SsangYong, a bankrupt Korean automaker that currently belongs to the Mahindra Group India, missed a chance to come back to life earlier this week when Edison Motors, its prospective buyer, failed to effect the stipulated payment of 274.3B KRW (around $225M USD) in due time.
According to Automotive News, the company was envisioned by Edison Motors as a potential direct competitor to Tesla. A meeting of creditors had been scheduled for today, April 1, to discuss the future of the company that went insolvent in 2020. For this meeting to make sense, however, the payment mentioned above had to be made around a week in advance.
The deal was pre-approved in early 2022, but the electric car startup only paid 10 percent of the required amount in advance. According to India Times, Edison Motors had intended to secure the rest of the funding from investors, but was unable to do so. As a result, the funds arrived late and the contract was rescinded.
Edison Motors, a company primarily known for its electric muses, had an intention to turn the SsangYong Motor Company is an electric car manufacturer. There were plans to revitalize it through large-scale investments and narrow down its specialization to SUVs and crossovers.
Mahindra, which currently owns around 75 percent of SsangYong, is now looking for buyers once again. In turn, the Korean manufacturer hopes to be able to launch production anew: there is an electric CUV provisionally called the J100 that it plans to bring to the market eventually. It also has an agreement going with Chinese automaker BYD and has an SUV EV called the Korando e-Motion ready for production (see video for details).