On May 28, at the Shanghai North Bund World Living Room, SAIC Motor handed the keys to its 100 millionth vehicle to Cao Xudong, CEO of Momenta. This number marks the first time the Chinese automobile industry has a "billion-unit" player — starting from the Shanghai Internal Combustion Engine Parts Manufacturing Company in 1955, to workers using hammers to hammer out the "Phoenix" brand sedan in 1958, to today's IM LS9 Hyper entering the spotlight. Seventy years of time are condensed into a heavy milestone. But what is worth questioning more than the number is: when the Chinese car market shifts from incremental rush to stock struggle, when the attack and defense war between new forces and traditional car makers enters the deep water zone, on what grounds does SAIC crash the finish line first? The answer lies in the seemingly simple concept of "Understand cars and understand you better", and in the strategic leap from technical joint venture to technical co-creation, from product exporting to value chain exporting. This is a centralized fulfillment of user trust, and more a dimensional upgrade of the automotive industry cognition.
1. From Phoenix to IM: The Qualitative Change of Seventy Years of Technical Accumulation
The first 100 millionth delivery model, IM LS9 Hyper, is definitely not a simple flagship car. It is equipped with the industry-first full drive-by-wire four-wheel steering, 520-line super-view LiDAR, NVIDIA Thor Chip, Global 800V High Voltage Platform, and Star Super Range Extender. Each of these is the crystallization of SAIC's technical research and development for over 70 years. These configurations are not just stacking materials, but are the extreme interpretation of "Understand cars" — when an enterprise possesses self-research capabilities in the four core fields of Three-Electric, Chassis, Intelligent Driving, and Safety simultaneously, it has the qualification to convert technical redundancy into the confidence of user experience. IM LS9 Hyper is also the first to mount the SAIC Gold Label Hurricane Triple Motor, calmly entering the 3-second Performance Club. It also globally launched the "Endogenous Security" technology in collaboration with Purple Mountain Laboratories, extending automobile safety from the physical world to information and system space, which is an essential foundation in the AI Era.
This technical qualitative change did not happen overnight. From the 1980s Santana localization consortium breaking parts barriers, to the 1990s SAIC-GM creating the "Shanghai Speed" of 23 months from factory to car, to the birth of the own-brand Roewe in 2006, and the launch of the world's first Internet Car in 2016, SAIC has been accumulating inner strength within the framework of "trading joint ventures for technology". But the true turning point appeared in 2020: the establishment of IM Motors marked the beginning of SAIC entering the high-end smart electric track with a completely independent posture. And this moment's 100 million delivery is precisely the signal that this long climbing road finally sees the peak. Data shows that from January to April 2026, SAIC cumulative sales reached 1.302 million, ranking as the Chinese Car Maker Sales Champion for four consecutive months. Among them, the own-brand proportion is nearly 70%, and New Energy Vehicle sales reached 412,000 — behind the numbers is the market initiative brought by technical autonomy.
What is even more worth pondering is user choice. Cao Xudong, the first 100 millionth owner, is precisely the Momenta CEO who is a core strategic partner for SAIC in the intelligent driving field. "Partner becomes owner", this detail is more convincing than any marketing script — when the depth of technical co-creation is enough to let partners willingly pay for the product they helped build, it means SAIC's intelligent driving system has formed a true ecosystem loop. From "apprentices" in the Santana era to "Technology Consortium" in the IM era, SAIC has completed the identity switch from following to dancing together over 70 years.
2. Global Relay Delivery: Synergistic Resonance of System Strength and Brand Matrix
On the day of the delivery ceremony, an optical cable crossing mountains and seas connected the Shanghai main venue with delivery sites in Nanjing, Liuzhou, Taiyuan, and even the UK, Indonesia, and Singapore. This "Global Relay" was not just a show, but a microcosm of SAIC's full value chain loop. From Shangjie Z7, Huajing S to Roewe M7, MG4 Semi-Solid State Battery Version, from Wuling Star 560, MAXUS eDeliver5 to Hongyan Heavy Truck, JinYue Dana T1, to Sunwin Pure Electric Bus and IVECO Juxing EV, over 10 brands and 19 models under SAIC covered almost all scenarios including personal travel, family life, commercial operation, and logistics transport. This ability of "full category coverage" is a hard-to-copy moat for single-brand new forces.
The Joint Venture Sector also demonstrated new vitality. Volkswagen ID. ERA 9X globally launched the Momenta R7 Reinforcement Learning World Model, and deliveries exceeded 7,000 units one month after launch; AUDI E7X plans to become Audi's first globally to implement Level 3 Autonomous Driving; Buick Zhijing E7 is built on the "Xiaoyao" Super Fusion Architecture, and deliveries broke 10,000 units one month after launch. Behind these achievements is the implementation of "Joint Venture 2.0" strategy: no longer simply introducing products, but Chinese and foreign parties technical co-creation and platform sharing. SAIC Volkswagen's "Oil and Electric Together" strategy allows fuel vehicle intelligence and new energy vehicle matrix to exert force simultaneously. Fuel vehicle market share increased to 8.8% in January-July, which is proof of this two-front warfare capability.
The performance of the overseas market is a direct mapping of system strength. SAIC MG has consecutively ranked as the Best-selling Chinese Brand in Europe for 11 years. In 2025, European annual sales exceeded 300,000 units, becoming the first Chinese Car Brand to accumulate sales over 1 million in Europe and UK. This March, MG held a Technology Day in Frankfurt, globally launching Semi-Solid State Battery and Hybrid+ Hybrid Technology. The Hybrid+ Family's overseas monthly sales exceeded 20,000 units. Behind these numbers, SAIC possesses over 100 parts production bases overseas, over 3,000 dealer networks, as well as three major R&D Innovation Centers such as London, and four production and manufacturing centers such as Thailand and Indonesia. The Glocal Strategy from "product exporting" to "value chain exporting" has made SAIC truly a multinational automotive group.
3. Smart & Electric Deep Water Zone: How SAIC Reshapes the Industry Competitive Landscape
When new forces are still cheering for monthly sales over 10,000, and when traditional car makers are still struggling with the switching rhythm of fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, SAIC has already proven the possibility of a hybrid path with 100 million vehicles: cannot abandon the existing base, and must fully occupy the incremental highlands. The secret of this balancing act is that SAIC did not understand "transformation" as pushing down and rebuilding, but resolved growing pains through technology reuse, brand stratification, and market segmentation. The Geely system with Emgrand as the representative accumulated 4.2 million users in the A-Class car market, while SAIC formed a price band coverage from 200,000 to 800,000 through IM, RISING, Roewe, MG and other brands, allowing users with different spending power to find corresponding options in SAIC's product matrix.
The true industry disruption occurs at the intersection of technology routes. When most car makers are still tugging of war around "Three-Electric", SAIC has already extended the competitive dimension to the "New Three Major Components": Full Drive-by-wire Chassis allows handling response to break mechanical limits, AI Large Model on Board allows the cockpit to evolve from tool to partner, and Endogenous Security Technology positions ahead in the compliance foundation of the Information War Era. More notably, SAIC's joint research with Purple Mountain Laboratories implies a trend: the future automobile security competition will no longer be limited to crash tests, but will face new types of threats such as hacker attacks and data breaches. This forward-looking layout gives SAIC the qualification to define rules in the Smart & Electric Deep Water Zone.
At the level of competitive landscape, SAIC's "Partner Becomes Owner" model is rewriting the industry ecosystem. In the past, the cooperation between car makers and technology companies was mostly a Party A and B Relationship. But Momenta CEO buying IM LS9 Hyper means the two parties have formed a community of shared destiny with deeply bound interests. Once this model runs through, it will constitute huge pressure on the supply chain relationship of other car makers — competitors still relying on third-party supplier white-box delivery may face multiple lag in response speed, data loop, and iteration efficiency. The collaboration between SAIC and Purple Mountain Laboratories, Momenta, is essentially building an open yet controllable technology ecosystem, which is more risk-resistant than fighting alone.
Conclusion
When Luo Zhenyu entered the factory as the Huajing S No. 001 Experience Officer, when Former German League Footballer Yang Chen chose ID.ERA 9X, when Charity Blogger Liu Jia was moved by the "Full Score Cockpit" of Buick Zhijing E7, these stories together outline the concrete expression of SAIC's "Understanding You" — it is not cold data, but the life scenarios of every real user. From the first user to the 100 millionth user, SAIC's growth history is the microcosm of the Chinese automotive industry from "Following" to "Running Alongside" to "Leading". But 100 million vehicles are not the end, but the starting line for the second startup. As Liu Yuxi said, "Though the thousand filtrations are hard, only after blowing away the wild sand is gold found." When the tide of Smart & Electric transition washes away frivolity and bubbles, what truly settles will be those long-termists who understand both technology and users. SAIC's next 100 million vehicles may not wait 70 years.
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