Top stories of SAIC Motor in 2020

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- In 2020, SAIC Motor, the Chinese largest automaker, and its subsidiaries make significant headway in the development of premium EV brand, mobility service, retailing business, financing progress, new technologies and hydrogen energy.

We hereby selected some noteworthy stories for you reviewing SAIC's experience last year.

SAIC Motor' s auto sales drop 10.22% in 2020

SAIC Motor announced its full-year sales dipped 10.22% from a year ago to 5,600,482 units last year. Despite the decrease, the company was honored the No.1 Chinese automaker by annual sales for the fifth year in a row.

SAIC Motor said its new energy vehicle (NEV) sales soared 77.8% over a year ago to around 320,000 units in 2020. Moreover, the sales of overseas markets amounted to 390,000 units (+11.3% YoY), 60% of which were from NEVs.

SAIC's mobility service brand Xiangdao Chuxing bags over 300 mln yuan in Series A round

Xiangdao Chuxing, SAIC Motor's mobility service brand, announced on Dec. 18 it has closed its Series A round with over 300 million yuan ($45,846,330) raised from Alibaba Group and CATL.

The two investors and Xiangdao Chuxing will carry out in-depth collaboration on autonomous driving, new energy vehicle (NEV) and data technologies.

At the same time, the two-year-old brand announced it has completed the deployment of a “full-scenario smart mobility services”, which encompass ride-hailing and taxi services as well as car rental services to both private users and companies.

SAIC Motor announces launch of premium BEV brand “Zhiji Motor”

SAIC Motor and the government of Pudong New Area formed a strategic cooperation on Nov. 26 for the joint development of Zhiji Motor, a fire new premium intelligent all-electric vehicle brand, the automaker announced via its WeChat account.

The project was launched at Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Pudong New Area at the same time, and has to-date raised over 10 billion yuan ($1.523 billion) in its initial round of financing.

SAIC Motor, Alibaba to team up on new retail business

SAIC Motor and the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group entered into a cooperation agreement on November 8 to jointly boost the digital transition for automotive retail business, the automaker announced via its WeChat account.

As part of the cooperation, SAIC Motor would join the 10-billion-yuan subsidy program launched by Tmall, Alibaba's B2C online retail platform, so as to provide substantial subsidies for buyers of such brands as Volkswagen, Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac.

SAIC VW's EV-only plant starts official production

On October 27, the ID.4 X, ID. family's first model mass-produced by SAIC Volkswagen (SAIC VW), rolled off the production line at the joint venture's EV-focused plant in Anting, Shanghai, signifying that Volkswagen Group's first factory dedicated to producing e-cars based on MEB (modular electric drive matrix) platform formally starts production.

SAIC VW broke ground on the Anting EV factory in October 2018 and kicked off pre-production about one year later. With a planned annual capacity of 300,000 vehicles, the EV-only plant involves a total investment of 17 billion yuan ($2,542,892,300).

SAIC Motor secures 50 bln yuan credit line from the Export-Import Bank of China

SAIC Motor said it signed an agreement on September 1 with the Export-Import Bank of China for a credit line worth 50 billion yuan ($7.315 billion), which was expected to effectively strengthen SAIC Motor's global comprehensive competitiveness, according to a posting on SAIC Motor's WeChat account.

According to the agreement, SAIC Motor and the Export-Import Bank of China would carry out strategic cooperation focusing on the finance service demands about SAIC's complete vehicle, auto parts, mobility service, automobile finance, international operations as well as the industrial big data and the AI domains.

SAIC Motor's software unit dubbed Z-ONE

"Z-ONE", the name of SAIC Motor's software subsidiary, was officially unveiled on July 21. The announcement came after local media outlets exposed several months ago that the automaker was building its own software hub and recruiting relevant talents.

The newly-unveiled branch will primarily work on the development of intelligent driving engineering, software architecture, underlying software platform and data factory. To be specific, the products and services will contain SOA (service-oriented architecture) software platform, the new-generation centralized electronic architecture, the computing chips, the platform of automobile big data, the edge AI applications, the intelligent cockpit system, the data as well as the cybersecurity.

SAIC Motor to acquire 28.92% stake in CAR Inc. for mobility service development

SAIC Motor announced on July 2 that its wholly-owned subsidiary SAIC Motor HK Investment Limited (SAIC HK) plans to acquire not fewer than 613,377,424 shares in CAR Inc., a Hong Kong-listed mobility service provider, from the latter's two substantial shareholders.

Specifically, SAIC HK intends to acquire not more than 442,656,855 shares in CAR Inc. at a price of HK$3.10 per share from UCAR Limited, UCAR Service Limited and UCAR Technology Inc. (collectively, the “UCAR Sellers”) for a maximum total consideration of HK$1,372,236,250.50, according to CAR Inc., citing an offer letter signed on July 2 by SAIC HK, the UCAR Sellers and UCAR Inc., a substantial shareholder of CAR Inc.

SAIC's RMB500 million worth of fuel cell project launched in Jiading

Shanghai Hydrogen Propulsion Technology Co., Ltd. (SHPT), a subsidiary of SAIC Motor, launched on March 16 a new fuel cell project at Jiading District in Shanghai, which is expected to help SAIC Motor speed up the industrialization of fuel cell-related products.

Under the project, the company plans to build at Jiading Hydrogen Park a fuel cell-focused base that is available for R&D, administration business, product test & verification, pilot scale production, and supply of hydrogen energy with RMB500 million to be invested, according to a post on SHPT's WeChat account.

SAIC-GM-Wuling builds China's first logistics route for autonomous vehicles

SAIC-GM-Wuling (SGMW), General Motors' light-vehicle joint venture with China's SAIC Motor, announced on March 5 it has launched a logistics route specifically designed for autonomous vehicles, the first-of-its kind one in China.

The operation of the significant route is supported by both self-driving logistics cars and a cloud-based smart management system. According to the automaker, the vehicles deployed are NEVs offered by Baojun EV. The level 4 autonomous driving system installed in the car can perceive and monitor its surroundings in real time with the accuracy down to a few centimeters. Besides, the cloud-based management system offers services like remote control and data analysis, so as to enhance the management efficiency and driving safety.

SAIC-GM-Wuling rolls out first self-made face masks

SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co.,Ltd. (SGMW), a joint venture formed by General Motors and two Chinese partners, announced on Feb. 13 its first batch of home-made face masks has rolled off the production line.

“It took us only three days to roll out the first masks from putting forward this idea,” said the automaker.

SGMW claimed on Feb. 6 via social media it would team up with its suppliers to produce masks, one of urgently needed medical supplies for fighting against novel coronavirus, by refitting its existing assembly lines.