Inside SERES’ Smart Vehicle Factories in Chongqing

Translated from the Chinese article dated 14 February 2024. Sales, staffing, orders, capacity and investment figures below are historical figures or statements reported at that time.

“What we produce in a day now used to take almost a month,” Cao Nan, deputy general manager of the SERES smart vehicle factory, told a visiting Shanghai Securities News reporter. He was referring to July and August 2023, when the factory's monthly production was below 1,000 vehicles.

On 1 February, SERES reported January new-energy vehicle sales of approximately 36,800 units, up 654% year on year. Deliveries of the new AITO M7 were 10,547, 15,242 and 20,611 vehicles in October, November and December 2023 respectively. The company reported more than 130,000 cumulative confirmed orders during the new M7's first three months on the market, and more than 30,000 confirmed orders for the M9.

Analysts interviewed for the report linked the growth to the adoption of intelligent technologies. They described increasingly connected vehicles as mobile terminals and identified intelligent systems as a further area of opportunity after electrification. Growth in AITO orders was also generating additional work for suppliers.

More than 3,300 employees and extended production hours

Inside the factory, AGVs moved between work areas, robotic arms operated along the lines and employees worked alongside robots. Cao said the immediate priority was delivering existing orders. He had been stationed at the plant continuously for more than two months.

A company representative said the factory was increasing capacity, coordinating flexible production, strengthening quality control and securing supplies. Average operation was reported at 22 hours per day, with some areas, including body welding, operating around the clock and requiring additional shifts.

The factory producing the new M7 had employed approximately 700 people before October 2023. By the time of the report, the workforce exceeded 3,300. Staffing also covered breaks, meals and shift changes to support overall line efficiency.

An experienced automotive worker identified as Mr. Du said he had recently returned from another region to work at the plant. He described demanding overtime but said he was satisfied with the compensation.

According to a Shapingba District government representative, the district helped recruit approximately 300 graduates in relevant disciplines and 340 logistics and transport workers after the increase in orders. It also provided 150 staff apartments for management, research and senior technical personnel. SERES had three smart vehicle factories in Chongqing at the time and was continuing to recruit.

Robotics and production quality

Cao said the three factories had more than 5,000 robots in total, with key processes fully automated and a fastest reported vehicle completion interval of 30 seconds. The article presents these as statements about the company's manufacturing installations, rather than benchmarks independently established for the industry.

In the assembly workshop, robots picked up fasteners and wheels, aligned them and tightened the connections. A factory guide described AI vision supporting automatic alignment and high-precision tightening, with a reported error below 0.03 mm.

The article also describes blue-light identification at the 0.05 mm level, inspection of more than 600 key points, quality monitoring and traceability, and the use of 9,000-tonne die-casting technology.

A company representative said integrated die-cast components helped improve production efficiency, reduce weight and lower costs. For the AITO M9, the report describes aluminium-alloy content above 80% in the body. It says 222 components were consolidated into 10 integrated die-cast components, reducing the component count by approximately 95%, while connection points were reduced by 1,440, or 70%.

Cao said sensors and AI visual inspection were used throughout manufacturing, with each process required to pass its quality checks before the next stage. After a vehicle left the line, a comprehensive inspection uploaded test data to the cloud. More than 10,000 signals were compared to generate a vehicle-specific report and record.

Effects on the supply chain

The report describes growing demand for lidar, intelligent lighting, chassis systems, vehicle operating systems and driver-assistance software. Industry estimates cited in the article put the additional employment associated with the new M7 and M9 at approximately 20,000 jobs across the industrial and supply chains.

A SERES representative said the company and its suppliers had committed an additional RMB 1 billion to support deliveries of the new M7 and stabilize production and supplies.

Some suppliers established facilities close to the SERES factories. A new Ningbo Tuopu Group components plant had completed construction and was installing and commissioning equipment. Its designed annual capacity was one million lightweight aluminium-subframe sets and 500,000 vehicle acoustic-package sets, principally serving SERES AITO and other intelligent electric-vehicle manufacturers in southwest China. A Wencan lightweight automotive components project was also under construction nearby. The article identifies Wencan as a core supplier of integrated die-cast components to SERES.

A Huguang representative said cooperation with SERES and Huawei had helped improve its technology and competitiveness. Huguang had also invested near the SERES Chongqing base to provide local supply. Shanghai Yanpu said its subsidiaries had sufficient orders, with continuing growth in orders indirectly supplying the new AITO M7 through Chongqing Yanpu.

A Shenglong representative said customers had increased capacity requirements four times since September 2023. To respond, the company coordinated supply, production and sales information, established a new-energy development centre and dedicated project teams, and shortened an existing capacity-expansion plan from three months to one and a half months.

Guangfeng Technology vice president Yu Xin said a dedicated M9 project team brought together research, project management, customer management, manufacturing and quality specialists. Technical staff were stationed with the vehicle manufacturer to respond to installation-related quality issues and coordinate with the supporting team.