Top stories of Great Wall Motor in 2019

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Great Wall Motor (GWM) saw its full-year sales in 2019 edge up 0.69% year on year to 1,060,298 units, surpassing 1 million units for the fourth year in a row.

Aside from the sales performance, Gasgoo hereby summarizes GWM's significant events that happened in 2019, helping you review what progresses the automaker made during the past year.  

Great Wall Motor sets 8th domestic vehicle base in Taizhou, Jiangsu province

On February 20, Great Wall Holdings Limited inked an agreement with Taizhou government of Jiangsu Province to build a new complete vehicle base at Taizhou Port Economic Development Zone. This is the eighth vehicle base in China for Great Wall Motor following the bases at Yongchuan, Zhangjiagang and Rizhao.

Involving an investment of RMB8 billion for early stage, the Taizhou program would contain such manufacturing projects as complete vehicle, exterior & interior as well as chassis. Besides, the automaker and government also planned some supporting businesses like automobile finance, automobile insurance and car-sharing service for the new base to build a complete automotive industry chain there.

Great Wall Motor to start new auto program in Pinghu, Zhejiang Province

On February 23, Great Wall Holdings Group signed an agreement with Pinghu Municipal Government to build a complete vehicle base, a R&D center and a mobility service operator at National Level Pinghu Economic-technological Development Zone, Zhejiang Province.

According to local media outlets, the newly-inked program involves a total investment of RMB11 billion and cover an area of 1,200 mu (800,000 square meters). The complete vehicle base, which is to start operation in 2021, is designed to manufacture new energy vehicles and fuel burning vehicles with a maximum annual capacity of 180,000 units.

The R&D center would be Great Wall Motor's R&D base at the Yangtze River Delta and the automaker planned to pour more than RMB 1billion in the construction of such R&D modules as styling, core auto parts, autonomous driving & intelligent connectivity.

As to the mobility service project, Great Wall Motor would develop hourly car rental business, ride-hailing and long-/short-term car leasing businesses with Pinghu as the headquarters and starter of the Yangtze River Delta region.

Intel, Great Wall Motor team up to pave the way for automobile intelligence development

Great Wall Motor struck a strategic cooperation agreement with Intel, a global leading semiconductor maker, during the Auto Shanghai 2019 to co-boost innovation development of automobile intelligence.

Both parties were ready to conduct cooperation in such areas as intelligent cockpit and smart traffic and pave the way for autonomous driving development. Powered by Intel's Apollo Lake SoC (system on chip) solution, GWM's premium SUV brand WEY was expected to be the world's first model outfitted with Android 8.0 O-MR1 version-based vehicle-mounted intelligent terminal.

Great Wall Motor's Tula factory in Russia starts production

Great Wall Motor' Tula factory in Russia, the Chinese automaker's first wholly-owned full-process manufacturing plant outside its home market, was formally put into production on June 5, 2019. The USD 500 million Tula factory was completed following four years of construction with a designated annual capacity of 150,000 units, 65% of which would be produced locally.

At the same time, the Chinese automaker's first model being sold worldwide, the Haval F7, rolled off production lines and was available in markets outside of China. This signified that the automaker had entered a new stage with its global strategy but more importantly set Chinese auto brands on a new journey to world markets.

Great Wall Motor's 2019 Haval H7 satisfies China 6 Emission Standard

In early July, Haval, a major SUV brand of Great Wall Motor, recently sent the 2019 Haval H7 into the market with its four variants all satisfying the China 6 standard. Prices of the new SUV range from RMB142,000 to RMB173,000.

Retaining Haval's iconic design language, the new vehicle's front end is capped with a massive hexagonal chrome grille which is flanked by headlights embedded with LED light sources.

Driven by a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine code-named 4C20B churning out up to 227hp and 385N·m of peak torque, the new Haval H7 can complete 0-100km/h sprint within 8.8 seconds. Mated to the engine is a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Great Wall Motor unveils all-new intelligent connectivity strategy on July 15

Great Wall Motor launched its all-new intelligent connectivity strategy “GOT” (GreatWall Totally Online) on July 15 to solve the pain points for functional applications on vehicles and restructure its mobility service system.

At the launching ceremony, the automaker also announced its partnership with eight companies, including Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, China Telecom, China Unicom, China Mobile, Huawei and Qualcomm, to jointly build the GTO smart ecosystem and develop 5G&AI-based experience-driven robots that can offer users full-lifecycle mobility services.

One of highlights for the brand new strategy was the introduction of cutting-edge 5G and AI technologies. The company said using the cutting-edge technologies was a crucial method to effectively promote the upgrade of mobility service experience.

Great Wall Motor WEY launches Collie intelligent safety system

WEY, the premium SUV brand of GWM, launched on July 25 the in-vehicle intelligent safety system dubbed “Collie” at the ceremony celebrating the 2020 VV6's entry to the market.

Both the brand name and the iconic collie logo embody the characteristics the automaker designed for the new “All-round Intelligent Safety” system—sharp-witted, vigorous, reliable and smart.

As WEY's first technical brand focusing on intelligent safety technology, the Collie would be dedicated to offering security services on four key areas—life, property, information and environment, said Shi Binyang, WEY's deputy chief engineer of intelligent safety.

Great Wall Motor becomes first Chinese carmaker signing SPIC with Russian government

Great Wall Motor became the first Chinese automaker that signed a special investment contract (SPIC) with the government of Russian Federation after a special commission composed of several Russian governmental agencies, institution and funds approved on July 31 a resolution to facilitate GWM's operation in the transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia.

The signing of SPIC for Haval Russia Automotive Manufacturing Co., Ltd., (GWM's Russian subsidiary) meant the Chinese carmaker would be allowed to operate businesses in Russia using the same preferential policies as that of the other foreign invested enterprises in this country in a more open and fairer market environment.

Great Wall Holdings's Eastern China headquarters to be launched in Jiading

Great Wall Holdings Group Limited struck a cooperation deal with Jiading District Government of Shanghai on August 15 for launching its Eastern China (Shanghai) headquarters at Jiading, one of the most important automotive industrial bases for China.

As the second biggest R&D center for Great Wall Motors, the new headquarters would play as a multifunctional facility integrating four major businesses—hydrogen energy, core auto parts, car-sharing as well as intelligent connectivity. Besides, a project company would be established at Anting Town as part of the cooperation.

Great Wall Motor taps used car export domain with first business completed

Great Wall Motor had exported its first batch of pre-owned vehicles to several Asian and African countries like Cambodia, Nigeria and Ghana through its wholly-owned automobile import & export subsidiary in Tianjin, according to a local media report. .

The Tianjin-based subsidiary, dubbed “Changyou Haoche” (in Chinese), was given the governmental permission to export used vehicles in July, 2019, becoming one of five companies in Tianjin that own this qualification. 

China's authorities issued in April the notice on supporting the export of used vehicles in eligible regions. Then, they jointly announced on May 5 the first batch of cities/provinces that are allowed to conduct the pilot program of exporting pre-owned cars.

There were 10 cities/provinces involved in the milestone program, and all of them are important coastal areas that boast great export/import advantages or the pivotal cities along the “Belt and Road” route.

Great Wall Motor joins world's first partnership about pure solid-state LiDAR mass production

On August 27, Great Wall Motor inked an agreement with LiangDao Intelligence and Ibeo Automotive Systems GmbH (Ibeo Automotive) for a strategic cooperation to promote autonomous driving technologies into mass production.

According to LiangDao Intelligence's WeChat account, the latest collaboration was the world's first-of-its-kind cooperative project themed the volume production of pure solid-state LiDAR, and was also honored the unprecedented cooperation focusing on the mass production of automotive-grade pure solid-state LiDAR.

According to the agreement, Ibeo Automotive would provide GWM with its new-generation 4D solid-state LiDAR “ibeoNEXT”, which was to be used as a core part of the automaker's self-driving sensor system.

Besides, LiangDao Intelligence would be responsible for the testing and evaluation of the ibeoNEXT and environmental sensing system to be applied in mass production.

Great Wall Motor's new P Series Pickup launched

On August 18, Great Wall’s new P Series Pickup was officially launched, opening the era of Chinese passenger pickup and globalization. Great Wall’s new P Series Pickup was designed to be user-centered, and a pickup for everyone for everything through “super product”, “super service”, “super experience”, as well as the “Great Wall’s new P Series Pickup Alliance” program.

On August 30, GWM’s new P Series passenger pickup rolled off the production line at the plant in Yongchuan, Chongqing, where witnessed the birth of the 100,000^th one on December 5.

Great Wall Motor, Huawei extend tie-up to ICV, electrification, mobility service

On Sept. 24, Great Wall Motor and Huawei, a world's leading ICT device supplier, agreed to cooperate on ICT-related innovative technologies, as both parties wish to seize a head start in electrification and intelligence areas in China's auto industry.

Under the partnership, GWM and Huawei would carry out collaboration in such areas as auto connectivity, intelligent driving, smart cockpit, intelligent electrification, cloud service, big data and mobility service.

The cooperation between two parties can trace back to March, 2019, where the 5G-based remote driving technology jointly developed by Great Wall Motor, Huawei and China Mobile was successfully tested at Xushui, Hebei Province. In that test, the latency between a vehicle and devices was reduced to several milliseconds, said the automaker.

BMW, Great Wall Motor celebrate first spade cut of Spotlight JV project

BMW Group and Great Wall Motor officially initiated their 50:50 joint-venture project, Spotlight Automotive, on November 29, marking the first joint venture between foreign and privately-owned automakers in China would be soon established.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held only a week after the joint venture was given the governmental green-light to produce internal combustion engine-powered vehicles (ICEVs) and conduct R&D activities for all-electric PVs. However, the approval is not available to BEV production.

The joint venture had been granted China's governmental approval for establishment of enterprises with foreign investment, the Baoding-based automaker announced on December 15.

About half a month later, Spotlight Auto was received business license by the market regulation administration of Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu province.

Great Wall Motor's Pinghu vehicle plant construction kicks off

Great Wall Motor hosted a ceremony to mark the start of the construction of its new plant on October 26 in Pinghu, a county-level city in the east of Jiaxing, Zhejiang of China.

With a total investment of almost RMB11 billion ($1.56 billion), the facility was supposed to involve a total area of over 1,200mu (80 hectares) with the annual capacity of 100,000 units. It would be used to produce the automaker’s Haval-branded vehicles and a series of NEVs. A research and development (R&D) center would also be set up there.  

SVOLT Energy's first intelligent battery plant starts production

SVOLT Energy, Great Wall Motor's wholly-owned subsidiary, announced the official opening of the first phase of its automotive-grade intelligent battery plant in Jintan, Changzhou of China on November 27.

It is said that the capacity of the project’s first phase was supposed to reach 4 GWh. The construction of the second phase was likely to be finished at the end of 2020 to contribute another 8-GWh capacity, while the third one would produce 6-GWh power. With 6 manufacturing bases across the world, the company bids to offer a stable supply to mainstream OEMs through generating 76-GWh capacity at home and 24-GWh abroad in 2025.             

The Changzhou-headquartered company focuses on the R&D and manufacturing of the next-generation-battery material, cell, module, PACK, BMS (battery management system), ESS (energy storage system) and solar energy technology. It plans to build seven R&D centers, and its Baoding center, Shanghai center, South Korea center and India center have begun operation as well.