From the birth of the first Phoenix brand sedan in 1958 to the delivery of the IM LS9 on May 28, 2026, SAIC Group has taken nearly 70 years to achieve the delivery of 100 million cars, becoming the first Chinese automotive group to accumulate production and sales of over 100 million units.
For a single group to enter the '100 Million Club', such an achievement, only a few century-old giants like General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, etc. have achieved this internationally so far.
For an automotive group, the delivery of 100 million cars is not only an achievement of the group itself, but also concerns the development and changes of the entire automotive industry, witnessing the rise of China's automotive manufacturing from nothing to something, and then to strength. Through SAIC's 100 millionth new vehicle delivery, this process is fully presented.
On the day of the delivery ceremony, Dragon TV broadcast live the entire delivery process of SAIC Group from the 99,999,996th to the 100,000,010th new vehicle. From Shanghai to Liuzhou, Shaanxi, from China to the UK, Indonesia, Singapore, SAIC's product delivery spreads all over the globe. Behind this, there are products and services of SAIC Group that span over 170 countries and regions, and its cumulative overseas sales have exceeded 7 million units.
In addition, the new vehicles cover more than 10 vehicle brands and 19 models under its umbrella: Shangjie Z7, Huajing S, Roewe M7 Black Horse Edition, MG4 Semi-Solid State Battery Version, Wuling Starlight 560, Maxus eDeliver 5, Hongyan i Jieshi, Yuejin Danna T1, Sunwin Pure Electric City Bus, as well as Volkswagen ID. ERA 9X, Audi E7X, Cadillac Kaiweide, Buick Zhijing E7, Buick Zhijing Family...... From independent brands to joint ventures, from fuel cars to new energy, fusion, transformation, and innovation are deeply intertwined in SAIC's growth experience, achieving the systemic strength of China's automotive industry.
Achieving the First 10 Million
SAIC Used Half a Century
In 1955, the Shanghai Internal Combustion Engine Parts Manufacturing Company was established, and Shanghai's automotive industry started from here. In 1958, workers used hammers to hammer out the first 'Phoenix' sedan, achieving a zero breakthrough in Shanghai sedan manufacturing.
In the following few years, SAIC was solving the challenge of China's automotive industry from nothing to something. In an era lacking large presses, precision machine tools, and automation equipment, production methods were nearly primitive. Most complex parts and car body appearances were completely chewed out by workers based on experience and naked eye, purely by hand. Therefore, Shanghai Auto's initial annual production was only a few thousand units, far from a modern industrial system.
Until the successful assembly of the first Santana in 1983, it brought possibilities for SAIC to start joint venture cooperation. And it took SAIC about 6 years to truly drive China's automotive industry towards scaled assembly lines.
In 1978, the state approved Shanghai to introduce sedan projects in the form of 'Sino-Foreign Joint Ventures', but by 1982, when negotiations entered the deep water zone, the joint venture project was on the verge of failure.
First, the impact of ideology, 'Should sedan joint ventures be launched' faced huge controversy; second, the 'Productivity Theory' of the early 1980s prioritized the production of means of production such as heavy trucks over sedans. Volkswagen Germany also clearly stated that joint venture products must be sold in the Chinese local market, causing many to worry that foreigners' high-end goods would eat into the domestic market, 'Inviting wolves into the house'. In addition, facing Germany's overwhelming automotive industry strength, everyone understood that the entry of joint venture models would inevitably deal a fatal blow to the domestically produced cars made by hand at that time. People worried that this would kill China's own automotive brands.
Facing a series of opposing voices, one sentence stated 'Launching sedan joint ventures can allow our automotive industry to take 20 years less detours.' His critical statement eventually allowed Shanghai Auto at the time to withstand pressure, signing a pilot assembly (CKD) agreement with Volkswagen Germany at the end of 1982, leading to the successful launch of the first Santana.
Even so, before the official signing in 1984, SAIC Volkswagen (then Shanghai Volkswagen), Chinese and German sides still conducted long-term tug-of-war on details such as investment ratio, profit distribution, technology transfer, localization rate, and even food standards for foreign employees. At that time, China had only recently promulgated the 'Law on Chinese-Foreign Joint Ventures', and many supporting industrial and commercial, tax systems were blank.
By assembling foreign models and introducing modern automotive manufacturing standards wholesale, Shanghai Auto embarked on a difficult yet far-reaching road. The localization rate of early Santanas was only 2.7%. At that time, Germans' requirements for parts quality were strict to the point of being stereotypical, and samples sent by domestic supporting factories for inspection were almost wiped out. Facing huge international public opinion pressure, Shanghai established the Santana Car Localization Consortium in 1988, starting a localization assault campaign lasting more than 10 years.
It was precisely this set of standards that allowed Chinese workers to see strict process management, modern painting processes, and quality control systems for the first time, and more thoroughly changed the traditional concept of domestic automotive manufacturing: Cars are not 'hammered' out, but 'built' based on strict standard processes.
With the experience of SAIC Volkswagen, Shanghai GM, established in 1997, took only 23 months to build a factory and produce cars, simultaneously building China's first joint venture professional automotive design and R&D center, creating 'Shanghai Speed'.
Relying on the strong dual engines of SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC General Motors, SAIC's production and sales finally embarked on the fast lane. Around 2003, SAIC Group finally welcomed the first 10 million cumulative production and sales, taking 48 years.
Nearly half a century of time is the construction process of China's automotive industry from nothing to something. By the late 1990s, the localization rate of Santana exceeded 90%. In this process, Shanghai Auto used nearly cruel Volkswagen VW standards to hand-in-hand teach domestic electronic, mechanical, rubber, glass, and other supporting factories to establish quality management systems, almost reshaping China's local automotive parts supply chain, laying an important foundation for the development of subsequent automotive brands.
From 10 Million to 100 Million
SAIC Acceleration
After crossing the threshold of 10 million, the Chinese automotive market welcomed the Golden Decade, and SAIC's production and sales curve changed directly from linear growth to exponential takeoff.
In 2001, China officially joined the WTO, and SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC General Motors welcomed the golden period of localization transformation during this period. A large number of global models, advanced processes, and management experiences were seamlessly delivered to China, and SAIC Group arrived at the moment of harvesting dividends. Also starting in 2001, the state explicitly proposed in official documents for the first time 'Encouraging sedans to enter residents' homes', sedans began to enter ordinary households from official vehicle consumption.
Accompanying the acceleration of China's urbanization process and the development of the real estate market, China birthed the largest middle-class group in human history. From policy, capital to the comprehensive rise of the national economy, all drove the explosion of demand in China's automotive market. Santana and Passat of SAIC Volkswagen, Excelle of SAIC General Motors, and later Wuling Light which almost ruled China's micro car market were all phenomenon-level national god cars of this time.
Joint venture dividends brought technology spillover, and also stimulated the awakening of independent brands like Geely, Chery, Great Wall, etc. In this decade, private car companies tore open the household car market below 100,000 yuan with high cost-performance ratios. Facing the pressure from independent brands, SAIC launched the Roewe brand in 2006, starting the exploration of independence by traditional giants.
It was precisely these blockbusters and explorations that hit the rhythm of the times that SAIC completed the raw accumulation of production and sales scale. By December 2010, SAIC Group's cumulative production and sales exceeded the 20 million mark, and became the first automotive giant in China's automotive history with annual production and sales exceeding 3 million units that year.
The strong contrast between 48 years and 7 years is the hardest core footnote for the Chinese automotive market welcoming the 'Golden Explosion Period' in the first decade of the 21st century.
Entering the second decade of the 21st century, China became the world's largest automotive market. The three carriages under SAIC — SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC General Motors, SAIC-GM-Wuling — exploded comprehensively. From 2010 to 2014, in just four years, SAIC completed a three-stage jump from 20 million to 50 million.
That was the golden age of China's automotive market gushing, where SAIC relied on the dual heroes of joint ventures and Wuling god cars advancing together, running out of scale dividends, where the joint venture dividends and scale effects of the traditional fuel era reached the peak.
And from 50 million to today's peak of 100 million, SAIC experienced a difficult transformation of joint venture dividends receding and the domestic market being extremely involution. Although joint venture dividends receded, relying on the two-line efforts of independent brand share soaring to nearly 70% and overseas cumulative delivery exceeding 7 million, SAIC ran the second 50 million with higher quality in the storm of new energy involution.
Especially after SAIC launched the world's first internet car Roewe RX5 in 2015, new energy and going global became a brand new accelerator. By May 2026, achieving 100 million units, SAIC's average annual production and sales in the past nearly 10 years have been maintained at a high level of 4 million to 7 million.
Borrowing the explosion of independent brands, globalization strategy, and the comprehensive succession of new energy and intelligence, SAIC reached another sales peak again. This is SAIC's 3.0 era.
From Santana to IM LS9
The Transformation of the 100 Millionth Vehicle
In the brilliant starlight of global relay delivery, the focus of the 100 millionth delivery is fixed inside the main hall of Shanghai North Bund World Living Room, where IM LS9 Hyper shone onto the stage.
If Santana and Wuling Hongguang were early myths of SAIC Group, then in the intelligent era, IM LS9 has undoubtedly become the representative work of SAIC's independent high-endization.
The IM LS9 launched at the end of last year is the flagship model with the highest positioning in SAIC Group's independent product sequence, positioned in the 300,000 yuan market, but benchmarking against the million-level executive cabin. SAIC piled all the most cutting-edge chassis and power technologies that can represent 'New Quality Productive Forces' onto the IM LS9 — SAIC's ace technology Lizard Digital Chassis 3.0; next-generation intelligent driving hardware, 520-line super-vision LiDAR and NVIDIA Thor chip; next-generation three-electrics — full-domain 800V high-voltage platform and Star Super Range Extender. In addition, LS9 also comprehensively pre-embedded redundant capabilities for L3 and above high-level intelligent driving continuous evolution.
Even more interestingly, SAIC's 100 millionth user, Momenta CEO Cao Xudong, is exactly SAIC's core strategic partner in the intelligent driving field. The person who understands LS9 intelligent driving best spent money to become its car owner.
Just a few years ago, the discussion about smart car 'Soul and Body' was in a very tense state, and this new car delivery between SAIC and Cao Xudong gave a perfect answer sheet.
At the delivery ceremony, Cao Xudong stated that SAIC is not only Momenta's customer, but also its earliest core lead investor. IM Motors, as the most critical flagship brand for SAIC Group's transformation, directly became Momenta's 'top base camp' for cutting-edge algorithms. Deep business binding and capital fusion made the two enterprises become a community of emerging OEM and supplier cooperation.
IM LS9 is precisely the product of these two top teams performing their duties and highly integrating. IM LS9 is equipped with Momenta's end-to-end large model algorithm, while SAIC endowed it with a powerful Lizard Digital Chassis and industrial smart manufacturing body. When Cao Xudong held the steering wheel of IM LS9, from a partner to becoming a SAIC car owner, it also indirectly indicated that no one swallows the other. The landing of IM LS9 is the result of the deep integration and symbiosis of intelligent driving technology and manufacturing strength.
Cao Xudong has been promoting the overseas landing of intelligent driving's 'Can drive anywhere globally'. And SAIC itself is the leading head of Chinese car companies going global. Handing the 100 millionth car to him also indicated SAIC's future strategic ambition in intelligent overseas output, to further bundle with Momenta and go global together.
The 100 millionth car is not only an endpoint, but also a brand new starting point for two Chinese top forces combining to output global intelligence. SAIC's global relay delivery of the full brand matrix witnesses its deep industrial chain system built over more than 70 years and leading innovation chain layout. The next 100 million era will certainly arrive at a faster speed.
