(Yicai) April 10 -- A group of former employees of Xev released a statement on the Chinese-Italian electric microcar startup’s official WeChat account to expose its operating and financial difficulties.

Xev stopped external payments in January and has launched three rounds of layoffs since the beginning of the year, the latest of which was of the entire global sales, operation, marketing, and finance teams, according to the statement released yesterday that has already been deleted. In March, the firm stopped paying wages for February.

“The overall liabilities of Xev exceed CNY300 million (USD41.5 million), but its assets’ value is less than CNY100 million, which makes it seriously insolvent,” the ex-staff from four of Xev units noted.

“Chief Executive Officer Tik Lou and Chief Financial Officer Ho Kongho have committed serious dereliction of duty in the company’s operation and management, such as fabricating sales volume and concealing the truth,” the former employees pointed out.

The post has been deleted.

Xev was founded in 2016. Three years later, it established a subsidiary in Shanghai to mass-produce three-dimensional-printed cars. In September 2021, it debuted its first model, the Yoyo, which was also put on display at the International Mobility Show Germany held in Munich in 2021.

Xev only achieved stable sales in Italy, as over 1,900 license plates for the Yoyo were registered in the country as of the end of last year. Since December, Xev has begun expanding in France, Spain, Germany, and other key markets. It originally planned to build an initial dealer network with over 200 sales points outside of Italy.

Editor: Futura Costaglione