Gasgoo Munich-In July 2026, SAIC Motor Corp. kicked off a new round of management iteration across its core sectors.
SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle, SAIC-GM, and HASCO Automotive have officially confirmed the completion of leadership changes at the general manager level. Adjustments to SAIC Volkswagen's management remain industry rumors, with no official announcement from the group. Gasgoo confirmed with relevant parties that SAIC Volkswagen stated the reports are untrue.
If fully implemented, this reshuffle will span the group's three main pillars: domestic vehicle production, joint ventures, and core components. This potential overhaul comes less than three years after the previous round of personnel optimization, yet the strategic backdrop and core logic differ significantly this time.
The previous shakeup focused on arresting sales declines and stabilizing operations—a largely reactive, emergency measure. This latest iteration, however, arrives as the group's operational structure continues to heal, representing a proactive organizational overhaul tailored for the deep waters of the energy transition. The move aims to dismantle internal silos and sync the group with the new rhythm of industrial competition.
Improvements in the group's fundamentals have provided the breathing room needed for these cross-divisional adjustments. Public data shows SAIC sold 2.045 million vehicles in the first half of the year, with its domestic brands accounting for 72% of the total. That marks six straight months of year-on-year growth, signaling a steady expansion in the scale of its proprietary business.
Image Source: SAIC Motor
Financially, SAIC posted 140.4 billion yuan in revenue and 3.03 billion yuan in net profit for the first quarter. Despite an industry-wide price war that continues to squeeze margins, the group's overall operations remain stable.
Cross-posting to Drive Operational Knowledge Sharing
The announced moves create new pathways for talent flow between vehicles and components, as well as between domestic and joint venture brands. These executives are not simply rotating seats; they are being deployed to address specific pain points and operational weaknesses in their new divisions. The goal is to circulate and reuse expertise in operations, cost control, R&D, and marketing across different business tracks within the group.
A central piece of this optimization is the transfer of Lu Xiao, former general manager of SAIC-GM, to lead SAIC Motor. In recent years, joint ventures in China have grappled with common challenges: low penetration of new energy vehicles, aging product lineups, and narrowing profit margins.
During his tenure at SAIC-GM, Lu Xiao drove the optimization of channel structures, refined inventory management, and implemented electrification architectures, pushing the brand's intelligent electric transformation. He spearheaded the development of the locally developed Xiaoyao Super Fusion Architecture and incubated the high-end new energy brand Zhijing, rounding out the EV matrix across sedans, SUVs, and MPVs.
Under his watch, SAIC-GM achieved the highest new energy penetration rate among joint ventures and posted profits for seven consecutive quarters, with operational conditions steadily improving. SAIC hopes Lu Xiao can replicate that intelligent electric transformation success within its own passenger vehicle division.
Image Source: SAIC Motor
SAIC's domestic brands have moved past the era of aggressive, expansionary growth. With overall sales volume stabilizing, the focus is shifting toward differentiated multi-brand operations, resource efficiency, and profitability. Lu Xiao's market-oriented experience is expected to empower brands like Roewe and MG, helping to resolve issues like overlapping positioning and internal resource friction, thereby driving the proprietary business from scale-based growth to quality-based growth.
Wang Jun, the former general manager of SAIC Motor, has shifted his focus to top-level strategic planning and system construction, complementing the frontline operations team. At the same time, SAIC is promoting talent exchange between vehicle and component divisions to refine supply chain synergy.
Tao Hailong, who brings extensive experience in coordinating vehicle production and sales as well as large-scale manufacturing, has been appointed to lead HASCO Automotive. This is not his first time at the helm of the components giant. In July 2024, he was transferred to SAIC Volkswagen as general manager and party secretary, taking full charge of production, brand operations, and channel coordination. He integrated vehicle production and sales management there, further aligning component supply with vehicle launch logic.
Tao Hailong's return to Huayu is a textbook example of SAIC's strategy of two-way talent flow between vehicle and component management. His diverse career spans vehicle manufacturing, quality management, and component production, giving him deep, cross-sector experience.
Xu Ping, who has deep roots in R&D and supply chain systems, has been announced as the new general manager of SAIC-GM. Xu previously served as deputy director of PATAC Powertrain, executive director of project management, and executive vice president of PATAC, as well as executive director of planning and development at SAIC-GM, building a systematic and complete set of industry skills in vehicle R&D, product planning, and comprehensive brand operations. His rich cross-divisional resume positions him to smoothly carry out established strategies like the iteration of the Xiaoyao architecture and the rollout of Zhijing models.
This kind of two-way talent flow effectively breaks down information barriers between the vehicle and component sectors. A management perspective from the vehicle side can feed back into optimizing component R&D and capacity planning to match the rapid iteration of smart EVs. Conversely, placing leaders with supply chain backgrounds in charge of joint ventures allows for cost structure optimization and improved technical support efficiency from the upstream angle.
Rumors also suggest that Wu Yun, a marketing backbone at SAIC Volkswagen, may take over as general manager. If confirmed, this move would likely further strengthen the joint venture's localized and youth-oriented market operations, better aligning with the upgrade trends in China's consumer market.
Leveraging Full-Chain Synergy to Boost Resilience
Viewed through the lens of long-term industry competition, this coordinated reshuffle across multiple divisions is essentially an upgrade of SAIC's organizational mechanisms to suit the second half of the new energy race.
The logic of competition in the auto industry keeps evolving. Relying on breakthroughs in single products or isolated business units is no longer enough to handle an environment defined by rapid technological shifts and chronic price volatility. The battleground has shifted to a comprehensive contest over supply chain synergy, internal resource integration, and organizational responsiveness. SAIC's approach—coordinating its domestic brands, two major joint ventures, and core components—reflects a more systematic, long-term strategic layout.
For a long time, many automakers have suffered from fragmented business divisions, isolated experience pools, and duplicated resource investment—all of which hamper transition efficiency and cost control. By rotating executives across divisions, SAIC is dismantling these business silos at an organizational level, enabling the internal sharing of market-oriented JV experience, domestic EV iteration know-how, and component supply chain expertise.
Image Source: SAIC Motor
In the short term, these personnel moves will ensure a smooth handover for the launch cadence of new energy products across brands, guaranteeing stable operations and transitions while minimizing gaps in strategic execution. Over the long term, normalizing cross-domain talent flow will perfect the group's internal training system, reduce reliance on external executive recruitment, and help codify management and operational methodologies tailored to SAIC's specific industrial ecosystem.
In an era defined by deep electrification and intelligent transformation, short-term sales fluctuations and product advantages are highly uncertain. Instead, a stable organizational system and full-chain collaborative capability are the true pillars that will allow a company to weather industry cycles.
By using talent turnover to drive organizational upgrades, and leveraging those optimizations to power its industrial transition, SAIC is gradually moving away from the traditional model of independent divisional warfare. It is building a full-chain collaborative operating system, laying a solid organizational foundation for the future rollout of intelligent technologies, brand structure upgrades, and global expansion.
