabilities have been recognized by overseas markets, even Zotye Automobile which has been out of production for many years. According to the cooperation signed between Zotye Automobile and India Kaly Emotors, both parties will fully integrate Zotye Automobile's existing industrial resources, carry out all-around deep collaboration in the fields of production line construction, special equipment supporting, parts localization adaptation, sales channel expansion, cloud platform construction, and quickly import Zotye Automobile's A0-class models, planning to achieve the SOP mass production off the line for this model in the Indian market.
In addition, start the development of other A0-class and B-class models at an opportune time, planning to continue to expand Zotye Automobile's market share and industry influence in the Indian market. Looking at Zotye Automobile's history, it has certain experience in New Energy A0-class models, having introduced models such as Zotye E200 and Cloud 100 in the early stage, and later also introduced models such as Jiangnan U2. To a certain extent, Zotye Automobile has a foundation in A0-class new energy models.
At the same time, as communicated by both parties, India's new energy vehicle market also indeed has good growth potential. Data shows that the penetration rate of electric vehicles (EV) in India's passenger car market in 2025 was 4.0%. It is worth mentioning that deepening the overseas market layout is one of the strategic priorities of Zotye Automobile. Not long ago, Zotye Automobile also reached a consensus on strategic cooperation for the new energy vehicle whole industry chain with Indonesia BPKN.
According to official statements, both parties initially discussed the phased promotion plan of the project: Phase I plans to adopt the SKD model to explore a fast production path, gradually increasing the localization rate of parts; Phase II preliminarily plans to explore the investment and construction of an integrated smart factory with an annual production capacity of 150,000 units, supporting four major processes of whole vehicle manufacturing and power battery production lines, laying out the landing of home, logistics, and pickup series new energy models.
Zotye Restart Beginning? Can Overseas Markets Redeem its "Chaotic" Self?
According to Zotye Automobile's 2025 annual report, in 2026, Zotye Automobile will persist in the overall idea of focusing on main business, low-cost operation, rapid resumption of production, and overseas priority, with molds and stamping parts as cash flow support, and whole vehicle resumption and new energy model landing as long-term directions. From the trends within the year, Zotye Automobile is indeed moving towards this plan.
However, whether Zotye Automobile can be re-redeemed by overseas markets still faces many tests. First, Zotye Automobile in 2026 can be described as "chaotic" to a certain extent. In June this year, Zotye Automobile fell into a boardroom "internal struggle" storm, three directors jointly proposed to remove current Chairman Han Biwen, followed by shareholders stepping in to support Han Biwen, requesting the removal of the above three directors (due to one resignation canceling the removal against them), and then the three directors who originally proposed to remove the chairman were ousted.
As the saying goes, when it rains it pours. On the evening of July 10, Zotye Automobile announced in a notice that the company received the "Filing Notice" issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and due to suspected information disclosure violations, the China Securities Regulatory Commission decided to file against Zotye Automobile. Of course, the more important thing is financial support, after all, Zotye Automobile has lost money for too long.
Financial data shows that since 2019, as of the end of 2025, Zotye Automobile has had annual losses for seven consecutive years, with a total net loss exceeding 25 billion yuan. At the same time, the 2025 annual report shows that the company achieved operating revenue of 521 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 6.66%; net loss of 367 million yuan, a year-on-year shrinkage of 63.29%; as of the end of the reporting period, the company's asset-liability ratio reached 96.54%. These directly led to Zotye Automobile's inability to restart whole vehicle manufacturing business.
Despite the fact that in the first half of 2026, Zotye Automobile achieved profitability, "far ahead" among a group of loss-making automakers. But this time the profit is quite inflated, according to the profit forecast, Zotye Automobile expects the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company in the first half of the year to be between 78 million and 105 million yuan. But the core reason is that the company carried out business contraction, cancelled a large number of long-term idle, no operating activities subsidiaries and production sites, obtained compensation income of about 200 million yuan. At the same time, a number of past lawsuits reached settlements, bringing additional income of about 30 million yuan. The sum of the two one-time incomes exceeds 230 million yuan.
In other words, Zotye Automobile's main business or car-making business has made no significant progress. And will the cooperation with Indian local automakers become the beginning of Zotye Automobile's restart?
