(Yicai Global) Sept. 19 -- Chery Automobile plans to invest CNY100 billion (USD14.3 billion) in technological innovation over the next five years to boost the Chinese carmaker’s intelligence and new energy development, according to the company’s chairman.

Chery will cultivate over 20,000 research and development staffers, of which more than half will be software talents, over the next five years, Yin Tongyue told reporters.

Anhui province-based Chery aims to produce only NEVs by 2025, achieve independent technology control and intelligent connected vehicles, and realize the commercialization of Level-3 and above autonomous driving technology, Yin said.

Chinese carmakers formed a competitive advantage leading the world in NEV and ICV technologies, with the new energy penetration rate of self-owned brands being almost four times that of the global market average and twice that of the domestic market average, Yin added, noting that the industrial development already realized the transformation from policy-driven to market-driven.

The intelligent experience of products from Chinese carmakers’ self-owned brands surpassed that of joint venture brands, Yin said.

Chery is mulling to complete an initial public offering by 2025, Yin added, without revealing any further detail. Some of the carmaker’s high-quality units producing parts and components also intend to go public. 

On Sept. 16, Chery launched its Yaoguang 2025 strategy to promote technological innovation and develop core technologies, such as platform architecture and intelligent driving. The firm plans to build 19 Yaoguang Laboratories this year and 300 by 2025.

According to the strategy, Chery will build a high-performance intelligent battery vehicle platform, E0X, a light commercial battery vehicle platform, C0X, and a hybrid vehicle platform, T2X. E0X is still under development, while the other two have already started mass production.

Chery did not mention its sales targets for the next few years in the Yaoguang 2025 strategy. It sold nearly 750,000 vehicles between January and August, up 30 percent from a year earlier, with exports exceeding 250,000 units, up 51.1 percent, according to the latest sales data Chery released earlier.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione