Tech Insider: Regional Automaker’s Dashed EV Dreams, Alibaba’s Comeback

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The future of troubled regional automaker Levdeo is up in the air after a bid to enter a government-mediated bankruptcy reorganization was rejected. Photo: Yu Cong/Caixin

A regional automaker’s EV dreams hit the wall

In China’s furious push for its firms to climb industrial value chains, some are inevitably being left behind.

But the phenomenon rarely manifests as literally as in the case of Levdeo, a manufacturer of low-speed electric vehicles (LSEVs) that gambled big on a transition to conventional electric cars.

Now, the future of the troubled Weifang, Shandong-based carmaker is up in the air, after a bid to enter a government-mediated bankruptcy reorganization — a kind of bailout — was knocked back for unexplained reasons. Caixin understands no investor could be found, but that is not a legal basis for such a rejection.

Levdeo, which owes creditors as much as 4.6 billion yuan ($638 million), was one of many companies that sought to make the most of the generous subsidies and policy sup…