SAIC Delivers 100 Millionth Vehicle: China's Auto Industry Finally Has Its Own '100 Million-Level Calling Card'

May 28, 2026, a date worth mentioning repeatedly in the history of China's automotive industry.

SAIC Group delivered an IM LS9 Hyper to the world's 100 millionth user—Momenta CEO Cao Xudong—at the North Bund World Welcome Hall in Shanghai. This is not an ordinary delivery. At the same time, more than a dozen brands under SAIC and 19 car models relayed deliveries in multiple locations around the world. From Shanghai to Nanjing, Liuzhou, and Taiyuan, from the UK to Indonesia and Singapore, a cross-continental "delivery relay" announced a fact: The first automotive group in China to exceed 100 million cumulative production and sales was born.

100 million vehicles. This number used to belong only to Toyota, Volkswagen, and GM. Today, it belongs to a Chinese enterprise.

Many might say: So what if it's 100 million vehicles? It's just "large volume". But I exactly think, the most worth savoring in these 100 million vehicles is not "quantity", but "change".

First Layer of Change: From "Hammering Cars" to "Building Cars", From "Trading Market for Technology" to "Technology Defining the Market"

In 1958, Shanghai workers hammered out the first "Phoenix" brand sedan with hammers. That was the infancy of China's automotive industry, clumsy and primitive, but full of longing.

In 1983, the Santana came off the line, China's auto industry entered the joint venture era. The logic of that stage was: trade market for technology. We provide the market, the foreign party provides technology. The biggest gain for SAIC in this process was not only learning to build cars, but constructing a full industry chain capability from components to whole vehicles, from R&D to manufacturing. Many people don't know that the Santana localization consortium was once China's automotive industry's most solid "Whampoa Military Academy".

In 2016, the Roewe RX5 was launched, claiming to be the "World's First Internet-connected Car". At that time, many people thought it was a gimmick. Looking back, that was actually SAIC's first signal: The initiative of intelligence should be ours.

In 2020, IM Motors was founded, leading up to today's 100 millionth vehicle—the IM LS9 Hyper, equipped with full-by-wire four-wheel steering, full-domain 800V high-voltage platform, Star Super Extended Range, L3-level intelligent driving redundancy capability, and even co-launched "Endogenous Security" technology with Zijinshan Laboratory, pulling safety from the physical world into the information world.

The evolutionary trajectory of these 100 million vehicles is very clear: From "I Can Build Cars", to "I Can Build Good Cars", to "I Can Define the Standards for the Next Generation of Cars".

Second Layer of Change: From "Product Going Global" to "Value Chain Going Global"

Among SAIC's 100 million vehicles, cumulative overseas sales have exceeded 7 million. MG won the European sales champion for Chinese brands for 11 consecutive years. In 2025, annual European sales exceeded 300,000 vehicles, becoming the first Chinese brand to exceed one million cumulative sales in Europe and the UK.

What is more worth noting is SAIC's released "Glocal Strategy" (Global + Local) last year. What does it mean? No longer simply shipping cars from domestic to foreign to sell, but building R&D centers and production bases locally, and even reverse-engineering technology for the local market. Semi-solid-state batteries, Hybrid+ hybrid technology, were all premiered first at overseas Tech Days, then fed back to the global market.

This is the true "Value Chain Going Global". Brands, technology, standards, ecosystems, all go out together.

Third Layer of Change: From "I Understand Cars" to "I Understand You"

The detail that moved me most about this SAIC delivery ceremony was not those cool technical parameters, but that they invited various real users: Luo Zhenyu, Yang Chen, Cao Kailiang, public welfare barber Liu Jia... Behind every user is a story of "Why This Car Suits Me".

SAIC proposed a concept called "Understand Cars, Understand You Even More". In the past, when car companies said "Understand Cars", it was boasting engineering capabilities; now saying "Understand You", it means translating technology into human language, turning it into the peace of mind, convenience, and fun you can feel when driving every day.

100 million vehicles is not a cold factory cumulative number. It is 100 million specific people, 100 million different travel lives. Enterprises that can reach this magnitude must not only have built cars well, but have taken good care of "people".

Finally, let me share a bit of my exclusive observation

Many view "100 million vehicles" as the coming-of-age ceremony of China's automotive industry. I don't see it that way. I believe this is the watershed where China's auto industry enters "ecosystem competition" from "scale competition".

In the past, we compared whose capacity was larger, who was cheaper, who sold more. In the future, it's about who can build a complete ecosystem including energy networks, intelligent driving systems, data closed-loops, and user communities on a global scale. SAIC's 100 million vehicles exactly proves it has sufficient user base, product breadth, and technical depth to support the establishment of this ecosystem.

The 100 millionth vehicle delivered to Momenta's CEO, this detail is very symbolic—the relationship between the OEM and the intelligent driving supplier has changed from "procurement" to "co-creation".

This is not a delivery, but a confirmation of an alliance.

From 1955 to 2026, 71 years, 100 million vehicles. The next 100 million vehicles will not need another 71 years. But the key to the next 100 million vehicles is not speed, but height.

China's automotive industry finally has a truly "100 million-level calling card". What is written on this card is not "World Factory", but "Global Co-creation".