Exclusive | Tesla-Challenging EV Truck Startup Windrose Loses Most of Chinese Staff

The Chinese-European electric trucking startup that was supposed to rival Tesla is running low on funds—and workers.

At Windrose Technology, about 100 Chinese employees—most of the startup’s workforce in that country—have departed after it fell behind on wages. Windrose also made only a partial payment of back wages to the Chinese workers to meet an Aug. 30 deadline agreed on by Chinese arbitrators, according to people familiar with the matter.

Wen Han, Windrose’s co-founder and chief executive, said he is restructuring the business to operate with fewer workers and attract more investment. He said this leaner version of the company aims to pivot from designing truck bodies to developing and improving software for trucks made by contract factories.

“Many companies have had to take a hard pivot,” Han said. “It’s the same for us.”

Windrose burst onto the electric trucking scene in the past few years, saying it had raised about $400 million to develop a fleet of cutting-edge, battery-electric trucks aimed at challenging Tesla’s new heavy-duty Semi. While the company once received considerable media attention, it now faces a lawsuit, regulatory scrutiny and questions about its future.

Moreover, the departures in China mean Windrose is without much of the staff actually responsible for developing the trucks. Han said the company, which started delivering the trucks it has already built to customers in the U.S. and Australia, has a pathway to sell more big rigs, raise money from investors and pay back its workers.

Over the past few years, Han has told investors, customers and employees that Windrose had raised hundreds of millions of dollars from Chinese and U.S. banks and investors. He promised politicians, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, that he would open factories and assembly sites across Europe and America. He also talked about taking the company public in the U.S. before the end of this year.

But Windrose workers in America—and now in China too—say that behind the scenes, the company was running out of money. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that during the past year, most of Windrose’s dozen or so U.S. workers resigned because of, or were fired after requesting, unpaid wages.

Han acknowledged in July that Windrose had payroll issues. But he said the company had sufficient funding to keep pursuing an aggressive plan to simultaneously sell trucks across the Americas, Europe and Oceania. He also claimed that some of the criticism from U.S. employees was the result of anti-Chinese animus.

People familiar with the matter say workers in China have many of the same complaints as their U.S. colleagues. Dozens of Chinese employees resigned after Windrose stopped paying wages in April, some of the people said. Some workers were owed up to five months’ salary, including a year-end bonus from 2025 equivalent to two months’ pay, they said.

Some of the workers filed for labor arbitration in Hefei, the city where most of Windrose’s Chinese workers were based, according to documents reviewed by the Journal and people familiar with the matter. Payments in August fell short of the amounts that had been agreed upon as part of the arbitration process, the people said. More payments are due in September.

Han previously told the Journal that Windrose raised $100 million in equity and was in the process of raising a further $100 million in equity.

Asked if he is still planning an IPO this year, Han said: “Yes, but then again, I’m known for setting highly aggressive goals.”