Zotye Auto, the once-popular Chinese maker known for low-cost knockoffs of luxury models, has quietly begun a large-scale recruitment drive that signals a potential effort to resume vehicle production. Job listings covering design, R&D, validation and production-access roles have circulated in the industry, and online recruitment platforms show 49 open positions concentrated in Jinhua and Hangzhou. Applicants have appeared, with an average of five to six résumés meeting requirements per role and roughly 20% of positions already attracting candidates, but many are asking whether the work — and pay — will be stable.
The hiring push is explicitly tied to preparations for restarting operations. Zotye’s 2025 half-year filing said its vehicle business had not resumed because of a lack of operating funds, and production has been negligible since its 2020 bankruptcy and judicial restructuring. Still, a string of asset and funding moves over recent months has eased some constraints: previously frozen shares were released from judicial freeze, the company secured a substantial pre-credit line from a local rural commercial bank, and it reached settlements to resolve more than 400 million yuan in disputed bank loans, unfreezing collateral and clearing legal obstacles to restarting.
Boardroom changes have accompanied the operational manoeuvres. Han Biwen, a long-time Chery executive with two decades in the group and experience overseeing manufacturing and quality at joint ventures and niche brands, was appointed Zotye chairman in mid-January after a short-lived tenure by a previous chair. The company’s November board candidate list also featured several executives with links to Chery and to business groups connected to Duan Yongping’s Bubugao ecosystem, a pattern market participants read as a sign that larger OEMs and private investors may be circling Zotye’s assets even as the automaker publicly denies firm tie-ups.
Zotye’s commercial record helps explain the caution. Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, the brand peaked in 2016 with about 330,000 units sold, earning it the ironic nickname “Baoshitai.” But a lack of core engineering and electric-vehicle capabilities left it exposed when the market shifted, and sales collapsed to just a few thousand vehicles by 2019. The firm entered bankruptcy reorganisation in 2020 and emerged with Jiangsu-based Shenshang Holdings as a court-appointed investor; production since then has been a trickle — 524 units in 2022, 1,108 in 2023 and effectively none in 2024.
Financially there are tentative signs of improvement but not recovery. Zotye reported 419 million yuan of revenue in the first three quarters of 2025 and a narrowing net loss, yet its 2025 full-year result is still expected to be negative and the company says its core problem remains an absence of sustained operating capital to fund mass production. The firm has shipped only a handful of legacy export orders in 2025, underscoring that any revival will require fresh investment, supplier re-engagement and dealer confidence.
For the wider Chinese car market, Zotye’s attempted restart is emblematic of two broader dynamics: capacity churn and consolidation. As the industry grapples with overcapacity and fierce competition in new energy vehicles, dormant brands and factories are attractive low-cost options for better-funded groups looking to expand footprint or take on excess local capacity. At the same time, reviving a brand with weak technological credentials in the NEV era is risky; buyers and partners place a premium on software, battery supply and after-sales networks.
If Zotye does successfully scale up production, the immediate beneficiaries would likely be local suppliers and workers in Jinhua and Yongkang, and possibly national policymakers keen to stabilise employment. But long-term viability depends on whether Zotye can secure strategic capital, either through binding partnerships with established OEMs or by building credible in-house ability in electrification and software. Without that, the recruitment drive may amount to a cautious opening of a door that could close again if funding and product credibility do not follow.