Author | Zhou Zhiyu

A few days ago, Great Wall Motor's Chairman Wei Jianjun drove a Rolls Royce to the airport, drawing attention. This auto industry magnate, known as the "God of Cars from Baoding," made people speculate as he traveled so ostentatiously in a luxury car.

Now the mystery has been revealed. According to insiders reported by Wall Street News on January 9, Great Wall Motor announced an internal personnel appointment at the beginning of this year, establishing a new "Great Wall Brand Ultra Luxury Car BG," with Wei Jianjun as Chairman and Song Dongxian as CEO.

Establishing a new brand and setting up a Chairman position internally for the first time, with Wei Jianjun at the helm, is quite rare at Great Wall Motor. This also reflects Wei Jianjun's emphasis on the new brand.

According to the aforementioned insider, the main task of the new organization is to create "ceiling products in the automotive industry." As a "car enthusiast," Wei Jianjun will personally participate in the development and testing of ultra-luxury models.

Wall Street News has learned that the ultra-luxury models are planned to be equipped with Great Wall Motor's self-developed 4.0T V8 engine technology. Beyond the engine, there will be more unique technologies incorporated.

Currently, the models for sale in China equipped with the 4.0T V8 engine mainly include the Porsche Panamera, Audi SQ7, Bentley Bentayga, among others, all priced in the million-level ultra-luxury segment.

With Great Wall Motor entering the market, the ultra-luxury segment priced in the millions will welcome a highly competitive player.

Wall Street news has learned that the new brand has not yet been finally named. However, during the past period, Great Wall Motor has intensively registered a series of trademarks such as Great Wall Jiayu, Great Wall Shanhai, and Great Wall Yanmen, which may be used for the new brand or specific models.

In terms of brand positioning, the new brand is positioned higher than the existing brands of Great Wall Group, which include Haval, WEY, Tank, ORA, and Great Wall Pickup.

In addition, Great Wall's ultra-luxury brand's specific models are still in the planning stage. Besides a 5.5-meter D+ class luxury sedan, hybrid supercars are also being considered, covering multiple technological routes. It can be determined that there will be at least one model equipped with a high-power internal combustion engine, supplemented by an Electric Machine.

As the Autos industry enters the era of intelligent electrification, domestic brands have successively launched ultra-luxury brands and specific models priced in the millions. For example, BYD has launched the Yangwang brand, Huawei and JAC have jointly developed ZunJie, and ZEEKR has also launched models like 001FR and 009 Glory Edition, targeting this niche market. They primarily compete through Electric Machine technology and intelligent capabilities, differentiating themselves from traditional brands.

The ultra-luxury market is still dominated by foreign brands like Land Rover, Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi. Among the top 20 best-selling models, only the Yangwang U8 comes from a domestic brand. This also indicates that the penetration rate of New energy Fund in the ultra-luxury market still needs to be further improved.

The internal determination at Great Wall Motor is that the development direction of Autos in China should be more diversified. Currently, internal combustion engines still possess value retention, scarcity, and emotional value. Great Wall Motor has accumulated years of technology in internal combustion engines and can enhance brand recognition by creating a product with extreme technological innovation, providing more possibilities for the competitive landscape of ultra-luxury brands.

In October last year, Wei Jianjun revealed that in April and May 2025, a self-developed 4.0T V8 large displacement engine from Great Wall would be launched to serve the unique scenarios of Great Wall's off-road and large displacement use. Great Wall's ultra-luxury cars BG has also introduced several engine design and tuning technicians from European luxury brands.

Song Dongxian, who is appointed as the CEO of Great Wall Motor's ultra-luxury car BG, is a member of the "post-80s" generation. Since joining Great Wall Motor in 2012, he has been working in the field of power research and has led the development of the Lemon Hybrid DHT platform. Based on this technology platform, Great Wall Motor has also developed Hi4, which is widely used in multiple models.

Having such a young executive who focuses on technology as the CEO of the new organization also demonstrates Great Wall Motor's high expectations for the new project's power technology.

However, to break into the ultra-luxury market dominated by foreign brands, it cannot be achieved solely through technology; efforts must also be made in areas such as user emotional value and brand recognition. This is also the main direction that current domestic brands are striving for as they enter the ultra-luxury market.

Great Wall Motor is prepared for a long-term battle. The new ultra-luxury brand will operate on the principles of "high quality, small batches," with the main task still being to create the "ceiling model of the auto industry," shouldering the mission of tackling hardcore technology challenges.

This will be a crucial battle for Great Wall Motor's brand elevation.

In the past two years, unlike other domestic car brands that pursued rapid scale growth, Great Wall Motor sought quality growth. Under this philosophy, the Tank brand has shouldered the responsibility of elevating the brand, leading to a continuous recovery in net income for Great Wall Motor over the first three quarters of 2024. Last year, the Tank brand's cumulative sales exceeded 0.23 million units, a year-on-year increase of 42%.

Intense price wars have plunged most companies in the industry into a dilemma of bleeding sales, but Great Wall Motor has proposed some different solutions.

Next, as Great Wall Motor's ultra-luxury cars gradually unveil their mystery, they will not only promote further brand elevation for Great Wall Motor but also create long-term profit growth points.

The history of traditional luxury brands shows that they emerged during industrial transformation periods after gaining technological strength. For Chinese self-owned brands like Great Wall Motor, a new phase in China's leadership of the Global New energy Fund development has arrived. Those who can seize the opportunities of the era will be the leaders in the next era. In the face of the opportunities presented by the times, no one is willing to miss out.