Author | Ye Tingting Editor | Zhang Lianyi
The rear badge will no longer read "Chery," as LUXEED has obtained independent production qualifications.
The public notice for the 412th batch of the "Announcement of Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturing Enterprises and Products" by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on October 16 shows: Anhui Zhijie New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd. is included in the list of "newly admitted vehicle manufacturing enterprises to be published," with the production address at No. 8 Wanjiang Avenue, Wuhu Economic and Technological Development Zone, Anhui Province, and a note stating "member enterprise of Chery Group." In the same document, Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. applied to cancel the production qualification for this address.
This means that (Zhijie Automobile) LUXEED, whose rear badge once read "Chery Automobile," is about to have a name of its own.
From the declaration of its first vehicle under Chery's qualifications in 2023, to the establishment of an independent legal entity in early 2025, and now the finalization of the transfer of production qualifications, LUXEED has completed its identity leap from a "product brand" to an "independent automaker" in less than three years. It will become the first brand under Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance to obtain independent production qualifications for complete vehicles, paving the way for a subsequent independent IPO.
However, independent qualifications are merely a ticket to enter the game. Amid continuous pressure on sales, internal resource competition, and intensifying external competition, LUXEED still needs to prove itself once again.
01 A Long-Planned "Separation"
Zhijie's independence has been achieved step by step.
In November 2023, the LUXEED S7 was launched. At that time, LUXEED's identity was very pure: a vehicle brand cooperating between Chery and Huawei. The complete vehicle qualification was affiliated under Chery Automobile, and the production address was Chery's Wuhu factory. The cars consumers bought had "Chery Automobile" written on the rear badge. Huawei provided the intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving solutions, and channels, while Chery was responsible for manufacturing. This is a typical division of labor of "technology + manufacturing."
In January 2025, Anhui Zhijie New Energy Vehicle Co., Ltd. was registered and established in Wuhu, with a registered capital of CNY 1 billion, wholly owned by Chery. This was the first step for Zhijie to move from a "business division" to an "independent legal entity."
In August of the same year, Chery and Huawei signed the Zhijie Brand (LUXEED) Strategy 2.0 cooperation agreement, planning to invest over CNY 10 billion in R&D funds, expanding the R&D team to 5,000 people, and promoting the independent integrated operation of Zhijie's R&D, production, sales, and services.
What truly brought "independence" from paper to reality was the dual separation of equity and qualifications.
At the end of June 2026, Zhijie completed its industrial and commercial changes. Chery's shareholding dropped from 100% to 85%, with two partnership enterprises, Wuhu Ruiqi and Wuhu Ruilian, each holding 7.5%. Upon look-through, Zhijie's Chairman and CEO Guo Rui indirectly holds about 6%, while Executive Director and Executive Vice President Zhao Changjiang and Executive Deputy General Manager Zhu Xiaodong each hold about 4.5%. The core management team has been bound to the LUXEED ship with their own capital.
The MIIT public notice in October completed the final piece of the puzzle. This qualification change belongs to the transfer of existing stock. Chery canceled the production address of the original factory area, while Zhijie obtained admission in the same factory area, with the production entity transferring along with the production capacity.
Lantu also completed a similar operation in the same batch of announcements. Dongfeng canceled the factory address on Yunfeng Avenue, and Lantu took over the admission. This kind of "transfer of existing stock" has become an industry practice.
02 Why Independence?
Obtaining independent qualifications will bring the most intuitive change to the rear car badge. After the public notice is passed, the rear badge of new cars is expected to change from "Chery Automobile" to "Zhijie Automobile (LUXEED)." It seems like just a replacement of a few words, but behind it is a fundamental reconstruction of the legal entity, financial attribution, and capital imagination.
First, independent qualifications resolve the clarity of responsibility and pricing. Previously, Zhijie models were declared with Chery as the main entity, and production consistency, product admission, and quality responsibility legally belonged to Chery. For a company planning an independent IPO, this is unacceptable.
After obtaining the qualifications, Zhijie will become a complete vehicle enterprise parallel to Chery at the regulatory level. Its finances can be accounted for separately, its assets can be evaluated independently, and the capital market can price it individually. After all, according to Zhijie's plans, it will be independently listed in the future.
Second, this is an upgrade of the cooperation model between Huawei and Chery. There are many brands under Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, but Zhijie is the first to complete the full-chain independent separation of "corporate entity, production capacity, equity, and management team."
Chery is willing to transfer the factory and qualifications, and Huawei is willing to send core executive Guo Rui, former CMO of Huawei Terminal Greater China and Global CMO of Honor, into Zhijie's management team. Both parties jointly accept a structure where "Chery is the major shareholder, but Zhijie operates autonomously." If this path is successfully navigated, other brands under Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance will have a replicable template.
Furthermore, Chery itself also has the motivation to promote Zhijie's independence.
For a long time, Zhijie's positioning within the Chery system has been quite subtle: it carries the group's expectations for high-end development, but when sales fluctuate drastically, it will also cause significant disturbances to the consolidated statements. After independence, Zhijie will be accounted for separately as an independent legal entity. Chery will still consolidate the statements with an 85% shareholding, but Zhijie's operating results, asset quality, and IPO expectations can be reviewed individually under clearer entity boundaries.
As for Zhijie itself, independence means a shortened decision-making chain. It no longer needs to go through layer-by-layer approvals within the extensive system of Chery, allowing for faster product iteration and channel construction.
03 The Tough Battle Has Just Begun
Independence does not mean that Zhijie will embark on a smooth path from now on. Looking at the sales data, the picture is not optimistic.
LUXEED's sales in 2025 were 90,500 units, a year-on-year increase of 56%. However, the cumulative sales from January to September 2026 were only 43,623 units, a year-on-year decrease of 24.5%, which is far from the annual target of 300,000 to 350,000 units set at the beginning of the year.
Where does the problem lie? Lagging product iteration is one of the reasons.
The pace of facelifts for the main models S7 and R7 has been slow since their launch, and their product competitiveness has been gradually diluted in an environment where competitors frequently upgrade and adjust prices. In September 2026, LUXEED delivered a total of 5,330 units across all brands, of which the V9 alone accounted for 4,280 units (about 80%).
Consumers' perception of LUXEED has long been attached to Huawei or Chery, and the brand recognition of "LUXEED" as an independent brand has always been insufficient. Relying on its first-mover advantage, Wenjie has captured the primary user mindshare of Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance, leaving LUXEED at a long-term disadvantage in resources and attention in the internal competition.
After independence, these difficulties will not automatically disappear; instead, they may present themselves in a more acute manner.
Channels are the first hurdle. Zhijie's independent channels are already being advanced. After the launch of Brand 2.0 in August 2025, the first LUXEED dedicated network user center in Wuhan has entered construction; in June 2026, an independent store in Guangzhou opened. LUXEED plans to build 200 independent experience centers within 2026, no longer sharing stores with Wenjie.
Building channels requires money and time, and whether LUXEED's current sales scale can support the break-even of independent channels remains a question mark.
Products are the second hurdle. The annual production volume of about 120,000 units issued by LUXEED V9 to suppliers is regarded as a crucial battle for the brand's turnaround. The V9 was launched in May. Although the initial large-order data was not weak, deliveries in September have fallen back, which is far from the annualized target of 120,000 units (about 10,000 units per month).
Whether the short-term popularity of a single car can be transformed into sustained sales is itself a dual test of LUXEED's product definition and channel capabilities. Moreover, the high-end MPV market already has competitors like Tengshi D9 and Lixiang MEGA that have seized the first-mover advantage. Latecomers need to provide sufficiently differentiated experiences to capture market share.
Just around the time of the qualification public notice, two new cards were added to LUXEED's table: on September 28, the LUXEED RX was launched, positioned as a mid-to-large pure electric coupe SUV, priced at CNY 259,800 to CNY 389,800, with the first batch of deliveries starting on October 25; on the same day, the new LUXEED R7 was refreshed and launched, starting at CNY 239,800, with the first batch of deliveries starting on October 27.
The RX bears the expectation of driving volume, while the R7 is the iteration of the main model. The two cars, together with the V9, form the product foundation for LUXEED's first year of independence. However, whether the three cars can simultaneously support sales still needs to be tested by the market. The subsequent planning of models such as R9 and R8 also needs to find LUXEED's own product language against the backdrop of increasingly obvious homogenization of Huawei's technology.
The logic of survival is the most important hurdle. In the past, LUXEED could rely on Chery's manufacturing backstop and Huawei's technology backstop. The identity of an independent legal entity means it has to face supplier payment terms, factory operating costs, channel construction investments, and R&D allocation on its own.
Guo Rui's Huawei background and Zhao Changjiang's BYD channel experience are complementary, but whether this combination can deliver sales in the short term remains unknown.
LUXEED obtaining independent qualifications is a milestone worth recording. It marks Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance's transition from the 1.0 stage of "technology-empowered automakers" to the 2.0 stage of "incubating independent automakers."
However, qualifications solve the issue of identity, not survival. Whether an automaker is truly independent does not depend on what is written on its rear badge, but on whether it can sell cars and make money back without relying on capital injections from its parent company. The public notice period ends on October 23, and LUXEED's coming-of-age ceremony has just begun.