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IM Motors is a high‑end intelligent electric vehicle brand jointly created by SAIC Motor Group, Zhangjiang Hi‑Tech, and Alibaba Group. It was officially established on December 25, 2020, within the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone as a user‑oriented automotive technology company focused on high‑end new energy intelligent vehicles.
IM Motors has a registered capital of 13.77 billion RMB. SAIC Motor Group invested 5.4 billion RMB, holding a 54% equity stake. Zhangjiang Hi‑Tech and Alibaba each invested 1.8 billion RMB, each holding an 18% stake. The remaining 10% of equity is divided into a 5.1% ESOP core employee stock platform and a 4.9% CSOP user rights platform.
The brand is positioned as a high‑end intelligent new energy vehicle brand in the first tier of China's new energy vehicle industry, with a price range covering the 200,000 to 400,000 RMB high‑end market. It competes in the same price bracket as brands such as Tesla, Li Auto, and NIO. IM Motors is the highest‑positioned new energy brand within the SAIC Motor Group, once referred to as the Group's "No. 1 Project," and serves as a super strategic brand for SAIC Motor Group's high‑end intelligent breakthrough.
Startup and Brand Launch (2020–2022)
On December 25, 2020, IM Motors was jointly founded by SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi‑Tech Park Development Co., Ltd., and Alibaba Group. On January 13, 2021, the IM Motors brand was officially launched. In January 2022, IM Motors introduced the high‑end service brand "IM Care One‑Key Delivery," pioneering a one‑price all‑inclusive service package. In May, IM Motors brought the IM L7 and the mass‑production concept car AIRO to the 26th Greater Bay Area Auto Show. On December 20 of the same year, the mid‑to‑large intelligent flagship SUV, the IM LS7, officially opened nationwide pre‑sales.
Product Deployment and Market Penetration (2023–2024)
On January 7, 2023, the IM LS7 set a new Guinness World Record for "Driving through road sections with the greatest difference in altitude (Electric Vehicle)." In March 2024, IM Motors announced the launch of a public beta for its "Mapless City NOA" feature, becoming one of the first brands in the industry to implement mapless city navigation assistance. In May, IM Motors announced a formal cooperation with NIO for charging network interoperability, expanding refueling options for its users. On September 6, the all‑new IM LS6 opened nationwide test drives, with cumulative orders exceeding 15,000 units within ten days. In December 2024, IM Motors completed Series B1 equity financing, with total Series B funding reaching 9.4 billion RMB, supported by multiple state‑owned and market‑oriented investment institutions.
Strategic Upgrade and Scaled Growth (2025–Present)
The year 2025 marked a historic breakthrough for IM Motors. Annual cumulative sales reached 81,017 units, setting a brand record. In December, the brand achieved its first profitable month under full‑cost pricing and full‑cost accounting. That same year, the new IM LS9, with its rugged styling and luxury features, made an impact in the large SUV segment, receiving 5,000 large deposits within 25 minutes of launch. Upon delivery, it immediately joined the ranks of the most popular flagship SUVs in the 300,000 RMB category. In December 2025, SAIC Motor Group announced that, in order to simplify the equity structure of IM Motors, the 5.399 billion RMB capital stake previously held indirectly through the Yuanjie Fund would be changed to direct holding by the company. This move is widely seen as strategic capital preparation for IM Motors to move toward an independent listing. In early 2026, IM Motors adopted "Embodied Intelligence Leading, Technology Breakthrough Across All Domains" as its core strategy, focusing on the AI automotive track. In March 2026, IM Motors launched the industry's first super intelligent agent, the IM Ultra Agent, globally equipped with the Qwen large language model. At the same time, it announced that the cross‑era technology flagship SUV, the IM LS8, would open for pre‑sale on March 26. In April 2026, the IM LS8 was officially launched at the 19th Beijing International Automotive Exhibition, and the complete new family lineup of IM Motors made a full appearance, covering the 200,000 to 350,000 RMB price range.
IM Motors has built a product matrix covering the full range of sedans and SUVs, with a systematic lineup across two major series: the "L" sedan series and the "LS" SUV series. Currently available models include the IM L6, IM L7, IM LS6, IM LS7, IM LS8, and IM LS9, covering the core price range of 200,000 to 350,000 RMB.
SUV Series is the sales pillar of IM Motors. The IM LS6 is positioned as a 200,000 RMB intelligent large five‑seat SUV and is undoubtedly the brand's sales leader. In 2025, the LS6 alone accounted for over 60% of the brand's total sales. The new‑generation IM LS6 is the first to feature the "Stellar Super Extended‑Range" system, equipped with the industry's largest CATL 66‑degree Super Xiaoyao MAX battery. It offers a 450 km pure electric range and 800V ultra‑fast charging technology, creating a new category of "EVs with built‑in supercharging piles." The IM LS7 is a mid‑to‑large intelligent flagship SUV that opened for pre‑sale in December 2022 and once set a Guinness World Record. The IM LS9 is positioned as a 300,000 RMB flagship large six‑seat SUV, with deliveries beginning in November 2025. The entire series comes standard with the Lingxi Digital Chassis 3.0, two‑way 24° intelligent four‑wheel steering, a 520‑line ultra‑vision LiDAR, and an NVIDIA Thor chip, earning market acclaim as the "best‑driving large six‑seat SUV." The IM LS8 is positioned as a cross‑era technology flagship SUV, officially launched in April 2026, with equity prices ranging from 249,800 to 299,800 RMB. It is the only super‑luxury, fully equipped vehicle within the 300,000 RMB category that integrates line‑control four‑wheel steering, Stellar Super Extended‑Range, the Qwen large language model, and an NVIDIA Thor chip.
Sedan Series is positioned as high‑end intelligent sports sedans. The IM L7 is the first mass‑production model of the IM Motors brand, launched in 2022 to establish the brand's high‑end identity. It was later gradually overshadowed by the more competitively priced LS6 and L6. The IM L6 is a 200,000 RMB intelligent electric sedan, equipped with the Lingxi Digital Chassis and achieving excellent moose test results. Together with the LS6, it formed the "Double 6 Combo" that drove the brand's sales growth. The IM L6 is sold under the name IM5 in overseas markets. In addition, the IM LS9 Hyper version appeared in January 2026, generating market excitement with three industry‑first highlights: the industry's first mass‑production SUV with four‑wheel fully line‑controlled steering, and the first model to pass the CATARC "Reliability Challenge."
In recent years, IM Motors has achieved rapid sales growth but continues to face challenges from intense market competition. From 2023 to 2024, IM Motors' monthly sales remained in the range of a few thousand units. Entering 2025, the brand showed a clear "slow start then strong finish" growth trend: monthly deliveries in the first half of the year were below 4,000 units, and market performance was relatively flat. After September, with the launch of the new‑generation LS6 equipped with the "Stellar Super Extended‑Range" system, sales surged. Starting in September, monthly sales exceeded 10,000 units for four consecutive months, reaching 13,159 units in October, 13,577 units in November, and approximately 12,000 units in December—each setting new single‑month sales records for the brand.
In 2025, the IM brand posted cumulative sales of 81,017 units, a year‑on‑year increase of 23.68%, far exceeding SAIC Motor Group's overall growth rate of 12.3%. Among these, the LS6 alone accounted for over 60% of cumulative sales, serving as the core driver of the brand's growth. In December 2025, IM Motors achieved its first monthly profit under full‑cost accounting, indicating that the brand's business model has initially proven viable, shifting from pursuing scale expansion to building a sustainable business model.
Entering 2026, IM Motors' sales momentum continued with a strong start: cumulative year‑on‑year growth in the first quarter reached 97%, with March monthly sales of 5,824 units. In April, with the official launch of the new LS8, IM Motors' family lineup now covers the full price range from 200,000 to 350,000 RMB, opening up broader opportunities for the brand to move further upmarket.
Relying on the deep synergies of SAIC Motor Group, Alibaba, and Momenta, IM Motors has built a complete technology system covering platform architecture, three‑electric systems, intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpits. It has formed three core technical pillars: line‑controlled chassis, intelligent driving algorithms, and AI ecosystem.
Fully Line‑Controlled Lingxi Digital Chassis is IM Motors' most core technology and an industry benchmark for which SAIC Motor Group has led the development of national standards. The fully line‑controlled chassis completely removes the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels. Steering, braking, and acceleration are all transmitted via electrical signals. The steering wheel becomes an electronic signal controller, and the car executes every command through computer algorithms. IM Motors' fully line‑controlled four‑wheel steering system takes just 20 milliseconds from signal transmission to action execution—more than four times faster than traditional steering. The steering system features triple safety redundancy, with a failure probability of less than 10 FIT, and has passed the CATARC extreme condition reliability challenge. The line‑controlled chassis is centered on digital fusion control of the vehicle's X, Y, and Z axes (six degrees of freedom), providing a millisecond‑level precise execution foundation for AI‑driven high‑level intelligent driving. It is widely recognized by the industry as the technical cornerstone for Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous driving. In terms of real‑world driving experience, the fully line‑controlled four‑wheel steering system, combined with two‑way 24° intelligent rear‑wheel steering, allows flagship SUVs over five meters long to achieve a remarkably tight turning radius of just 4.85 meters—more agile than the A0‑class Volkswagen Polo.
Intelligent Driving and the IM AD Intelligent Driving System are jointly developed by IM Motors and Momenta, a leading autonomous driving company, and have already achieved first‑tier intelligent driving capabilities in the industry. The IM AD assisted driving system is usable nationwide on all drivable roads, covering highway navigation, city navigation, intelligent parking, and other full‑scenario applications. The next‑generation intelligent driving system, IM AD ZETA, incorporates Momenta's reinforcement learning large model, which delivers up to 20 times the performance ceiling of existing large models, fully empowering Level 2 assisted driving functions with Level 4 model capabilities. The assisted driving system in the IM LS8 has Level 3 perception and Level 4 model capabilities and can be smoothly upgraded to IM AD ZETA in the future, enabling continuous iteration toward L4 autonomous driving. On the hardware front, the entire IM LS8 and LS9 series come standard with the industry's top 520‑line ultra‑vision LiDAR and an NVIDIA Thor high‑performance computing chip, equipped with 64GB of high‑performance LPDDR5X memory and bandwidth of up to 273GB/s, providing ample computing power reserves for high‑level intelligent driving.
Intelligent Cockpit and the IM Fusion Nova Full‑Domain Fusion Architecture are the core of IM Motors' differentiated competitive advantage. IM Motors pioneered the IM Fusion Nova cockpit and driving integrated architecture, which fully connects the Lingxi Digital Chassis, intelligent driving AI, and intelligent cockpit AI from the bottom layer, enabling AI not only to understand user intent but also to fully control the vehicle's physical actions. On this basis, IM Motors launched the industry's first super intelligent agent, the IM Ultra Agent, which is globally equipped with Alibaba's open‑source large language model, Qwen. Leveraging the deep empowerment of the Alibaba ecosystem, the IM Ultra Agent integrates high‑frequency life services such as Amap, Alipay, Fliggy, Taobao, Ele.me, and Alibaba Local Life, realizing a series of complex service closed loops—from completing fuzzy intent planning in one sentence to avoiding route congestion and pre‑ordering coffee—truly creating a dedicated AI driver assistant that can "understand, drive, and handle tasks."
Stellar Super Extended‑Range Technology and the Three‑Electric System comprehensively empower IM Motors' main series of models. The Stellar Super Extended‑Range system is equipped with the industry's largest CATL 66‑degree Super Xiaoyao MAX battery, delivering a pure electric range of up to 450 km—a new record for extended‑range models. It features a new‑generation 800V silicon carbide high‑performance black label hurricane motor, with a CLTC total range of up to 1,605 km. Charging from 30% to 80% takes just 12 minutes, and power‑depleted fuel consumption is as low as 5.9 liters per 100 km—lower than that of Japanese A‑class sedans. The Stellar Super Extended‑Range system also incorporates an industry‑leading integrated thermal management architecture for extended‑range vehicles, achieving 170 kW ultra‑fast charging power even in extremely cold environments, allowing worry‑free winter driving in northern China. IM Motors has achieved full self‑development across all technology routes, with over 100,000 units delivered and zero spontaneous combustion incidents, setting an industry‑leading safety benchmark.
Relying on the global resource advantages of SAIC Motor Group, IM Motors is accelerating its overseas market expansion and has become one of the fastest Chinese premium new energy brands to establish a global presence. To date, IM Motors has opened 430 brand showrooms worldwide, with its sales and service network fully covering core new energy markets including Europe, Asia‑Pacific, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.
The year 2025 marked the official start of IM Motors' global journey. Leveraging SAIC Motor Group's global resources, the brand entered 16 international mainstream markets throughout the year, including Thailand, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Mexico, and Australia, achieving full coverage across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania.
At the beginning of 2026, IM Motors' globalization entered a period of rapid acceleration. The IM5 (overseas version of the IM L6) and IM6 (overseas version of the IM LS6) were launched consecutively in the UAE and Tunisia, further deepening the brand's strategic footprint in the Middle East and North African markets. With the UAE as a hub to radiate to surrounding regions, IM Motors aims to achieve full coverage of the entire Middle East market within 2026. The successful entry into Tunisia represents the brand's second strategic move in North Africa following its initial launch in Egypt, complementing the UAE market and creating a market presence that spans both the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean region through a north‑south linkage.
To date, IM Motors' overseas footprint has officially expanded to 33 countries and regions worldwide, making it the most widely covered Chinese premium new energy newcomer in global markets. At the Beijing Auto Show, IM Motors President and CMO Li Weimeng announced that the brand has moved from the "market layout phase" to the "comprehensive deep cultivation phase." Overseas operations will be fully accelerated, leveraging high‑end flagship models such as the IM LS8 to further expand IM Motors' premium new energy footprint overseas.
IM Motors has formulated a three‑pronged core development strategy for the future: "technology expansion, brand upward mobility, and deep globalization." The key themes for 2026 are "watershed and deep cultivation"—officially shifting from the "market layout phase" to the "comprehensive deep cultivation phase." On the product roadmap, IM Motors plans to launch additional new and facelifted models, optimize and upgrade its existing product mix, and provide a more complete range of premium new energy choices in both domestic and international markets.
In terms of multi‑powertrain expansion, IM Motors will continue to deepen both pure electric and extended‑range technology routes. The technical advantages of the "Stellar Super Extended‑Range" series will be progressively extended to more high‑volume models. The 800V silicon carbide high‑voltage platform and 5C ultra‑fast charging will be more deeply integrated across the entire model lineup. Following the IM LS8's debut with the Qwen large language model, IM Motors will continue to strengthen the depth of AI agent intervention and ecosystem richness, continuously advancing the comprehensive smart experience from human fuzzy intent to AI‑driven full‑domain execution.
IM Motors will also be among the first automakers in China to mass‑produce fully line‑controlled steering technology, continuing to expand the configuration breadth of the fully line‑controlled Lingxi digital chassis across the LS8 and subsequent models. The company aims to bring L3 conditional autonomous driving functions to market at scale in a cost‑effective manner between 2025 and 2026, providing a reference model for the mass commercialization of L3 intelligent driving across the industry. On the high‑level intelligent driving front, the IM AD intelligent driving system will achieve continuous OTA updates for mapless, full‑scenario iteration and upgrades. At the same time, IM AD ZETA will advance the strategic approach of using Level 4 intelligent driving model capabilities to empower L2+ functions at scale.
In the direction of brand upward mobility and market expansion, IM Motors has built a complete product lineup covering the 200,000 to 350,000 RMB range. The next step will be to gradually push product value and the intelligent experience upward, launching an attack on the 300,000 to 400,000 RMB luxury new energy market. The brand will cultivate a precise matrix positioning with the LS9 and LS8 as dual flagships, forming a leading presence in the premium luxury new energy sub‑segment.
On the globalization front, IM Motors will take 2026 as a new starting point for entering the "comprehensive deep cultivation" phase. Building on its current presence in 33 countries worldwide, the company will continue to penetrate key new energy markets such as Europe, Asia‑Pacific, the Middle East, and Australia/New Zealand, deepening its overseas footprint with a new Chinese new energy identity defined by the fusion of high‑end intelligent driving and a super AI ecosystem, striving to establish a foothold in an increasing number of core global markets.
SAIC Motor Group has completed the restructuring and simplification of its equity holding structure in IM Motors, aiming to create a simpler and clearer equity framework for the company. This move is widely seen by outsiders as a prelude to IM Motors preparing for an independent listing. IM Motors also achieved its first monthly profit under full‑cost accounting in December 2025, marking the company's gradual transition from a large‑scale investment phase to a healthy, self‑sustaining operating cycle.
IM Motors employees will continue the full‑stack self‑development technology strategy. Relying on the deep synergies of the three giants—SAIC, Alibaba, and Zhangjiang Hi‑Tech—the company will embrace the transformative opportunities of the global AI intelligent automotive 3.0 era with a more proactive and enterprising attitude. It is committed to becoming the most distinctive "smart AI car" among Chinese premium new energy brands and a world‑class leader, walking at the forefront of cross‑border sustainable operations.
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