Wuhu rises as a new automotive city along the Yangtze River

Shortly after the start of the summer, Chery's Intelligent Manufacturing Factory in Wuhu, Anhui Province, is bustling with activity.

Aerial photo shows Chery's production base. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

At the Chery Intelligent Manufacturing Factory, 660 mechanical arms work in tandem. The factory boasts an automation rate of 97 percent. Once assembled, the vehicles will be transported via the upper conveyor belt to the next process—painting.

Outside the factory, a line of car carriers is waiting to pick up new vehicles. Soon, these carriers will deliver the new vehicles across the country and around the world. This factory can produce a car every minute.

The Yangtze River runs east-west across the country, nurturing major automotive industrial cities like Chongqing, Wuhan, and Shanghai along its way. Today, a new automotive city is rising in the Wanjiang region, the stretch of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province.

The automotive industry is a pillar industry of Anhui Province’s economy, and Chery Automobile is its flagship enterprise.

Mechanical arms at work in Chery's Intelligent Manufacturing Factory. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

In 2023, Chery sold nearly 1.9 million vehicles, with approximately two-thirds produced in Wuhu. The company also exported more than 900,000 vehicles, maintaining its position as the top exporter of Chinese brand passenger cars for 21 consecutive years.

Positioned as the flagship enterprise in the province’s pillar industry, last year, Chery played a major role in Anhui's automobile production reaching nearly 2.5 million units, ranking second in the country.

Currently, Wuhu is home to more than 1,500 companies involved in the automotive sector, including several foreign-funded enterprises like Vitesco Technologies (Wuhu) Co., Ltd.

Manufacturing factory of Vitesco (Wuhu). (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

"We are a German-funded enterprise mainly producing automotive powertrain parts. Our products are supplied to over 100 vehicle manufacturers and are used in both Chery's traditional fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles," said Wang Guomin, general manager of Vitesco (Wuhu). Chery's rapid growth has been a major driver of the development of enterprises in the region. “In the future, Vitesco will continue to invest in Wuhu, providing higher quality services to Chery and nearby vehicle manufacturers."

Bearing the responsibility of building a world-renowned automotive city, Wuhu is focusing on three key areas—expanding vehicle manufacturing, strengthening auto parts support, and optimizing aftermarket services. As the leading automotive manufacturer in the region, Chery is fully supported by Wuhu in innovation, scale expansion, cross-industry integration, and market exploration, in its efforts to become a world-class automotive company by 2027.

"Chery is a microcosm of the development of China's automotive industry and a representative of Anhui's manufacturing and innovation," said the main official of the Anhui Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) during a recent visit to Chery. "We hope Chery will continue to seize the opportunities presented in the new energy vehicle market, tackle challenges in developing key technologies and upgrade its products. It needs to accelerate its integration into the global automotive industry’s technology, supply, and value chains. We also hope Chery can establish itself as both a bigger and stronger brand, contributing to the high-quality development of Anhui's automotive industry and, by extension, China's automotive industry."

Photo shows the final assembly line at Chery's Intelligent Manufacturing Factory. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

From January to June this year, Chery sold 1.1 million vehicles, setting a new half-year sales record. The company achieved growth in both new energy vehicles (NEVs) and traditional vehicles, as well as in both domestic and overseas markets.

(Tuo Zhouyu, as an intern, also contributed to this article.)