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SAR Auto is a high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand built by Great Wall Motor, founded in August 2021, headquartered in Beijing, China. SAR Auto is Great Wall Motor's sixth complete vehicle brand after Haval, WEY, Tank, Ora, and Great Wall Pickup. Its brand name "Salong" originates from the gatherings of celebrities in European noble living rooms of the 17th century, implying a collision of innovation and technology, targeting elite individuals born in the 80s and 90s who are deeply influenced by mecha culture. SAR Auto adheres to the car-making concept of "making every product a mechanical artwork that transcends tools".
Unlike other new energy brands under Great Wall, SAR Auto entered the market with the pioneering "Mecha Tech" category. Its design style abandoned the mainstream round and soft styles of the EV market, instead adopting angular and hardcore mechanical aesthetics, intending to build China's number one luxury pure electric brand in the price range of 400,000 to 800,000 yuan. However, due to multiple factors, the SAR Auto brand has undergone several strategic reorganizations after production delays following its launch, integrated with Ora and WEY successively, becoming a landmark case in the exploration of high-end automotive brands in China.
Project Approval and Brand Launch (2020—2021)
The history of SAR Auto began with Great Wall Motor's planning of the "SL Project" at the end of 2020—a new independent high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand. The company was named "Salong Intelligent Travel" and Shanghai Salong Intelligent Travel Industrial Co., Ltd. was established. In March 2021, Wen Fei, then General Manager of the Haval brand, was appointed as CEO of Salong Intelligent Travel, readjusting the product positioning to focus on the "Mecha Tech" category. On November 19, 2021, Great Wall Motor officially launched the SAR Auto brand at the Guangzhou Auto Show. The first model, the high-performance mecha racing car "Mecha Dragon", was unveiled simultaneously. It featured 4 LiDARs for the first time, positioned as a pure electric coupe. The global limited edition was priced at 488,000 yuan, and 101 limited units sold out within 3.5 hours of the launch.
Brand Integration and Silence Period (2022—2023)
After the Mecha Dragon debuted, it failed to enter mass production for a long time, and the mass production time was postponed repeatedly. At the end of 2022, Great Wall Motor announced the integration of its brand marketing system. Ora and SAR Auto, WEY and Tank all adopted a dual-brand operating model, with Wen Fei serving as the dual-brand CEO of Ora and SAR Auto. In March 2023, the integration of the Ora and SAR Auto brands was formally completed, and the Mecha Dragon joined the Ora community. In May of the same year, Wen Fei left Great Wall Motor, and SAR Auto's mass production plan was postponed again.
Resumption and Integration into WEY (2024–Present)
At the beginning of 2024, market rumors suggested that Great Wall Motor planned to resume the SAR Auto project and integrate it under WEY. The Mecha Dragon would be launched as WEY's first sedan in the second half of 2024, equipped with the intelligent driving solution provided by Momenta and the intelligent cockpit solution provided by Huawei, with the price range dropping to around 300,000 yuan. However, this plan has not materialized to date, and WEY's sales performance in the high-end new energy market was also not ideal, selling only 41,600 units in the full year of 2023. Some media compared SAR Auto to a warning for WEY—strategic positioning wavered on the "High-End Mecha" track which was too narrow, and the speed of decision-making and execution failed to keep up with the market window.
The product system released by SAR Auto is built entirely around the "Mecha Dragon," forming a "Mecha Dragon Family" matrix centered on a single car series, covering different versions and multiple concept derivative models.
Mecha Dragon (Performance Version / Mass Production Version): The first mass-produced model, positioned as a mid-to-large four-door pure electric performance coupe. With a vehicle length exceeding 5.2 meters, it is equipped with front and rear dual permanent magnet synchronous motors and an intelligent four-wheel drive system. The combined power output is 400kW (approx. 543 hp), with a peak torque of 763N·m, allowing 0-100km/h acceleration to enter the 3-second range. Matched with a 115kWh large-capacity battery pack, it achieves a CLTC cycle driving range of 802 kilometers. The chassis is equipped with CDC electronically controlled continuously adjustable damping shock absorbers and Brembo front four-piston aluminum alloy fixed calipers.
Mecha Dragon Global Limited Edition (2021): A limited run of 101 units launched exclusively for the Guangzhou Auto Show, priced at 488,000 yuan. These units sold out within 3.5 hours, marking the only product for which reservations were fully completed under the SAR Auto brand.
Mecha Dragon EVA Limited Edition: A special edition model co-created with Neon Genesis Evangelion (EVA). It features the signature purple paint of Evangelion Unit-01 and honeycomb detail textures, designed specifically for mecha culture enthusiasts.
Mecha Dragon Heavy Armament Concept Version: Released at the 2022 Chengdu Auto Show, this version is equipped with more exaggerated wide-body aerodynamic kits and carbon fiber components, showcasing the brand's exploration of extreme personalized modifications.
Product Planning Blueprint: According to early planning, SAR Auto intended to launch 1 to 2 mecha-themed products annually over the next five years, covering sedans, SUVs, MPVs, coupes, crossovers, and other models. The plan also included deploying high-power charging networks in core cities. However, this roadmap was abandoned following the brand's integration.
SAR Auto's market performance is characterized by a "high-profile launch but low follow-through, failing to achieve mass production." On the day of its launch at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, the 101 limited edition Mecha Dragon units sold out within 3.5 hours, generating immense enthusiasm during the pre-sale phase. However, this initial success did not translate into substantive deliveries for mass production orders. The mass-production version of the Mecha Dragon never went offline, and the brand ceased independent participation in the Guangzhou Auto Show starting from 2023.
Following the integration of the dual-brand strategy involving Ora and SAR Auto at the end of 2022, SAR Auto's independent operations were effectively terminated. With the 2024 resumption plan integrating the Mecha Dragon under the WEY brand, SAR Auto no longer exists in the market as an independent complete vehicle brand. As of 2026, SAR Auto officials have not announced any annual sales data for passenger cars. Sales records for the SAR Auto brand are blank across all automotive sales statistics platforms, indicating that the brand has exited the active new energy passenger car market in China.
In 2025, components such as electronic parts and intelligent driving modules from the Mecha Dragon appeared on automotive parts trading platforms, indirectly confirming that the mass production plan for this model had likely entered a state of stagnation.
4 LiDAR Perception System: The Mecha Dragon is the world's first model equipped with four Huawei 96-line hybrid solid-state LiDARs, coordinated with seven HD cameras, five mmWave radars, four surround-view cameras, and twelve ultrasonic sensors. This setup builds an ultra-perception system featuring five-fold 360° coverage. The four LiDARs achieve million-level point cloud output per second, covering blind-spot-free views, and are equipped with intelligent cleaning and automatic heating functions.
Dual High-Performance Intelligent Driving Computing Platform: Equipped with dual MDC intelligent driving computing platforms, the NPU dense computing power reaches 400 TOPS, and CPU computing power is 520K DMIPS. It adopts the Da Vinci architecture to support algorithm iteration throughout the full lifecycle. The Captain-Pilot intelligent driving system, driven by this platform, supports "Highway + City + Parking + Connectivity" full-scenario end-to-end intelligent assisted driving.
Six Major Safety Redundancy Systems: SAR Auto has built six major safety redundancy systems into the hardware architecture, covering control, steering, perception, braking, communication, and power redundancy. Taking steering redundancy as an example, the EPS hardware adopts a CPU dual-bridge drive and a dual-winding motor; even if a single loop fails, it can still provide at least 50% of steering assistance.
5-Screen Intelligent Cockpit Interaction Ecosystem: Equipped with the Qualcomm 8155 cockpit chip, the cockpit features five interaction screens: a 10.25-inch smart interaction screen, a 27-inch 4K resolution integrated screen for the driver and co-driver (which can be divided into three zones for display), a 25-inch W-HUD head-up display system, and dual touch screens on the steering wheel. The AI assistant "Xiao Jia" supports independent voice recognition in four sound zones and gaze wake-up, capable of realizing emotion perception and self-learning evolution.
High-Performance Electric Drive System: The vehicle features front and rear dual permanent magnet synchronous motors with an intelligent four-wheel drive system, delivering a combined power of 400kW and enabling 0-100km/h acceleration in the 3-second range. By 2023, the vehicle was also set to support 800V, 480kW super-fast charging technology. Additionally, the Mecha Dragon is the industry's first model equipped with Harman's second-generation iESS interior sound wave simulation technology.
The SAR Auto brand conducted preliminary global planning between 2021 and 2022, intending to first establish a foothold in the domestic market through a combination of direct sales channels and authorized services, before expanding to overseas markets. Great Wall Motor accelerated its overseas market layout starting in 2022. Public documents indicate that its "Intelligent Electric Upgrade Overseas Market Accelerated Layout" covered Haval, WEY, SAR Auto, and other brands. However, as of 2026, the SAR Auto brand has not established any overseas R&D or manufacturing centers globally, nor has it built a substantive overseas sales network or achieved any delivery records. SAR Auto's main market activities have long been limited to displays and brand promotion at major auto shows within China, with its overseas layout remaining at the planning stage.
As of 2026, SAR Auto as an independent complete vehicle brand has basically stopped operations. At the beginning of 2024, Wei Jianjun clarified in an internal speech that Great Wall must "fight a comeback war," and the mass production path of the SAR Mecha Dragon was redefined—as WEY's first sedan launched under the brand, rather than being listed for sale as an independent SAR brand. Therefore, the future of the SAR brand is completely bound to whether WEY can break through in the high-end new energy market.
Brands that started almost simultaneously with SAR, such as Zeekr, Deepal, and Denza, have stabilized monthly sales of over 10,000 units, while WEY sold only 41,600 units in the full year of 2023. From the perspective of Great Wall Motor, under conditions of limited financial resources, trade-offs must be made between Haval (sales base), Tank (profit growth point), Ora (female market segment), and WEY (high-end breakthrough line). Dispersed resources and frequent management changes pose challenges to the brand's long-term value shaping.
SAR's fate is a profound footnote in the process of high-endization of China's automobile industry: a brand with extreme individuality as its background color, in a market with a window period of only a few years, failed to make the last leap from "concept" to "mass production" due to strategic wavering, narrow positioning, and internal collaboration lag. Regardless of whether the SAR brand can be reactivated with the resurgence of WEY in the future, its mecha aesthetics, extreme intelligent driving, and high-end pricing propositions will remain as an important brand archive of Great Wall's exploration of "category upward."
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