Geely’s Smart Driving Integration: Three Major Teams Including Geely Research Institute Merged into New Company, Scale of 3,000 People
A major integration of smart driving business is unfolding within Geely.
21 Auto exclusively learned that Geely Holding Group recently conducted a major integration of smart driving companies and teams within the Geely system. The Zeekr smart driving team, Geely Research Institute, and Megvii’s smart driving brand “MaiChi ZhiXing” will all be merged into Chongqing Qianli Smart Driving.
According to Tianyancha, Chongqing Qianli Smart Driving Technology Co., Ltd. is a joint venture company officially established on June 27 this year. This company is established by Qianli Technology outside of listed companies, jointly with Geely, Megvii and others, focusing on smart driving business. Chongqing Jianghe Qixing, Geely, and Megvii each hold 30% stakes as the three major shareholders, while Lotus holds 5%.
Under the “One Geely” strategic integration approach, starting from the second quarter of last year, Geely has integrated front-end and back-end resources including procurement, supply chain, intelligent cockpit, and vehicle platforms. The smart driving business involves 5 internal and external teams with an integration scale exceeding 3,000 people, making it a relatively challenging component.
With the integration of smart driving business, “One Geely” is accelerating its formation. Geely, the former “domestic leader,” is accelerating its charge toward the ambitious goal of 5 million vehicles and returning to the top position.
3,000-Person Smart Driving Team Awaiting Integration
A senior source close to Geely told 21 Auto that on Friday afternoon in Ningbo Hangzhou Bay, Geely held a rally for senior employees from the three teams. Qianli Technology CEO Yin Qi, Qianli Technology Co-President Wang Jun, Geely Auto CEO Gan Jiayue, and Zeekr Technology Group Vice President Chen Qi all attended and spoke, with the meeting lasting 3 hours.
The meeting clearly stated that Geely will have only one smart driving team in the future (namely Qianli Smart Driving Company). Besides Zeekr’s smart driving team, Geely Research Institute’s smart driving team will also be integrated into the new company.
21 Auto learned that currently the Zeekr team has nearly 1,500 people, Geely Research Institute has nearly 1,000 people, plus MaiChi ZhiXing’s 500-person team. After completion of the merger, Chongqing Qianli Smart Driving team will reach nearly 3,000 people.
However, the conference did not clarify more merger details. “Within Qianli Smart Driving Company, specific appointments of various leaders have not been announced yet. It’s estimated that announcements will come after all Zeekr smart driving team employees successfully transfer,” said the aforementioned source.
Another Zeekr smart driving employee added timing details – they were notified that all Zeekr smart driving employees’ transfers must be completed before August 15.
The merger principle is “steady progress.” “Before year-end, things that Zeekr leadership are respectively responsible for won’t see major changes,” said an employee close to Geely’s smart driving team. Currently, Zeekr 9X is handled by Chen Qi, while Galaxy M9 remains under the MaiChi team’s responsibility. “Changes reflected in actual business and projects will have to wait until 2026.”
“This Monday (August 4), the main leaders of the three teams, plus Yin Qi, will discuss together the possibility of integrating the three teams as one company. There will be conclusions before the end of August,” said the aforementioned source.
Previous “Two Moves”: Unified Solution, Establishing New Company
Among all R&D team mergers, integrating smart driving teams is relatively more difficult.
Looking solely at smart driving teams, Geely Group internally had at least 5 teams – Research Institute Smart Driving Center, Zeekr’s self-developed smart driving team, Lotus smart driving team, ECARX, and Foryou. Multiple parallel teams often led to duplicate development and resource redundancy.
Starting from the second quarter of last year, various leaders held many meetings but couldn’t decide on priorities. In September last year, An Conghui stated in a media interview that Geely internally had already formed two smart driving routes represented by Zeekr and Geely Auto respectively. The former focused on high-level, the latter on high-value (low-level) smart driving solutions.
In March this year, at Geely’s AI Smart Technology Conference, Geely Group’s internal smart driving solution was officially unified as “Qianli Haohan,” divided into H1, H3, H5, H7, H9 five levels, covering Geely’s full range of different price point models.
“Geely’s entire smart driving is one chess game, including Lynk & Co, all within the Qianli Haohan smart driving system. We will conduct comprehensive unification, focusing on one smart driving solution,” Gan Jiayue told 21 Auto in a group interview.
At the same time Geely unified its smart driving solution, plans to establish a new company focusing on smart driving business were also brewing.
On the evening of March 2, Qianli Technology announced that the company intended to jointly sign the “Vehicle BU Investment Framework Agreement” with Liangjiang Industry Fund, Chongqing Industry Mother Fund, Jianghe Hui, Geely, Chongqing MaiChi, and Lotus to jointly develop smart driving technology. Overall, this cooperation mainly consists of Chongqing local industry funds, Geely system, and Qianli Technology. This formed the establishment foundation for Chongqing Qianli Smart Driving.
It was already determined then that after the joint venture’s establishment, it would be clearly designated to serve Geely’s smart driving R&D. According to announcement information, the joint venture will become a core partner in Geely Auto’s artificial intelligence ecosystem, focusing on smart driving algorithms, automotive-grade hardware adaptation, and scenario-based solutions, supporting L2-L4 level autonomous driving technology mass production, providing smart driving solutions for Geely’s brands (such as Geely Galaxy, Zeekr).
The new company’s management team has also gradually been put in place.
On June 20, Qianli Technology announced the appointment of Mr. Wang Jun as the company’s Co-President. Wang Jun’s most well-known experience was as former President of Huawei’s Vehicle BU. On June 27, Qianli Smart Driving joint venture was officially registered and established, with Yang Mu as the legal representative at the time, updated to Wang Jun on July 14. Yang Mu is CTO of MaiChi ZhiXing and one of Megvii Technology’s co-founders, along with the other two co-founders Yin Qi and Tang Wenbin, all graduates of Tsinghua’s Yao Class.
The relationships between Qianli Technology, MaiChi ZhiXing, and Geely run deep.
Qianli Technology’s predecessor, more widely known by its original name, is “Lifan Technology.” Lifan was established in 1992, initially making motorcycles, entered the automotive industry in 2006, and after bankruptcy restructuring in 2020, Geely became a Lifan shareholder, and Lifan began producing the Maple brand.
In 2022, the company also established the Ruilan brand. Li Chuanhai, Director of Geely Group Central Research Institute, and Liu Jinliang, Director of Geely Group and Chairman of Caocao Mobility, became directors of Qianli Technology (formerly “Lifan Technology”) in September 2024 and September 2022 respectively. In November 2024, the board voted for Yin Qi to become the current Chairman of Qianli Technology.
Yin Qi previously founded AI company Megvii Technology. Megvii officially entered the smart driving industry in 2021, establishing MaiChi ZhiXing. MaiChi ZhiXing has been conducting mass production cooperation for multiple Geely models since 2023. MaiChi ZhiXing’s current CEO is Liu Wei and CTO is Yang Mu. Currently, reliable sources tell us that Liu Wei will leave MaiChi for personal reasons, and Wang Jun will succeed as MaiChi’s CEO.
“One Geely,” Charging Toward 5 Million
“The essence behind smart driving industry mergers is that the business model of the smart driving industry has changed,” a mid-to-senior level person in the smart driving industry told us.
The aforementioned person explained that technical routes in the smart driving industry are converging, and under price war-driven automotive competition, technical routes will further converge. “When excessively high costs don’t bring actual returns, marginal effects become very obvious. When marginal effects diminish, only resource reuse can dilute costs.”
Beyond industry development trends, integrating internal and external smart driving resources, Geely also has its own considerations.
2025 market competition will enter a transformation year, and Geely’s expectations for 2025 are not low. According to plans, in 2025, Geely’s passenger vehicle segment targets annual sales of 2.71 million units, achieving 25% year-on-year growth, with new energy sales targeting 1.5 million units, meaning new energy penetration rate reaching above 55%. Geely Holding has also set strategic goals for the next three years: by 2027, annual vehicle sales will exceed 5 million units.
To sprint toward the future goal of 5 million annual sales, Geely released the “Taizhou Declaration,” clearly proposing to shift “from strategic expansion to strategic integration.” In this process, Geely will further clarify brand positioning, straighten out equity relationships, reduce interest conflicts and duplicate investments, thereby improving resource utilization efficiency.
Since then, Geely has been conducting strategic focus from various dimensions.
Besides integrating sub-brands, starting from the second quarter of last year, Geely has conducted major integration of its R&D resources, including teams for smart driving, cockpit, electronic and electrical architecture, electric power, vehicle platforms behind Geely Central Research Institute and various sub-brands, as well as back-end procurement and supply chain.
In January this year, at the “Taizhou Declaration” interpretation meeting, Geely Holding Group Senior Vice President Yang Xueliang stated that integration of procurement and SQE resources across brands had been completed, with Geely establishing central procurement and central SQE, thereby unifying supply chain management. In May, Geely Group also completed integration of cockpit teams, merging Zeekr’s intelligent cockpit team into the Central Research Institute, coordinated by new Chief Cockpit Scientist Jiang Jun.
In 2017, Geely surpassed Great Wall with 1.247 million unit sales to claim the title of “domestic leader” that year, maintaining it for 4 years until 2022, when the domestic leader title was taken by BYD. Now, the gap between the two is narrowing. In the first half of 2025, Geely Holding Group’s total sales were 1.932 million units, only about 210,000 units behind “domestic leader” BYD.
As R&D integration enters the smart driving critical phase, “One Geely” accelerates its formation. Geely has taken another major step toward achieving its ambitious goal of 5 million vehicles and returning to the top position.