After 30 Million Units, Where is GAC Heading?

On the afternoon of July 16, at the GAC Trumpchi factory. On the large screen, GAC Honda P7, GAC Toyota Bozhi 7, Qijing GT7, GAC AION N60, GAC Hyper S600 went off the production line in sequence — they were respectively the 29,999,995th to 29,999,999th vehicles of GAC. Subsequently, all eyes focused on a right-hand drive Trumpchi M8 PHEV slowly driving out on stage; at this moment, GAC Group's cumulative production officially reached 30 million vehicles.

Attendees witness GAC reaching a 30 million user milestone moment

GAC's 30 Millionth Vehicle — Right-hand Drive GAC Trumpchi M8 PHEV Drives Off the Production Line

“Thirty million is not a cold number, but the trust and hearts of people.” As GAC Group Chairman Feng Xingya said at the event, from Guangzhou to 110 countries and regions worldwide, this trust is the greatest gift given by the times and users to GAC, and will also become the solid foundation for GAC to navigate deep industry changes and market fluctuations cycles, possessing confidence and resilience amidst the changing situation.

As one moves to the midway point, the water flows faster and the wind blows stronger. Now, the automotive industry's elimination of the weak and survival of the strong is intensifying, technology is developing rapidly, and stock competition is becoming increasingly frenzied. How should GAC go from "scale leading" to "value leading", and where will it sail in the wave of globalization?

A 29-Year "Foundation-Laying" Journey

In 1999, GAC Honda 6th Gen Accord; in 2006, GAC Toyota 6th Gen Camry; in 2010, GAC Trumpchi GA5; in 2019, GAC AION AION S; in 2023, GAC Hyper SSR, GAC Trumpchi E8 PHEV; in 2026, Qijing GT7…

GAC All-Time Classic Models

At GAC Group's 30 million user gratitude event, every 'classic car' arranged in order is a footnote to an era. In 1997, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. was officially established. In 1998, signed with Honda R&D Co., Ltd., Japan, establishing Guangzhou Honda (later renamed GAC Honda) on the basis of the original Guangzhou Peugeot factory. This cooperation was hailed as 'one of the most successful cases in the history of Sino-foreign joint ventures in the Chinese automotive industry'. The following year, the first Accord sedan went off the production line, 'Made in Guangzhou' sedans began to enter households; In 2004, GAC Group signed with Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan, establishing Guangzhou Toyota (later renamed GAC Toyota), entering the 'Golden Age' of Guangzhou automotive industry; In 2010, on the eve of the Guangzhou Asian Games, GAC Group officially released its first independent passenger car brand 'Trumpchi', and launched the first model Trumpchi GA5 sedan, the 'independent dream' of GAC finally became true; Facing the wave of electrification and intelligence in global automobiles, GAC Group started construction of GAC Intelligent New Energy Vehicle Industrial Park in 2017, established GAC New Energy, announced its independent operation and renamed 'GAC AION' in 2020, which became the 'GAC solution' for traditional automakers transformation; In November 2024, GAC launched the three-year 'Panyu Action', creating an ecological, technological GAC with strong system capabilities, high user value, and internationalization.

Along the way, GAC polished car by car, climbed step by step, through generational product iteration and relay, entering 30 million households, carving out a successful path of 'market-oriented, low investment, quick output, rolling development, technology synchronized with the world'. The 'Panyu Action' reform has also completed the phased task of laying a solid foundation and erecting pillars; currently, independent brands have fully renewed, new products like AION i60 built with a new process system have consecutive monthly sales breaking 10,000 units, Qijing GT7, the first model of Qijing Autos jointly created with Huawei Qunkun, launched as scheduled, GAC Toyota Bozhi series remains hot selling.

“In the past 29 years, GAC Group has adhered to joint cooperation and independent innovation, continuously promoting transformation and upgrading, providing users with high-safety, high-quality products and services.” Fu Bingfeng, Executive Vice President and Secretary-General of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said at the event: Today's 30 million vehicle achievement is substantial in quality and unique in significance. Behind this honor is GAC Group's successful practice over 29 years, always market-oriented, seizing opportunities of the joint cooperation era, standing at the forefront of the independent innovation era, opening a new chapter of the globalization era, precisely hitting the rhythm of every industrial change step. These 30 million vehicles are not only important phased results on GAC's path of scale, electrification, and intelligence development, but also a vivid microcosm of high-quality development and globalization advancement of the Chinese automotive industry.

Fu Bingfeng, Executive Vice President and Secretary-General of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers

With the steady rise in production and sales scale, GAC Group has also made many important contributions, cumulatively creating nearly 5 trillion yuan of industrial output value, driving the development of regional industry clusters, becoming a pillar of the high-quality development of the economy and society in South China and advanced manufacturing, fully demonstrating Guangzhou's strong strength and development vitality as a highland of the national automotive industry.

“Completely Stand from the User's Perspective”

“In the past, we always stood from the engineer's perspective to polish technology; today, we must completely stand from the user's perspective, review experience, and warm hearts.”

Although this user-centric concept was deeply integrated into GAC Group's development genes long ago, forming the corporate concept of 'People-oriented, Trust-based, Innovation-first', but standing at the new starting point of 30 million vehicles, the first step GAC took was still the continuous innovation and progress of user concepts. The 'thoroughness' emphasized by Feng Xingya is not rhetoric, but has already been transformed into concrete actions.

Centered on user needs, GAC actively promoted iterative upgrades of work processes and organizational structures, ensuring user needs are not only heard but efficiently converted into products and experiences with 'emotional value'. On the one hand, GAC created a new 'All Users Open Mic' mechanism, allowing R&D and product heads to face users' daily car usage pain points directly, accurately converting real feedback into product optimization priorities, ensuring every technical upgrade and function adjustment fits users' real travel needs. According to reports, currently this mechanism has been implemented simultaneously across the three major brands Trumpchi, AION, and Hyper. In the future, GAC will also build an online 'All Users Open Mic' platform to continuously deepen the connection with users.

GAC 'All Users Open Mic' Event Site

On the other hand, GAC established a full-link, normalized user co-creation mechanism, by inviting users to participate in product planning, R&D testing, marketing promotion, user operation and other links, promoting users to transform from product users to value co-creators, making user co-creation truly land, benefiting more users. In addition, GAC also established a dedicated user insight department, promoted full-process transformation from problems to solutions, and ensured user requests were responded to and resolved in every case from an organizational mechanism.

Completely standing from the user perspective, GAC is landing in every link of the consumption lifecycle. To solve charging difficulties, GAC wove a dense energy replenishment network, building a '9 Vertical 10 Horizontal' energy replenishment network, covering 31 provinces and 213 cities nationwide, guaranteeing one kilometer must be reached in core urban areas; Wanting users to maintain more conveniently, GAC sank channels, adding 1,000 county-level stores within this year, as of the end of June, 600 store identifications have been completed; Smart technology requires frequent updates, GAC insists on iteration, completing 68 OTA upgrades in 2025, listening to voices, closing loops item by item.

“This is the sincerity we understand — what users care about, we keep in our hearts; what users expect, we go all out. GAC, with 30 million users, has long realized that the competition in the next journey is not about who builds cars faster and cheaper, but who understands the person in the car better.”

“Some Things Should Never Be Greedy for Quantity or Speed”

On the red display boards at the event site, a line of large text caught many eyes: 'Quality is the starting point of all GAC stories.'

Quality has always been GAC's base color, even faith. Feng Xingya emphasized: 'For GAC, cars are mobile harbors carrying family safety and happiness. Some things can pursue speed and newness, but some things should never be greedy for quantity or speed. Quality and safety are the bottom line GAC will never cede.' For many years, GAC has always adhered to positive development, built a 'V' model product development process covering software and hardware centered on user needs, and formed a complete test verification system covering whole vehicles, system levels, and components.

What is rare is that while many automakers are constantly shortening automotive R&D cycles, GAC Group adheres to long-termism. Every new car must pass through the extreme test of 'Five Highs One Mountain One Dust' before launching, complete 'Two Winters One Summer' all-scenario road tests. New car development takes at least 18 months, and the conventional steady cycle is as long as 21 months.

GAC Smart New Energy Matrix Shines

Some extreme conditions, users may never encounter in a lifetime, but GAC must verify in advance. Every new car needs to pass verification by over 500 engineers, thousands of days and nights, nearly 10,000 tests before launch, cumulative equivalent test mileage over 13 million kilometers, fully covering all kinds of extreme usage scenarios. At the same time, relying on the world's first complete vehicle wind tunnel laboratory integrating aerodynamics, aerodynamic acoustics, and thermodynamics, GAC is also committed to creating a more economical and quieter driving experience for users.

GAC Wind Tunnel Laboratory Station

Practicing long-termism does not mean being old-fashioned. Facing new technology trends such as electrification, intelligence, and networking, GAC has refined leading technologies such as Xingyuan Power, Xinghe Smart Cockpit, Xingjian Body, StarLink Architecture 4.0, etc., ensuring users can enjoy the latest technology achievements while also ensuring safety, comfort, and economy.

The electrification competition has entered the 'deep water period'. GAC's Xingyuan Extended Range terminates the 'power depletion feeling', has advantages such as ultra-high efficiency, ultra-powerful, ultra-silent. 1 liter of fuel can convert 3.73 kWh of electricity. The maximum continuous power generation power has increased by over 20% compared to competitors in the same class. Xingyuan Plug-in Hybrid enables 2-ton vehicles to have 4-second level acceleration experience and '3-figure' ultimate energy efficiency for 100 km fuel consumption. Xingyuan Super Dual Engine introduces industry-leading 5.4kWh high-rate safety battery for the first time, giving hybrid vehicles intelligent experiences at the same level as pure electric vehicles, moving from feature phone to smartphone era.

Intelligence is an important 'second half' of the automotive industry victory. GAC's Xinghe Smart Cockpit ADiGO Intelligence Edge-Cloud Integrated Architecture, relying on massive operating data from 3.75 million vehicles, creates three core engines: Edge-side multi-modal perception, Multi-agent collaboration combined with memory, Multi-modal emotional expression. Edge-side response latency is less than 1.6 seconds, in-car target recognition accuracy exceeds 95%. In addition, Xingling Architecture 4.0 is based on parallel upgrade and pre-installation technology, achieving full-vehicle 'sensation-free' OTA, fastest upgrade time 8 minutes. Users can also freely combine like building blocks to create exclusive intelligent scenarios, supporting over 3,600 functional atoms, nearly double the previous generation. It is worth mentioning that the architecture also has a full-dimensional safety health system and obtained the world's first expected functional safety certificate from TÜV Rheinland.

The Xingling Safety Protection System built by GAC has four protection dimensions, eight key systems adopt dual redundancy design, has protected nearly 2 million users, avoided 6.28 million potential travel risks; Magazine Battery cumulatively installed in 1.5 million vehicles, safe driving mileage exceeds 160 billion kilometers. GAC has also been the first to launch an independent brand 'Three Responsibilities' policy in the industry, taking the initiative to cover battery and intelligent driving assistance issues users care about, eliminating user concerns about vehicle use, fully demonstrating confidence in product quality.

“To the Stars and Seas Together”, From Guangzhou to the World

“30 million is not the end, but a brand new starting point.” As the best interpretation of this sentence, Feng Xingya handed the key of the 30 millionth vehicle to Mr. Tony Jaa, a Thai owner. This scene witnessed the 'two-way rush' between GAC and global users.

Feng Xingya (Left) hands over new car keys to Thai owner Tony Jaa (Right)

In the first half of this year, GAC Group sales reached 773,100 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.35%. Among them, overseas exports exceeded 120,000 units, a significant increase of 132% year-on-year, approaching last year's full year level. As GAC cars leave Panyu, crossing mountains and seas, arriving in Americas, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa and Europe and other regions, GAC is relying on the 'One GAC 2.0' strategy to accelerate the shift from product going overseas to systematic going overseas, together with global users, to the stars and seas of future better mobility.

In terms of products, following AION V, AION UT, GAC AION N60, AION i60, GAC Yue 7 and other global models have appeared, currently building a full matrix power technology layout covering ICE, HEV, PHEV, REV, BEV, supporting 44 languages, meeting global highest standards such as Euro 7, E-NCAP 5 stars, adapting to global different region user needs; In terms of after-sales service construction, GAC has completed global 746 sales service outlets, 7 overseas production factories and 9 overseas parts warehouses. From pre-sales consultation to after-sales maintenance, from parts supply to software upgrade, GAC is committed to making every global user enjoy service experience from 'Made in China'. Facing the future, GAC's goal is to enter global 120 countries and regions, build over 2,000 overseas outlets, achieve annual sales of 1 million units, and fully step into the main force camp of Chinese automotive exports.

GAC Internationalization Achievement Display

True long-termism does not lie in a specific number, but in every process where users may not see but GAC never relaxed, in the details that cannot be parameterized but ultimately determine how many years a car can be driven. After 30 million vehicles, GAC chose to follow users closely, continue to deepen quality, letting 'Guangzhou Intelligent Manufacturing' find a firmer position on the world map.

Let us look forward together to GAC's next 30 million vehicle new story.