Zunjie's Price Surge Contrasts with JAC's Stagnant Profits

JAC Motors finds itself at a crossroads.

On June 25, JAC Motors initiated pre-sales for its Zunjie V800 and V680 models. Within just 23 days, pre-sale orders for the two models surpassed 10,000 units, with the V800, priced between 800,000 and 1.2 million yuan, accounting for roughly 80% of the total.

This indicates that a million-yuan MPV, whose final price remains undisclosed and deliveries are yet to commence, has already secured approximately 8,000 orders prior to its market launch.

However, concurrently, JAC Motors, the parent company of Zunjie, has been experiencing a downward trend in the capital market.

As of July 24, JAC Motors' stock price closed at 19.64 yuan, marking a decline of over 60% from its peak of 58.81 yuan a year ago. Ge Weidong and Zhang Jianping, who made substantial investments in JAC's private placement earlier this year, betting on Zunjie's success, are now facing significant losses.

On one hand, there's a surge in orders for million-yuan new cars; on the other, JAC's stock price continues its downward spiral. Zunjie has successfully penetrated the high-end market, so why is the listed company behind it struggling?

01 Zunjie: Embracing the High-End, Pricing for Success

Zunjie seems to have charted its own course from the outset.

In recent years, as new energy vehicles have gained prominence, Chinese auto brands targeting the high-end market typically follow a gradual approach: They first establish themselves in the 200,000-300,000 yuan market, then introduce flagship models, gradually infiltrating the '56E' market dominated by the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, BMW 5 Series, and Audi A6L.

However, Zunjie's inaugural model, the S800, bypassed this conventional path entirely. Priced between 708,000 and 1.018 million yuan, the S800 directly competes with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8L, with higher-end versions even targeting the Maybach S-Class.

While others are still striving to break into the BBA market, Zunjie has already secured a seat at the table of million-yuan luxury sedans.

This is widely regarded as the 'ultimate challenge' in the automotive industry. In 2025, total passenger vehicle sales in China reached 23.553 million units, with models priced below 200,000 yuan accounting for 72.9% of the market (the 100,000-150,000 yuan segment being the largest at 30.0%). Models priced above 200,000 yuan accounted for only 27.1%, while those above 590,000 yuan made up just 2%.

At this price point, consumers are not merely purchasing features, space, and intelligent driving capabilities; they are also investing in brand heritage, business recognition, and status symbolism. The premiums built by traditional luxury brands over decades or even a century are not easily shaken by a single product launch, a few screens, or a specification sheet.

Prior to the S800, no domestically produced sedan had dared to price itself above 700,000 yuan and achieve mass delivery.

But with the support of Harmony Intelligent Mobility, Zunjie has delivered remarkable results. In December last year, the S800 delivered over 4,200 units in a single month, topping the luxury sedan market above 700,000 yuan. By June this year, even though monthly insurance registrations had declined from the peak, the S800 still ranked first in its price segment. Cumulatively, the S800 has delivered nearly 19,000 units.

For a domestically produced sedan with a starting price exceeding 700,000 yuan, this performance demonstrates that consumers are willing to pay million-yuan prices for Chinese brands. Zunjie has thus accomplished the most challenging step: transforming from a collaborative project between JAC and Huawei into a luxury brand truly recognized by high-net-worth consumers.

Following the normal business trajectory, Zunjie could have leveraged the brand momentum built by the S800 to expand into the SUV market with lower-priced, higher-volume models priced around 400,000-500,000 yuan. However, Zunjie opted not to take the 'easy route.'

After the S800 entered stable delivery, Zunjie shifted its focus to the ultra-luxury MPV market. The V680 is pre-priced between 650,000 and 900,000 yuan, while the V800 reaches 800,000-1.2 million yuan, surpassing domestic high-end MPVs like the Zeekr 009 and Tengshi D9 and heading straight for the market dominated by the Toyota Alphard and Lexus LM.

In June just passed, sedans accounted for 38.8% of the market, SUVs 56.6%, and MPVs only 4.6%, making them the smallest of the three major passenger vehicle categories. Ultra-luxury MPVs priced above 800,000 yuan are a niche within a niche.

But being niche does not imply a lack of value. In recent years, models like the Tengshi D9 and Zeekr 009 have proven that Chinese brands can win over high-end MPV users from traditional models like the Buick GL8 and Toyota Alphard.

This plays right into Zunjie's hands. As a successor to the S800, the V800, priced at a million yuan, targets the same demographic, attempting to redefine what a million-yuan MPV should offer in terms of size, cabin, intelligent driving, and flagship features.

This strategy, at least based on pre-sale performance, remains effective.

In 23 days, pre-sale orders for the V800 and V680 surpassed 10,000 units, with the higher-priced V800 accounting for approximately 80%. Consumers did not opt for cheaper versions due to the 800,000-1.2 million yuan pre-sale price; instead, they overwhelmingly chose the flagship model.

From the S800 to the V800, Zunjie is transforming the success of a single model into a high-end brand perception. For a new player born just two years ago without a century of brand heritage, this is already a rare victory.

However, this victory appears to belong more to Harmony Intelligent Mobility and its brand appeal than to JAC Motors, the 'contract manufacturer,' itself.

02 Zunjie's Success, Individual Investors' Woes

While Zunjie's high-end narrative gains momentum, the investment accounts of those betting on JAC are deep in the red.

In February this year, JAC Motors completed a private placement worth nearly 3.5 billion yuan, with an issue price of 49.88 yuan per share. Among the eight subscribers, Ge Weidong and Zhang Jianping's wife, Fang Wenyan, each invested 1 billion yuan, acquiring approximately 20.048 million shares, making them the two heaviest investors in this round.

However, based on the closing price of 19.64 yuan on July 24, the stock price has halved since the issuance. The market value of the two private placement holdings has shrunk to approximately 394 million yuan each, resulting in unrealized losses exceeding 600 million yuan per investor, totaling over 1.2 billion yuan.

More intriguingly, before the private placement shares were unlocked, Fang Wenyan took the lead in reducing her position. From June 10 to 23, she sold a cumulative 9.235 million shares of her previously held tradable shares, cashing out approximately 290 million yuan based on the average transaction price during the period.

Although this reduction did not involve the locked-up private placement shares, the fact that Zhang Jianping and his wife are scaling back their positions—while not necessarily an admission of defeat—indicates that their patience in heavily betting on Zunjie is being eroded by the stock price.

The reason for JAC Motors' stock price decline is straightforward: The capital market is gradually realizing that Zunjie's high-end narrative cannot yet support JAC's financial performance.

In 2025, JAC Motors reported revenue of 46.476 billion yuan, up 10.35% year-on-year, but still posted a net loss of 1.703 billion yuan in net profit attributable to shareholders (net profit attributable to the parent company), with a core loss (excluding non-recurring items) reaching 2.5 billion yuan. The situation did not improve significantly in 2026. JAC expects a net loss of approximately 740 million yuan in the first half of the year, with a core loss of about 986 million yuan, showing little progress compared to the same period last year.

In other words, while the S800 has broken into the million-yuan market, it has not yet pulled JAC out of its losses.

The primary reason is that Zunjie's weight within JAC is still too small.

In the first half of 2026, JAC Motors sold a cumulative 172,400 vehicles, down 9.56% year-on-year; SUV sales fell 27.96%, and sedan sales dropped 36.17%. The growth brought by Zunjie is not enough to offset the decline in traditional passenger vehicles and other businesses.

At the same time, building an ultra-luxury brand is extremely capital-intensive.

From new model development and exclusive factory construction to brand marketing and service system setup, Zunjie is still in a heavy investment phase. Revenue from selling a million-yuan luxury car cannot be simply equated with JAC's profits; while nearly 20,000 S800 units have set a record for domestically produced luxury cars, they are far from immediately covering the costs of a comprehensive automaker.

In its earnings forecast, JAC attributed the losses to declining sales, losses from associated enterprises, and exchange rate fluctuations. Among these, investment losses from associated enterprises amounted to approximately 130 million yuan, while foreign exchange gains decreased by about 390 million yuan year-on-year. While Zunjie is breaking through upward, JAC's existing business and cost burdens continue to pull it from behind.

This is the real reason behind JAC Motors' persistent stock price decline. Perhaps Ge Weidong and Zhang Jianping were not wrong about Zunjie's ability to go high-end, but they overestimated the speed at which Zunjie could transform JAC's profit statement.

The market had previously expected JAC to replicate Seres' turnaround through Zunjie: a blockbuster model driving a brand, which in turn reshapes the entire listed company. However, Zunjie's choice of the million-yuan sedan and ultra-luxury MPV markets—both niche segments—means that even if it continuously dominates these niche markets, it is unlikely to quickly achieve the sales scale of tens of thousands of units like Aito.

While Zunjie delivers on brand stature, the capital market expects profit thickness. JAC Motors' valuation must be recalculated.

Thus, JAC is currently stuck in an awkward middle ground. Its high-end image may have been established, but profits have not yet caught up; pre-sale orders are exploding, but the stock price continues to fall. Whether individual investors like Ge Weidong and Zhang Jianping bet correctly may only be verified in another year or two.

For now, there remains a gap between Zunjie's 'ascent' and JAC's 'descent'—a chasm that only time can bridge.

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