Great Wall Motor Introduces New CEO to Its WEY Brand

Chen Siying, former deputy general manager of Geely’s Lynk & Co’s sales company, officially joined Great Wall Motor on January 30 as CEO of the WEY brand and general manager of marketing for the TANK brand. Chen will report to Li Ruifeng, chief growth officer of Great Wall Motor.

Li Ruifeng has previously stated that WEY’s ambition is to become a strategic, high-end, new energy vehicle brand with models in the price range of 200,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan ($29,653 – $59,307).

At the end of 2022, Great Wall Motor carried out a large reform, integrating its six of its major brands – HAVAL, WEY, ORA, TANK, PICKUP, and SAR. After the adjustment, Great Wall Motor has formed four new vehicle organizational structures, including the pure electric vehicle business segment composed of SAR and ORA, a high-end intelligent new energy business segment composed of TANK and WEY, and the PICKUP business segment.

Chen Siying’s appointment is the second high-level personnel change at Great Wall Motor recently. At the end of last year, Wen Fei, CEO of SAR, served as CEO of the department merged by SAR and ORA.

Lynk & Co and WEY are independent high-end brands born at the same time. WEY derives its name from Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor.

At the initial stage of the product launch, the monthly sales of the VV5 and VV7 models owned by WEY quickly exceeded 10,000 units. The average price of the VV7 exceeded 170,000 yuan at that time. However, in 2019, sales volume showed a downward trend. In 2022, WEY’s sales volume only topped 36,000 vehicles. Compared with WEY, Lynk & Co developed a little more smoothly. In 2018, before Chen Siying joined, Lynk & Co had sold 120,000 vehicles. In 2021, its sales volume reached 220,500 vehicles and, in 2022, the cumulative sales volume reached 800,000 vehicles.

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Wei Jianjun has described the automaker’s exploration of the high-end auto market as a protracted war, and Lexus, a subsidiary of Toyota, has achieved today’s achievements after decades of effort. With the arrival of the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the replacement of joint venture brands by Chinese independent brands has given the WEY brand a new opportunity. However, it needs to be reshaped to adapt to the new era, and the decision-making team of Great Wall Motor is remaining patient in the process.