On April 10, the 2025 SAIC Night was held on the banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, bringing together a large "circle of friends" in the automotive industry.
Themed "Understanding Cars and Knowing You Better", the event leverages SAIC Motor's strong appeal and industrial chain in the automotive industry to demonstrate SAIC's ambition and strategy to become China's first century-old auto company.
This is also the first time that SAIC Group Chairman Wang Xiaoqiu and President Jia Jianxu have made a joint public appearance since taking office.
Wang Xiaoqiu, who took the stage first, put forward the idea of "equal rights drive advancement".
He said, "We must continue to achieve 'advancement' driven by 'equal rights'. We must achieve 'I am good, you are good, and everyone is good'. In terms of technological advancement, we must achieve the transformation from 'nothing to something' to 'from something to better'; in terms of experience advancement, we must achieve the transformation from 'user satisfaction' to 'user surprise', so that every journey of the user is a safe, smart, and pleasant travel experience."
Wang Xiaoqiu, Chairman of SAIC Motor
He further emphasized, "Looking to the future, SAIC will embrace change with the courage to be the first, work together with an open mind to embrace all, polish products with the ingenuity to strive for excellence, and promote the continuous iteration and upgrading of 'Shanghai Smart Manufacturing, Chinese Brand, Global Quality', and continuous transcendence and progress."
After Wang Xiaoqiu gave a clear strategic direction, Jia Jianxu came up with specific tactical strategies.
Of course, as an industry-leading company, the most important prerequisite is to create "safe" products. Unlike some companies that advocate equal rights and advocate that "safety is the greatest luxury", Jia Jianxu said, "safety is the bottom line of equal rights."
Jia Jianxu, President of SAIC Motor
Then, Jia Jianxu, who particularly likes to use metaphors, talked about three sets of "boxing techniques".
The first is "internal boxing". On the one hand, the group integrated the core businesses of independent brands such as SAIC Passenger Vehicle, SAIC International, R&D Institute, and Zero-beam Technology to concentrate resources, focus goals, and maximize efficiency; on the other hand, SAIC Commercial Vehicle was established, with SAIC Maxus as the core, to build a technology-sharing, globally advanced commercial vehicle development strategy.
The second is to use external forces to "fist the outside world". This includes continuing to deepen cooperation with existing joint venture partners and promoting cooperation into the 2.0 era; it also includes strengthening cooperation with other leading companies to create a new car-using experience. SAIC believes that only when a hundred flowers bloom can the garden be filled with spring, and only when the technology routes are diversified can it bring the greatest benefits to users. Therefore, for intelligent driving partners alone, they chose "Dida, Huamo", that is, Horizon Robotics, Zhuoyu (formerly DJI Car), Huawei and Momenta. Jia Jianxu said: "SAIC will actively expand cooperation with leading companies such as, adhere to the principle of 'circle of friends' without setting up technical walls, not being ecological islands, and not fearing cross-border competition, and use the complementary advantages of their respective fields to create a new car-using experience."
It is worth noting that unlike other automakers that mostly remain at the level of technical cooperation, SAIC Group is also a shareholder of many industry chain companies such as CATL, Momenta, and Horizon.
Finally, there is a set of "combination punches" referred to as SAIC Glocal, which is a combination strategy of "global + local". In the future, SAIC will take advantage of its first-mover advantage in the market to expand its overseas presence and continue to export "Made in China". At the same time, the global market will be divided into N regions, covering different personalized and intelligent product solutions, truly achieving "global thinking, local action".
Behind these three sets of boxing techniques, for SAIC Group, the goal is to gain new life by breaking the egg from the inside out and become a company that "understands cars and understands you better."
Having clarified the strategic direction and tactical approach, SAIC will release its new overseas strategy at the Shanghai International Auto Show which will open on April 23. Global automotive design master Joseph Caban will make his official debut with two new works. In the next year, SAIC will also launch more than a dozen new models.
Wang Xiaoqiu said that every car should carry a unique "user gene" from the moment it is born, and users will change from being "payers at the end" to "partners at the starting point."
In this way, from the steam engine of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau which marked the beginning of modern industry to the mobile smart terminals of the new era, SAIC Group aims to ensure that "the legend of Shanghai will never end."
