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After Wang Xiaoqiu became the new head of SAIC Group, Jia Jianxu became Wang Xiaoqiu's deputy, and Tao Hailong took the helm of SAIC Volkswagen, personnel adjustments within the SAIC system are still brewing.

Recently, there was news that SAIC-GM General Manager Zhuang Jingxiong will officially step down in the near future, and SAIC Passenger Vehicle Company Deputy General Manager Cui Weiguo will take over. In response, people from SAIC-GM responded that the news was fake and has been confirmed to be a rumor.

Zhuang Jingxiong has been in office for one year and two months since he took office. In the eyes of the outside world, Zhuang Jingxiong took over the position of general manager in the role of a "firefighter". Before he took over, SAIC-GM's sales had been declining for four consecutive years. Zhuang Jingxiong led SAIC-GM to not only maintain the base of fuel vehicles, but also accelerate the transformation in electrification and intelligence. The greater test is time. The joint venture between SAIC and GM has only three years left. In order to deliver a satisfactory answer before the contract expires, SAIC-GM, which is still in a trough, has to run faster.

Fire chief takes office

People familiar with the matter revealed that Zhuang Jingxiong’s employee number was “within 200” and he was a veteran figure at SAIC-GM.

In 1996, 23-year-old Zhuang Jingxiong participated in the establishment of the SAIC-GM joint venture as a founding member. After that, he began to be responsible for operations management, procurement and other businesses, and served as executive assistant to the SAIC-GM Executive Committee, director of the general manager's office, and executive director of the procurement department.

During his 23 years at SAIC-GM, he witnessed SAIC-GM's "two million". In 2010, when Ding Lei, then general manager of SAIC-GM, was in office, SAIC-GM's annual sales exceeded 1 million vehicles, making it the first passenger car company in China to break the million mark. At that time, Zhuang Jingxiong was Ding Lei's assistant.

In 2017, when Wang Yongqing, then general manager of SAIC-GM, was in office, SAIC-GM's sales exceeded 2 million vehicles. SAIC-GM's three major brands, Cadillac, Buick, and Chevrolet, cover multiple market segments such as sedans, SUVs, and MPVs. Buick alone sold more than one million vehicles. This was SAIC-GM's glorious moment, but sales began to decline in the following years.

In 2021, the industry believes that autonomous driving has entered the "second half" of commercialization, and travel platforms are seen as a good carrier for Robotaxi, and SAIC does not want to be absent. In the same year, Zhuang Jingxiong became the CEO of Xiangdao Travel, a mobile travel company invested by SAIC Group. That year, a large amount of hot money poured into travel platforms. Xiangdao Travel received an investment of 500 million yuan in 2021. Other travel platforms that received financing in the same year included Caocao Travel and T3 Travel.

But compared with the hot travel track, SAIC-GM, which is under the high pressure of transformation, may need Zhuang Jingxiong more.

In November 2022, Zhuang Jingxiong returned to SAIC-GM and served as the company's deputy general manager and general manager of SAIC-GM Sales Co., Ltd. Six months later, Zhuang Jingxiong was promoted to general manager of SAIC-GM.

But for Zhuang Jingxiong, SAIC-GM after his return is completely different from when he left.

When Zhuang Jingxiong took over as general manager of SAIC-GM, the outside world compared him to a "fire captain."

Before he took office, SAIC-GM's sales had been declining for four consecutive years. By 2022, SAIC-GM's sales will be 1.17 million vehicles, nearly halved from the peak in 2017. Not only has the original fuel vehicle market gradually declined, but the sales of new energy vehicles are only 49,000 vehicles.

Around 2018, SAIC-GM began to replace several main models of its Buick and Chevrolet brands with three-cylinder engines. The industry regarded this move as the "culprit" for SAIC-GM's declining sales.

For car companies, three-cylinder engines have the advantages of being more fuel-efficient, lighter, and cheaper to manufacture, but for consumers, they also have the disadvantages of being noisy, slightly weaker in power, and less comfortable, which has been resisted by consumers.

Compared with the hesitation of BBA in building a pure electric platform, SAIC-GM's transformation speed is very fast. On September 14, 2021, General Motors officially launched the Ultium electric vehicle platform to the Chinese market, with an investment of 70 billion yuan.

The first car under the Autry pure electric platform, the Cadillac LYRIQ, was launched in June 2022 with a starting price of 439,700 yuan. Since its delivery, monthly sales have fluctuated from dozens to hundreds. The best sales volume was only 850 units, which cannot allow the Autry pure electric platform to dilute the R&D costs.

Zhuang Jingxiong's mission is to lead SAIC-GM out of the haze, both to maintain the base of fuel vehicles and to accelerate the transformation in electrification and intelligence.

SAIC-GM's "Pain"

But putting out fires is not an easy task. Zhuang Jingxiong took over as the head of SAIC-GM for more than a year, when the price war in the Chinese auto market was at its most intense. He also realized this and believed that the key to SAIC-GM's transformation was "speed". In terms of software and intelligence, "further speed" was needed, and the response to the market "had to be faster".

In order to adapt to the Chinese market, Zhuang Jingxiong's idea after taking office was to "launch a joint venture plug-in hybrid counterattack". In April this year, SAIC-GM Buick GL8 PHEV was launched and delivered in June. At the delivery site, he even handed over the new car key to the owner in person. According to the plan, SAIC-GM will launch 8 new new energy models in the next two years.

In response to the much-criticized backwardness of intelligent capabilities, Zhuang Jingxiong established the SAIC-GM Software and Digitalization Center after taking office, and transferred Pan Asia's previous software development team to the center. This center has achieved linkage with GM's North American headquarters in Detroit. "Only software made by Chinese people can better meet the needs of Chinese people," he said.

"Zhuang (Jingxiong) has been working personally and keeping up with practical issues during the past year. Despite the enormous pressure, he does not put on airs with his employees." A person close to Zhuang Jingxiong told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that SAIC-GM's short-term situation cannot be reversed by Zhuang Jingxiong alone.

Under the influence of the "price war", the three sub-brands of SAIC-GM have also encountered the problem of overlapping price ranges. The price of Cadillac, a second-tier luxury brand, has already dropped to the market space of Buick, and Buick, which focuses on the domestic mainstream market, can only rely on the 100,000 yuan level Velite 6 to exchange price for volume in the new energy market. The almost invisible Chevrolet is also difficult to make a voice at present.

As a joint venture automaker, decision-making involves both shareholders and the chain is long. In view of the market and competition situation, Zhuang Jingxiong said that SAIC-GM has been further shortening the decision-making process in order to "make decisions quickly and implement them quickly."

However, ideals are beautiful, but reality is cruel. According to people close to SAIC-GM, the implementation of intelligent local solutions still faces constraints from GM, with Cadillac being an example. Although GM started research in the field of autonomous driving quite early, the autonomous driving technology used in China is still relatively conservative and requires more approval from GM. "Compared with SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM's transformation is more difficult."

The difficulties that joint ventures need to overcome are greater than those of independent brands. If the fundamental problems cannot be solved, it will be difficult to turn the tide.

In the first half of this year, SAIC-GM's production and sales volumes both declined year-on-year, down 53.97% and 49.98% respectively. It was the subsidiary with the most serious decline in production and sales among all SAIC Group's subsidiaries.

SAIC-GM suffered a loss of 106 million yuan in the first quarter of 2024, the third time it has suffered a quarterly loss in 15 years. The first two times occurred during the epidemic.

The basic joint venture agreement between SAIC and GM was signed on October 31, 1995, and the joint venture company Shanghai GM (later renamed SAIC GM) was officially established in June 1997. The joint venture period is 30 years, expiring in 2027.

In three years, the joint venture between SAIC and GM will expire. Whether the contract can be renewed as scheduled will be crucial in the next three years, and the heavy burden will still fall on the shoulders of the helmsman.