China’s automotive industry has formed a clear hierarchical pattern. Chongqing leads in total vehicle output, Hefei shines brightly in new energy transformation, and Guangzhou boasts profound heritage in traditional vehicle manufacturing. Beneath the spotlight on these leading cities, Yancheng, a little-known small city in northern Jiangsu, has long remained unnoticed. Yet it is this unassuming city that has staged a remarkable comeback through extraordinary perseverance and unwavering faith, its spirit of dedication surpassing that of many high-profile industrial hubs.
Yancheng’s automotive growth is hard-earned and down-to-earth. The city produced merely 160,000 vehicles in 2023, doubled its output in 2024, and achieved a production and sales volume exceeding 400,000 units in 2025. While such figures may seem trivial in the eyes of industrial giants, they represent the full dedication and relentless efforts of every automotive practitioner in Yancheng.
Home to three complete vehicle manufacturing plants, Yancheng is just like countless ordinary strivers. It never flaunts grand ambitions but holds fast quietly amid industry turbulence and strives to consolidate its industrial foundation step by step. The nirvana and revival of Yancheng’s automotive industry lies in three core breakthroughs: the turnaround of Yueda Kia from the trough, the revitalization of the idle HiPhi factory, and the independent development of FAW Yueyi, which have jointly revitalized the city’s entire automotive industry.
Yueda Kia: Defying the Downturn, Raising Salaries Against Industry Trends
As a core symbol of Yancheng’s automotive industry, Yueda Kia has rooted in the city for more than two decades and developed an inseparable bond with Yancheng. It has weathered prolonged industry winters and once faced an existential delisting crisis.
Starting from 2017, Korean vehicle brands experienced continuous sales declines in the Chinese market. In June 2019, Yueda Kia’s No.1 factory officially suspended production. Doubts flooded the industry, with many insiders asserting that Korean vehicles would completely withdraw from the Chinese market and that Yueda Kia’s decline was irreversible.
Perseverance prevails even in the darkest days. Yancheng never abandoned Kia, and Kia never deserted its Yancheng base. The two sides stood together to seek breakthroughs amid adversity. Leveraging an overseas export-focused strategy, Yueda Kia achieved a crucial turnaround. In 2024, its annual production and sales reached 258,000 units, with exports serving as the core growth pillar. In 2025, its cumulative domestic sales topped 254,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.3%, marking two consecutive years of positive growth and ending years of sluggish sales.
Solid performance growth brought tangible employee benefits. In June 2025, against a backdrop of brutal market competition, rising raw material costs and fluctuating exchange rates — when domestic automakers were widely cutting salaries and laying off staff — Yueda Kia announced company-wide salary hikes for all on-the-job employees, with an average increase of 2%.
The brand explained the move as adherence to its people-oriented philosophy. In essence, this confidence stems from the hard-won export orders secured by Yancheng’s automotive team through relentless efforts. At a time when Korean vehicles were universally written off online, this small-city joint venture delivered a powerful response with down-to-earth perseverance and steady growth.
HiPhi Factory: Reborn From Silence, Revitalizing Idle Production Capacity
If Yueda Kia’s recovery embodies perseverance through hardship, the story of Yancheng’s HiPhi factory is an even more torturous legend of rebirth.
Following the shutdown of Yueda Kia’s No.1 factory in 2019, the idle plant embraced a new opportunity. In the same year, HiPhi forged a strategic cooperation with Jiangsu Yueda Group to fully renovate and upgrade the old factory for the production of high-end intelligent new energy vehicles. The launch of the HiPhi X in 2020, priced at 570,000 to 800,000 RMB, made the factory a benchmark for high-end intelligent manufacturing in Yancheng, bearing the city’s full hopes for automotive industrial upgrading.
Nevertheless, its premium market positioning failed to translate into actual sales. Sky-high pricing drastically limited its customer base, with annual sales of merely 4,237 units in 2021. The brand struggled with sustained operational pressure thereafter. In February 2024, HiPhi suspended production; in August of the same year, its parent company Human Horizons filed for bankruptcy, putting Yancheng’s high hopes for new energy industrial upgrading on hold and leaving the upgraded factory idle once again.
In the industrial sector, hope persists as long as talents and determination remain. Against all odds, a new turnaround arrived in early 2026, when Yueda Automotive Group signed a cooperation agreement with Chery Automobile to establish a new joint venture. The two parties confirmed that the former HiPhi factory in Yancheng would be repurposed exclusively for manufacturing vehicles for overseas export.
Empowered by Chery’s strong overseas market advantages, the long-stalled factory was fully revitalized. Chery exported 1.344 million vehicles globally in 2025, with export volume hitting 752,700 units in the first five months of 2026 alone. The massive overseas demand injected lasting vitality into Yancheng’s production base, reigniting the once-silent assembly lines.
FAW Yueyi: Independent Operation, Leading Yancheng’s New Energy Transformation
While revitalizing idle production capacity, Yancheng has always focused on the core track of automotive industrial upgrading — new energy transformation. FAW Yueyi stands as the city’s key strategic card for seizing new energy market growth.
Backed by FAW Bestune’s technical and resource advantages, Yueyi series vehicles have demonstrated robust market potential since settling in Yancheng. By the end of last year, the combined sales of Yueyi 03 and Yueyi 07 exceeded 6,800 units. Despite minor subsequent sales fluctuations, Yueyi remains the top-selling and backbone product line of the Bestune brand.
To capitalize on new energy market dividends and amplify Yancheng’s industrial advantages, FAW Bestune officially spun off its new energy series “Yueyi” as an independent sub-brand under FAW Group, with Yancheng designated as its exclusive core production base. In May 2026, the first mass-produced FAW Yueyi 08 officially rolled off the production line in Yancheng, marking a new milestone for the city’s new energy manufacturing strength.
Built on a brand-new dedicated platform, Yueyi plans to launch six models targeting the mainstream 80,000–150,000 RMB household new energy vehicle segment, precisely filling FAW Group’s product gap in the affordable civilian new energy market. Unlike Hongqi and Golden Sunflower focusing on high-end markets, Yueyi shoulders the core mission of boosting sales volume and capturing mainstream market share, serving as a vital growth engine for Yancheng’s automotive industry.
A Small City’s Great Achievement: Perseverance Leads to Dawn
Yancheng’s automotive industry has achieved qualitative transformation, evolving from relying solely on Yueda Kia for survival to possessing three core competitive strengths: the steady growth of Yueda Kia, export-oriented production via Chery, and new energy layout through FAW Yueyi. The city has set an annual vehicle production capacity target of 600,000 units for 2026, striding steadily toward higher industrial goals.
This small city in northern Jiangsu lacks the industrial scale of Chongqing, the new energy spotlight of Hefei, and the century-old manufacturing heritage of Guangzhou. Its rise relies neither on market dividends nor resource inclination, but purely on the most simple perseverance and hard work of generations of automotive practitioners.
Production lines may pause temporarily, and factories may fall silent for a time, but the spark of industry will never fade as long as original aspirations, teams and faith endure. Yancheng’s story is not only an industrial breakthrough journey of a single city, but also the best testimony to countless ordinary strivers’ counterattacks against adversity. Sustained dedication and quiet cultivation will always be rewarded by time.
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