Whether in terms of ownership, sales or technological development speed, China is undoubtedly the world's largest automobile market, and its status as an automobile power has been firmly established. However, in the process of moving from an automobile power to an automobile powerhouse, the Chinese market has shown a high degree of prosperity, but it has also exposed some industry chaos - for example, involutionary competition, false propaganda, the pursuit of scale without paying attention to profits, and excessive attention to price while ignoring quality...
On May 20, 2025, the top leaders of the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Comprehensive Rectification of Involutive Competition in Key Industries", which clearly listed the chaos such as "false propaganda" and "price war" in the automobile industry as key targets for rectification. This change in policy direction resonates with the views mentioned by Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, in many recent interviews.
For example, in an interview with the media, he called for: "Only by seeking truth from facts can the industry develop healthily." As a witness to 35 years of China's automobile industry and a witness, practitioner and defender of reform and opening up, Wei Jianjun has spoken out frequently recently, hoping to uncover the truth of the industry with a "truth-seeking" attitude.
It can be said that he is not only an industry spokesperson for Chinese auto workers who are deeply harmed by chaos, but also a gatekeeper who defends the bottom line of "Made in China". From exposing industry fraud to warning against capital risks, from calling for technological rationality to building industrial chain synergy, every time he speaks out, he contributes to the transformation of China's auto industry from "fat scale" to "high-quality development".
Break the false prosperity and rebuild the industry's integrity
The rapid development of China's automobile industry in recent years has masked the deep crisis of data falsification and excessive marketing.
Looking at the industry trends, it is not difficult to find that a Class B car that once sold for more than 200,000 yuan can now be purchased for just over 100,000 yuan. In this regard, Wei Jianjun said bluntly: "Some products have dropped from 220,000 to 120,000 or 130,000 yuan. What kind of industrial product can still guarantee quality if it drops by 100,000 yuan?"
Price wars will lead to many "stupid operations". For example, Wei Jianjun said in an exclusive interview with the media: "Some companies sell new cars as used cars, and three to four thousand dealers are selling used cars with zero kilometers." For users, these seemingly "quasi-new cars" actually hide risks such as battery degradation and component wear. Moreover, because they have been registered and licensed, consumers cannot enjoy the new car warranty, and after-sales rights protection is deadlocked. For the industry, its low-price strategy disrupts the new car pricing system, forcing automakers into a vicious cycle of "price reduction-reduction of configuration-quality decline".
This phenomenon is essentially a short-sighted behavior taken by car companies in response to price wars. They reduce costs by cutting corners and false advertising, which ultimately leads to the cutting of profits across the entire industry chain. In 2024, the profit margin of the automobile industry will drop to 3%, and the loss rate of dealers will be as high as 41.7%.
The essence of price wars is the blind pursuit of "sales volume". Some new car manufacturers need to "account to capital", so the behavior of inflating sales has "come into being". Some car companies create the illusion of prosperous sales through centralized licensing and false exports. This behavior not only disrupts the market order, but also leads to mismatch of supply chain resources. When the truth is revealed, the huge bad debts of suppliers directly impact their capital turnover ability, forming a vicious cycle of "car companies commit fraud - suppliers pay the bill".
The supply chain is the key to supporting my country's "changing lanes and overtaking" in the new energy track. But when "squeezing suppliers" becomes the "basic operation" of OEMs, the supply chain will become "full of holes."
A vivid example is right before our eyes. In 2024, a new energy vehicle company falsely inflated its sales, causing 37 upstream suppliers to have bad debts of 1.8 billion yuan, directly causing the supply chain to break. In order to cooperate with the OEM to lower prices, a parts company cut its R&D investment by 62%, causing the key patent to become invalid.
These cases reveal a reality: with continued insufficient investment in technology and reduced delivery redundancy, the health of the industrial chain is becoming a key hidden danger affecting the sustainable development of the automotive industry.
In this regard, Wei Jianjun made it clear in an interview: "We do not exploit suppliers, we have healthy cooperation with dealers, and our employees are fully respected. As long as this industry develops healthily, I think it is worth it to be criticized." And to achieve this, the investment and reserves behind it are not insignificant.
Great Wall Motors' anti-involutionary measures are to fight against industry bubbles with "hard-core investment". In the Haval Technology Center, which cost 5 billion yuan to build, extreme tests such as "starting after standing for one night at -30℃" and "power consumption when the air conditioner is heated to 26℃" are commonplace. New cars are "daily abused" in simulated environments such as temperature range of -40℃ to 60℃, humidity of 5%-95%RH, and heavy rain and snow. In sharp contrast, some car companies are only satisfied with the national standard collision test requirements of 56km/h, and never pursue the collision results of "64km/h" under the stricter international standards.
In fact, this insistence on genuine goods and fair prices stems from the pain Wei Jianjun experienced in the early days of his business. When he took over the Great Wall Industrial Company in 1990, which was in debt of 2 million yuan, he experienced the passive situation of relying on purchased engines and knew the cost of core technology being controlled by people. Today, Great Wall has established a "full life cycle quality traceability system" to show its respect for the laws of the industry.
In terms of false propaganda, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's "Pilot Work Plan for the Application of "Vehicle-Road-Cloud Integration" for Intelligent Connected Vehicles" clearly requires automakers to mark technical limitations, and the State Administration for Market Regulation's "Guidelines for the Verification of New Energy Vehicle Product Consistency" strengthens production consistency supervision. When "our smart driving is easy to use across the country" became the standard speech at automakers' press conferences, Wei Jianjun said, "We have always emphasized that people and machines can drive together, and hands cannot leave the steering wheel. Some companies also call ACC smart driving, and I don't have the psychological quality to say that."
From homogeneous involution to value creation
Public data shows that from January to August 2024 alone, the automotive industry lost 138 billion yuan in profits due to price wars, and the profit margin of the entire industry chain fell below 3%, exposing the devastating consequences of price wars. The 2025 government work report clearly stated: Comprehensively rectify "involutionary" competition. Eliminate local protectionism, clear market bottlenecks, crack down on low-price dumping, false propaganda and other chaos, and promote various industries to shift from "price wars" to "value wars."
In this regard, Wei Jianjun said: "Even if sales fall below the top ten, we must hold the bottom line." This determination has allowed Great Wall Motors to deliver a counter-trend answer in the industry's cold winter. In the first three quarters of 2024, Great Wall Motors' net profit increased by 108.7% year-on-year, and its gross profit margin increased to 19.51%. Its core strategy is to "advance by retreating", cut off loss-making models, focus on high-value products such as tanks and mountain and sea cannons, and achieve a real breakthrough in ultra-low power consumption through Hi4 hybrid technology, rather than participating in price reduction numbers game.
The long-termism and short-term game of car companies are particularly prominent at this stage. When some leading car companies saw their profitability decline due to price wars and suffered losses for consecutive quarters, Great Wall chose to increase its R&D investment against the trend. In 2024, its R&D expenses reached 10.4 billion yuan, accounting for 5.2% of its revenue, breaking the 10 billion mark for three consecutive years.
Experience tells us that when homogeneity prevails, the only result is price wars again. Only by starting with category innovation and technological differentiation and truly providing value to the audience can we embark on a path of "value creation".
Great Wall's strategic determination stems from its profound understanding of the laws of the industry, so it has always refused to be a follower, but has maintained independent thinking. For example, in terms of intelligent driving, the Coffee Pilot Ultra system adheres to the principle of "human-machine co-driving", and the decision-making mechanism introduces the driver's cognitive model to ensure that the system is in sync with human operation logic; in terms of power, the independently developed 4.0T V8 engine breaks the overseas technology monopoly, and the Hi4-T hybrid architecture has passed the 100,000-kilometer plateau, high cold, and high temperature "three highs" test.
When new forces use the number of laser radars as a core selling point, Great Wall invests its costs in all-terrain control systems; when competitors pursue the configuration of "refrigerators, color TVs, and large sofas", Great Wall is focusing on quality verification under extreme working conditions. There are many such examples, and they all echo Wei Jianjun's point of view - "Technology should solve problems for users, not be used to show off something."
The industrial chain has evolved from "large and scattered" to ecological symbiosis
The drawbacks of China's "large and scattered" automotive industry chain have been fully exposed under the pressure of price wars. A certain OEM delayed the delivery of the ESP system by 6 months due to squeezing suppliers, and a battery company cut its R&D investment by 40% to maintain gross profit. These cases reflect the cruelty of a vicious cycle - price pressure is transmitted step by step along the industrial chain, the innovation coordination mechanism is broken, and ultimately the overall competitiveness is weakened.
The deep-seated contradictions of the industrial chain's coordination dilemma have erupted in a concentrated manner. It is an industry "unspoken rule" that OEMs impose 10%-15% annual cost reduction pressure on parts suppliers. This will lead to more than 200 small and medium-sized suppliers ceasing supply in 2024, and some automakers will even be forced to cut production due to supply disruptions to key components.
In Wei Jianjun's view, "the automotive industry is competing not only in technology, but also in the supply chain". His solution is to build a "forest ecosystem". As an ecosystem with complete vehicles as the core, comprehensive layout of related technology industries such as intelligence and new energy, and realization of multi-species interaction and continuous evolution, Great Wall Motors' forest ecosystem has covered multiple aspects such as intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, power system and clean energy.
Great Wall has already started its layout. In the field of intelligence, the autonomous driving company Momenta was incubated by Great Wall Motors. In terms of new energy, Great Wall Motors began research on power batteries in 2012 and established a power battery division in 2016. In 2018, Honeycomb Energy separated from Great Wall Motors and operated independently. It has now developed into one of the top ten brands in the world in terms of installed power batteries.
Different from the industrial chain ecology of other automobile companies, an important feature of Great Wall Motors' forest ecosystem is symbiosis and sharing, efficient collaboration, and independent control of technology. The business segments and subsidiaries at all levels have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship, making full use of the advantages of ecological cycle development, realizing resource information sharing, and creating value with the goal of empowering the entire vehicle.
China's automotive industry chain is facing a critical period of transformation from large and scattered to strong coordination, and Wei Jianjun is creating a Chinese model for reference.
Quality first, integrity first, excellence first
The road to becoming a powerful country for China's automobile industry is essentially a long-term campaign against impetuousness. Every decision made by Wei Jianjun in his 35 years of automobile manufacturing, from abandoning sedans to focusing on SUVs, to refusing to extend the range and sticking to hybrid technology; from building his own test site to promoting vertical integration of the supply chain, all illustrate the importance of "seeking truth".
Only by seeking truth can the industry develop healthily. Wei Jianjun's sober appeal is becoming the power of the system. The "industry-wide audit" initiative advocated by Wei Jianjun has been included in the internal circulation rectification measures by the National Development and Reform Commission; the Ministry of Finance's precise reduction of new energy subsidies has ended the gray area of "subsidy fraud".
Standing at the crossroads of industrial transformation, Wei Jianjun's persistence provides the answer: the foundation of a strong automobile country lies not in the stories of the capital market, but in the precision instruments in the laboratory; not in the packaging of marketing rhetoric, but in the tire tracks of desert dust tests - "Only by making good cars can I feel at peace with myself, and this is my job," he said.
