Written by | He Wei

Source | Beiduo Finance

As a smart car brand equipped with a technology platform, product series, and independent branding, EXEED has been strategically positioned for brand advancement since its inception. The launch of its new energy sub-series, Star Era, has further solidified its matrix layout, spanning the mid-to-high-end sedan and SUV markets.

According to the latest data, EXEED sold 9,533 vehicles in May 2025. During the same period, Zeekr, a high-end brand under Geely Auto, sold 18,900 units, nearly double EXEED's figure, while AITO, under Changan Automobile, sold 12,800 units.

In 2024, EXEED's cumulative sales reached 141,000 units, a 12.3% increase year-on-year, but this performance was unremarkable in the broader high-end new energy vehicle market. Zeekr, for instance, sold 222,000 units in 2024, while AITO's sales surged by 100%.

Huang Zhaogen, President Assistant of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., and General Manager of EXEED Marketing Center, once revealed that EXEED's 2024 global sales target was 300,000 units. However, EXEED only achieved less than half of this target. The high-end market is a ruthless race with no room for delays. Missing the optimal window period can result in a brand falling into a visible yet unattainable dilemma, despite having a robust product matrix and advanced technology.

Currently, EXEED and its Star Era series have not demonstrated significant market improvement or brand growth. As competition in the smart electric vehicle sector intensifies and user perceptions diversify, EXEED and Star Era, backed by the Chery Group, are facing increased scrutiny regarding their strategies, branding, and internal and external environments.

1. Why Has EXEED's Sales Volume Stagnated?

Since its establishment in 2019, EXEED, as Chery's flagship brand for high-end market entry, has been met with high expectations.

Initially envisioned as a high-end representative comparable to joint ventures, luxury brands, and new auto players, EXEED has yet to pierce the ceiling of the high-end market after six years. There is still ample room for improvement in sales, brand recognition, and other key metrics.

Initially focused on fuel vehicles, EXEED later ventured into the new energy space with the launch of the "Star Era" pure electric series. To date, EXEED offers a total of eight models, four of which are new energy vehicles. Excluding the two plug-in hybrid models (Chufeng C-DM and Yaoguang C-DM), EXEED's true pure electric offerings include only Star Era ES and Star Era ET.

EXEED's first model was the fuel vehicle EXEED TX, and it wasn't until 2022, amidst the "new energy vehicle boom," that EXEED introduced its first new energy vehicle, the Chufeng ET-i. The true pure electric products, Star Era ES and Star Era ET, were only launched in 2023.

By this time, the market was already flooded with high-end new energy vehicle models. Nevertheless, EXEED does possess a technological foundation, including advanced configurations like the M3X platform architecture, CDC active suspension system, and NVH silence optimization.

However, the challenge lies in translating these technologies into core user experiences and forging a resonating value identity at the terminal level. EXEED's "exam question" is not about a lack of technology but about making technology truly "speak" to users. In contrast, Zeekr emphasizes assisted driving, AITO leverages "emotional intelligence" to enter the high-end market, and other independent brands have their own unique selling points.

EXEED, on the other hand, tends to highlight multiple attributes such as intelligence, safety, and luxury simultaneously, resulting in a brand strategy that is broad but shallow. This approach may struggle to create a strong resonance with users, limiting brand recognition and market penetration.

2. Why Has Star Era Failed to Become EXEED's Ace?

From a market performance perspective, EXEED's sales volumes from January to May 2025 ranged from 5,804 to 9,533 units, never exceeding 10,000 units. Star Era ET's sales volumes for the same period were 603, 407, 398, and 1,589 units, respectively.

On December 15, 2024, Yin Tongyue, Chairman of Chery Holding Group, expressed the hope to deliver vehicles to the 100,000th Star Era user soon. Huang Zhaogen set a target for Star Era ET to exceed 10,000 units in monthly sales in 2025. However, as of the first five months of 2025, Star Era ET is far from achieving this goal, and EXEED as a whole is also lagging behind.

In terms of market momentum and sales force, Star Era also trails competitors like Zeekr and AITO during golden weeks and holidays. Although ES and ET are positioned as mid-to-large pure electric sedans and SUVs, respectively, and are comparable to competitors in size and configuration, their market response is directly reflected in lackluster sales.

This reflects both the intense external competition and the brand's internal challenges. The window period for the high-end new energy sector is rapidly closing, with players like Zeekr, AITO, and Wenjie launching comprehensive offensives in products, channels, and user operations.

Put simply, these brands not only established high-end intelligence labels early but also dominated users' perceptions of high-end new energy vehicles. Against this backdrop, despite not being a late entrant, Star Era still has significant room for improvement in brand recognition, product popularity, and user interaction.

If timing is everything, EXEED is facing an objective hurdle. Furthermore, EXEED is somewhat conservative in user operations. Leading brands typically leverage matrix communication methods such as user communities, content co-creation, IP persona creation, live streaming, and short videos, supplemented by in-store experiences, to drive sales.

In contrast, EXEED lacks similar high-frequency touchpoints, which inevitably results in inferior product popularity, weaker user stickiness, and difficulty in generating secondary creation and fission communication effects. While Star Era ES and ET boast impressive hardware specifications and mainstream parameters, these technological advantages have not been effectively communicated to users.

Technologies need to be listed, explained, and seen clearly. In the current high-end electric market, where communication, interaction, and experience are paramount, EXEED's marketing challenges may have undermined its deserved attention, memory points, and sales volume to a certain extent.

3. How to Resolve EXEED and Star Era's 'Dilemma' Amidst Internal and External Challenges?

Brands like Zeekr and AITO have positioned themselves at the high end and quickly established solid user perception barriers. Zeekr relies on its ability to form a closed loop of intelligent experience, creating a benchmark for mass-produced, implementable intelligence. AITO, on the other hand, emphasizes the deep integration of design and intelligence through the "Huawei + Changan + CATL" trio.

These competitors' standout experiences have constructed distinct and sustainable differentiated advantages in brand tonality, technology labels, and user circles. In contrast, EXEED and Star Era have yet to form a clear and concrete positioning in the core dimensions of brand building, including brand recognition, product differentiation, and user perception of technological value.

Over the years, EXEED has attempted to shape a high-end impression through various methods, and Star Era has tried to create a product moat with high-end cutting-edge technology. However, these strategies have not effectively resonated with high-end customer groups nor created unexpected experiences that stimulate word-of-mouth communication.

More crucially, in the current high-end smart electric vehicle market, persona is positioning. Brands like Zeekr, AITO, and Xpeng have established differentiated brand images, clear brand personas, and user communication systems. In contrast, EXEED's brand communication has yet to establish its own high-end persona and brand image.

This means EXEED needs a core operating system that continuously attracts user resonance. To truly enter the high-end camp, EXEED and Star Era must find true leverage points in brand persona shaping and value proposition focusing.

Positioning EXEED within Chery Group's high-end story presents another dilemma. Chery's high-end dream was initially placed on EXEED, while EXEED's high-end dream is pinned on Star Era. However, the reality is that Star Era has more aspiration than capability, and EXEED has been honing its skills for six years without meeting expectations.

Just as EXEED is in desperate need of replenishment, Chery Automobile has joined forces with Huawei to launch the "Zhi Jie" brand, not only stealing Star Era's spotlight but also potentially diverting resources needed for EXEED's advancement.

From "what EXEED needs, Chery provides" to today's "Technology Chery, Quality Chery, International Chery, ultimately converging into the upward trend of the EXEED Star Era brand," EXEED has always been the pinnacle of Chery's brand system, according to Yin Tongyue, Chairman of Chery Holding.

However, the pinnacle of the pyramid must be built on a stable and broad base. The current reality may not be as optimistic as envisioned. The question is not with Chery but rather why EXEED, with Chery's full support, has failed to fulfill Chery and Yin Tongyue's "high-end dream" for six years.

Why has Star Era failed to achieve EXEED's high-end goals? And with competitors like Wenjie, Zeekr, and AITO already established in the mid-to-high-end market, and Zhi Jie making a strong debut, what does EXEED, with limited resources and volume, still have to sprint for in this "high-end game" it has yet to conquer?

4. Conclusion

Over the past few years, EXEED has not been lacking in investment or action. With a platform and technology that theoretically provide a foundation for success, EXEED's situation became even more delicate with the emergence of Zhi Jie.

Does EXEED continue to wait for an opportunity to break the deadlock, or proactively sort out its brand logic and reshape its value propositions? These are questions EXEED and Star Era cannot avoid.

As EXEED's problems unfold and Star Era fails to become the key to unlocking the high-end market, it is essential to re-evaluate: Who is EXEED? Who does it want to become? And what does it rely on to achieve that goal? The real exam questions have never been about external storms but about internal coordinates and directions.

Ultimately, the question of breaking the deadlock comes down to EXEED itself.