(Yicai) Jan. 16 -- SAIC-GM, the joint venture between carmakers Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and the US' General Motors, will leverage its China-based R&D resources to speed up the development of new products in order to counter slumping sales, and plans to release 12 new electric car models in the next three years, an executive said.

“Starting this year, the product definition and technological development of all SAIC-GM’s new models will be led by SAIC-GM and the Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center and will focus entirely on the needs of Chinese customers,” Wang Conghe, executive deputy general manager of the design and engineering center under SAIC-GM, told Yicai recently.

This will enable SAIC-GM to respond to market changes more quickly. In the past, it was taking around 48 to 52 months to develop a new product, Wang said. The digital functions of all its cars will also be developed by SAIC-GM’s software and digital center to enhance its intelligence capabilities.

In order to speed up the transition to new energy vehicles, SAIC-GM plans to launch 12 new pure EV models between 2025 and 2027, Wang said. They will include pure electric and plug-in hybrid cars as well as new range-extending technologies, and will cover a range of auto types including sedans, sport utility vehicles and multi-purpose vehicles.

JV carmakers in China have seen their market share eroded by domestic brands in recent years. One of the main reasons for this is because they are slower in terms of product upgrades and iterations than their domestic competitors.

As a result, sales of JV auto manufacturers have been tumbling. SAIC-GM's sales plunged 32.8 percent last year from the year before to 673,000 vehicles, of which electric car sales jumped 56 percent to 105,000 units.

SAIC-GM, which was set up in 1997 as an equal JV by SAIC and Detroit-based GM, launched a series of measures in the second half of 2024 which led to sales recovering in the third quarter, and the Shanghai-based company returned to profitability in the fourth quarter.

However, this was not enough to fundamentally address the issues of slow product updates and transformation speed. Therefore, SAIC-GM will launch a brand-new generation of super-integrated vehicle architecture designed specifically for the Chinese market this year. From 2025, all its local new energy models will be built based on this architecture.

Editor: Kim Taylor