According to media reports on November 4, Liu Hening, executive deputy general manager of the Exeed Business Unit and general manager of the Exeed Marketing Center, stepped down last week, and Jin Xin, deputy general manager of the Exeed Business Unit, also departed before the National Day holiday. Two months earlier, Zhang Mengyuan, former executive deputy general manager of the Exeed Marketing Center, was reassigned to Jetour as executive deputy general manager of Jetour Marketing Company, where he oversees product communications.

In other words, three core members of Exeed's management team have "stepped down" over the past two months. As of now, Exeed has not responded to these reports.

Against the backdrop of Chery's strategic challenges, Exeed has also undergone major adjustments this year. In August, Chery revised the reporting line of the Exeed Business Unit, with Zhang Guibing, then executive vice president of Chery Automobile and general manager of the International Business Group, taking charge of Exeed and reporting to Zhang Guozhong, executive vice president of Chery Automobile. In July last year, Chery established the Chery Brand Domestic Business Group, placing Exeed alongside Aihu, Fengyun, and QQ under unified management, with Li Xueyong, executive vice president of Chery Automobile, at the helm.

Given Zhang Guibing's long-standing role in charge of Chery's international business, his management scope spans overseas channels, local production, and regional operations. This adjustment has been interpreted as Chery's hope that Exeed can draw more directly on the group's globalization resources, push into overseas markets, and achieve a breakthrough.

Soon afterward, on September 23, Zhang Guozhong was transferred to become executive vice president of Chery Holding Group, and Zhang Guibing was promoted to executive vice president of Chery Automobile. On October 7, Chery announced an executive division adjustment to deepen its Globalization 3.0 strategy, stating that Zhang Guibing would directly oversee the Chery Brand Domestic Business Group. This means Chery's main brand has been incorporated as a whole into the global market system. In other words, the focus of both the Chery and Exeed brands is "going global." Another interpretation is that Chery's overseas business is stronger, and through this adjustment Chery hopes to replicate the successful experience of its overseas business domestically—helping the Chery brand and, in particular, helping Exeed crack the high-end market.

From this perspective, the recent personnel changes in the Exeed team are an inevitable outcome of Chery's major adjustments. Who will fill the positions left by the three departures remains unclear.

Chery Automobile's latest sales announcement shows that Exeed sold 5,637 vehicles in October, with cumulative sales of 57,600 vehicles from January to October this year. When the Exeed brand was launched in 2018, it was positioned as Chery's high-end brand. Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery Group, has repeatedly stated publicly that he calls it Chery's "crowning brand," using "Volkswagen's Audi" and "Toyota's Lexus" to explain its position within the group.

Looking at the brand's development history, Exeed's positioning has gone through three stages. In the early stage it focused on "comfortable luxury," launching models such as the TX, TXL, Lingyun, Lanyue, and Yaoguang. As the domestic auto market accelerated its transition to new energy, Chery hoped Exeed could use the new energy transition to leap forward. In 2023 it set the direction of "technological luxury," successively launching the Xingjidian ES, Yaoguang C-DM, and Xingjidian ET, with the product focus gradually shifting from fuel SUVs to new energy. This indeed brought a substantial increase in Exeed sales at the time, creating a sales peak of 141,000 vehicles in 2024.

Entering 2025, Exeed entered a reform period, and its Xingjidian sub-line gradually returned to the Exeed brand. The product lineup then underwent major adjustments, even though new products such as the range-extended ET and ES were launched. For Exeed, another factor is that within Chery Group there are also the higher-end Luxeed and Zongheng lines diverting resources; one example is that an MPV originally belonging to Exeed was ultimately given to Luxeed, on which the V9 was developed.

At last year's Exeed Brand Night, Exeed adjusted its strategy again, aiming to be a "global performance luxury brand innovator," and proposed promoting brand upgrading across four dimensions: technology, design, products, and globalization, while launching the "EXEED Le Mans Plan," attempting to strengthen the brand label through racing and handling performance.

Entering 2026, this positioning began to move into the product implementation stage. In April, the EX7, an all-new product of the Exeed 3.0 era, went on sale; at this year's Beijing Auto Show, Exeed also showcased models including the EX7, ES7 GT, EX9, and the X-CONCEPT concept car, continuing to build a new product and design system around "performance luxury." However, domestic sales of the EX7 are not optimistic, with monthly sales remaining in the three digits since launch; and the Exeed brand's current domestic sales are only hovering around 1,000 vehicles, with its main sales still coming from overseas markets.

According to data previously released by Exeed, Exeed products have entered more than 30 markets globally, with an average overseas selling price exceeding 400,000 yuan. Under such circumstances, incorporating Exeed into the international business system is also a path worth exploring. In overseas markets, Exeed can rely on Chery's new energy and intelligent advantages established domestically and retell its brand story. After this personnel adjustment, Exeed's new reform will begin again.

As the luxury brand of technology-focused Chery, Exeed's products have always had a good reputation and quite reliable quality. How it will further achieve differentiated development is also something the outside world is watching closely. Next, it remains to be seen how Chery will use the experience it learned from Huawei and its successful playbook in overseas markets to build its own Audi.