On April 24, at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show, Hu Zhengnan, Vice President of and Chief Technology Officer of the Auto Division, spoke with media representatives.
Hu Zhengnan was recently appointed to his current roles via an internal company announcement, and this appearance marked his first public engagement since the appointment.
During the day's Auto launch event, Lei Jun highlighted the company's newly established European R&D center. Explaining the rationale behind the center, Hu Zhengnan stated that firstly, with Auto planning its official international market entry next year, starting with the challenging European market, a local team is essential. Such a team is needed to accurately understand European consumer preferences and to advance both feature development and vehicle tuning.
Secondly, as 's first Ultra model is a high-performance vehicle whose development involved overcoming significant challenges, the company recognizes that Europe holds the world's most concentrated and rich resources and expertise in high-performance and luxury car design. To attract top global engineers in this field, Auto has set up its R&D center in Munich. This center will serve as a capability hub for high-performance and luxury design, collaborating with domestic teams in China to develop products that meet global quality standards.
Hu acknowledged that international R&D collaboration presents considerable difficulties, with the first step being genuine cultural integration. Differences in language, time zones, and cultural backgrounds can lead to misunderstandings. Therefore, the priority is to build strong team relationships; next, to foster mutual understanding of each other's cultures and backgrounds, embracing diverse perspectives; and finally, to establish a common working language, including unified work systems, technical frameworks, methodologies, and communication channels.
Hu Zhengnan outlined the clear division of labor for the European R&D center, which will focus on five core missions: pioneering R&D and styling design, high-performance vehicle development, luxury vehicle definition, integrating European user experience with product definition, and conducting forward-looking innovation research with European suppliers and universities. Additionally, the center will handle specialized tasks, such as annual testing at the Nürburgring track. These projects will be led by the European team, leveraging resources from China to ensure clear responsibility and closure, giving the European team a sense of achievement while fostering belonging and security for both teams.
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