Chinese battery electric vehicle (BEV) manufacturer Zhejiang Hozon New Energy Automobile Company, which owns the Neta Auto brand, has officially entered bankruptcy proceedings, according to local reports.

One of Hozon’s creditors, Shanghai-based advertising company Shanghai Yuxing Advertising Company, filed a petition some weeks earlier calling for a bankruptcy review of the company, as the automaker continued to struggle to meet its financial commitments both at home and overseas. The law court has evidently ruled in favour of the bankruptcy petition and has appointed an administrator to oversee the restructuring with the aim of rehabilitating the business.

The automaker had been slashing operating costs for over a year, but this was clearly not enough to offset falling sales in its home market and overseas. Hozon had hoped to raise additional cash in a forthcoming Series-E fundraising round this year, but this did not materialize soon enough. Recent reports in China have suggested that a number of Hozon-Neta sales outlets in Shanghai had already ceased operations.

Hozon is one of the first high-profile casualties of a brutal price war in the last two years in China’s increasingly overcrowded new energy vehicle (NEV) market, which is becoming increasingly dominated by big players such as BYD and Geely.