China's Car Brands: Explained

If you have tried to keep track of Chinese car brands, you have probably hit the same wall everyone does: there are dozens of names, they launch new ones every few months, and the same company often sells under three or four badges at once. The brand on the grille rarely tells you who actually owns the car.

The good news is that the chaos resolves into a short list. Most of China’s output comes from roughly a dozen groups. Each group runs a stack of brands - usually a mainstream badge, a premium one, and an electric or off-road spin-off - and the differences between them are about price and positioning, not separate companies. Learn the parents and the whole map clicks into place.

There are three things worth holding onto before you read the tree. First, ownership splits into private groups (BYD, Geely, Great Wall, and the newer challengers) and state-owned ones (SAIC, GAC, Changan, Dongfeng, FAW). Second, Huawei is not a carmaker - its HIMA brands are an alliance, a different relationship from ownership, and we flag it separately below. Third, this chart moves. Zeekr took majority control of Lynk & Co in 2024, Chery restructured its ownership in 2025, and stakes shift constantly.

BYD

BYD is the largest piece of the puzzle and the easiest to read. The core brand splits its line into two naming systems: the Dynasty series, named after Chinese dynasties (Han, Tang, Song, Qin, Yuan), and the Ocean series, named after sea creatures and water (Seal, Dolphin, Seagull). Dynasty leans traditional and upmarket; Ocean is younger and more design-led. Above the core brand sit the premium tiers - Fangchengbao for rugged and off-road models, Denza for executive cars, and Yangwang as the ultra-premium halo. All of them are BYD; the badges just mark the price ladder.

Geely Holding

Geely Holding owns more brands, in more countries, than any other Chinese group. The core Geely brand carries the Galaxy NEV line for its electrified models. One level up sits Zeekr, the premium electric brand, which since 2024 controls a majority of Lynk & Co - so Lynk & Co is a grandchild of Geely Holding rather than a direct sibling of Geely. The group also holds Lotus, majority ownership of Volvo, the Volvo-and-Geely spin-off Polestar, and a 50/50 stake in Smart alongside Mercedes-Benz. Different continents, different design studios, one Chinese parent.

Huawei (HIMA)

This is the part almost every chart gets wrong. Huawei does not own these brands and does not build the cars. Under its HIMA model (Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance) Huawei supplies the software, electronics, and showroom experience, and a partner carmaker manufactures the vehicle. AITO is built by Seres. Luxeed is built by Chery. Stelato is built by BAIC. Maextro is built by JAC. The fifth brand, Shangjie, is built by SAIC. If you remember one thing here: Huawei is the technology partner, the OEM behind each badge is the actual owner.

SAIC

SAIC is Shanghai’s state-owned group and the reason a “British” brand keeps topping European EV charts. MG is the export face; Wuling, maker of China’s runaway cheap city EVs, comes through the SAIC-GM-Wuling joint venture. Roewe covers the domestic mainstream and IM Motors is the premium-EV play, developed with Alibaba. Maxus (sold as LDV in some markets) rounds out the commercial side.

GAC

The remaining state-owned majors follow the same pattern - a core brand plus electric and premium spin-offs. GAC runs the Aion EV brand with Hyptec as its premium tier (sold as Hyper in export markets), alongside the Trumpchi line of combustion and hybrid models.

Changan

Changan pairs its core brand with the Deepal EV sub-brand and Avatr, a three-way effort with Huawei and battery maker CATL that sits at the premium end.

Dongfeng

Dongfeng’s premium NEV push runs through Voyah, with the luxury off-road Mengshi badge above it.

FAW

FAW is home to Hongqi, the flagship state-luxury marque used for official limousines, with Bestune covering the mainstream and Jiefang building the trucks.

Chery

Chery moved to a mixed-ownership structure in 2025 and is one of China’s biggest exporters, fronted globally by the younger Omoda and the off-road-styled Jaecoo brands. Lepas, launched in April 2025, is Chery’s most premium export brand. Jetour, Exeed, and iCar fill out the range at home and abroad.

Great Wall Motors

Great Wall Motors (GWM) takes a different approach: instead of one badge it organises around model-led brands - Haval for mainstream SUVs, Tank for serious off-roaders, Wey for premium, and Ora for small city EVs. Same company, four front doors.

NIO

Not every name belongs to a sprawling group. The challenger automakers are standalone companies that each own their full stack. NIO runs a three-brand ladder: the premium NIO badge, the family-focused Onvo (sold as Ledao in China), and the small-car Firefly.

Independent automakers

Li Auto built its name on range-extender SUVs, XPeng on driver-assistance technology, and Xiaomi crossed over from smartphones. Leapmotor is independent too, though Stellantis holds a stake and handles a chunk of its overseas sales. And a couple of these companies are quietly the real OEMs behind the Huawei badges above - Seres builds AITO, while BAIC, parent of Arcfox, builds Stelato.

Sino-foreign joint ventures

Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda, and GM build their China lineups locally, through a joint venture with a domestic partner. From 1994 until the cap was lifted in 2022, Chinese policy capped foreign ownership of a passenger-car plant at 50%, so any foreign automaker manufacturing there needed a local co-owner (Tesla’s wholly foreign-owned Shanghai plant, opened under an earlier carve-out for electric vehicles, was the exception that preceded the general 2022 repeal). SAIC, FAW, and GAC - the same three groups covered above - ran more than one of these joint ventures at a time because, as the largest state-owned automakers, they had the capital and government backing to take on multiple foreign partners: SAIC with both Volkswagen and GM, FAW with both Volkswagen and Toyota. The rule no longer applies to new plants, but the joint ventures below still build under their original names.

Why the chart keeps changing

Chinese carmakers restructure faster than almost any industry on earth. Stakes get bought and sold, joint ventures form and dissolve, and brands get folded into their parents or spun back out within a year or two. The 2024 Lynk & Co reshuffle and Chery’s 2025 ownership change are recent examples, and there will be more by the time you read this. We keep this map current and date every update, so the relationships above reflect the latest known structure rather than a snapshot from two years ago.