Huawei’s automotive offshoot, Hongmeng Zhixing, has poured money and senior management attention into one of its pet projects, the Zhijie marque — and still the cars are not selling. In February Zhijie delivered just 945 vehicles, a 90.6% decline year-on-year from 10,004, even as the broader Hongmeng Zhixing family posted roughly 28,000 deliveries, up 31%.
The imbalance is striking because Zhijie has been treated as a priority. The brand was spun out into an independent operation with reportedly more than a hundred million yuan in investment and a 5,000-person R&D effort; Yu Chengdong, the high-profile Huawei executive, repeatedly fronted product launches, livestreamed pricing debates and personally handed keys at deliveries. The theater and resources, however, have not translated into consumer traction.
Part of Zhijie’s problem is market positioning and timing. Originally conceived to take on the Tesla Model 3, the Zhijie S7 instead found itself squeezed between incumbents and a new wave of challengers such as Xiaomi’s SU7 — a product that rewrote how quickly a newcomer could build awareness and sales. The result left Zhijie vulnerable: it lacked the deep brand halo of high-end Hongmeng models and the price competitiveness of mass-market alternatives.
Hongmeng Zhixing’s strongest sellers are its more expensive models, where Huawei’s strengths in software, in-car intelligence and perceived quality generate ‘certainty’ for buyers. Large, premium SUVs and million-yuan executive cars such as the Wenjie M9 and the Zunjie sedan have delivered healthy volumes, because customers buying at those price points prize low regret and obvious experiential gains over pure price metrics.
By contrast, the 200,000-yuan (roughly $28,000–30,000) mainstream sedan market — where Zhijie sits — is relentlessly transactional. Buyers here compare battery range, price, incentives and finance deals line by line; technology credentials and ecosystem narratives matter less. In that environment Zhijie can neither leverage a luxury premium nor win on blunt cost competitiveness, and it now faces strong incumbents in the pure-electric sedan segment.
Huawei and Chery are attempting a strategic reset with a bet that the next model can rewrite Zhijie’s fortunes. The V9, due in spring 2026, is being positioned as a 500,000-yuan-class mid-to-large luxury MPV with seven seats, executive second-row comfort and a range-extender powertrain. The idea is to take Zhijie out of the overcrowded EV sedan corridor and place it where Huawei’s experiential and service strengths can be amplified.
That plan is plausible but not guaranteed. The premium MPV slice has shown cracks — the Alphard’s mythic sales have softened — yet market leadership remains dominated by familiar names and by fuel-efficient mainstream rivals. For Huawei’s broader automotive ambitions, V9’s success is existential: it must not only revive Zhijie’s sales but also demonstrate that Hongmeng Zhixing can convert technology heft and executive branding into repeatable commercial wins beyond the niche high end.