Zhao Changjiang, the former head of sales for BYD’s premium Denza brand, has joined Luxeed as its marketing general manager, Chinese media outlet Jiemian reported on Wednesday, citing three people with knowledge of the matter. Luxeed is a new electric vehicle brand jointly developed by Huawei and Chery Automobile.
Zhao later responded on China’s Weibo platform without directly confirming the report, saying he was still taking time off. “Thank you all for your concern. If there are any changes, I will be sure to share them with you all,” Zhao wrote. Born in 1986, Zhao was one of BYD’s youngest senior executives and played a key role in Denza’s rapid sales growth following the brand’s relaunch in 2022.
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Zhao joined BYD in 2009 after graduating from university and rose from a regional sales role to become marketing director for the Beijing–Tianjin region. In 2017, at the age of 31, he became the youngest general manager of a BYD sales company. He later led Denza’s sales operations after BYD revived the brand following Mercedes-Benz’s full exit from the joint venture in 2024. Denza’s D9 multi-purpose vehicle remains its core product, and the brand is set to mark the delivery of its 300,000th D9 unit on Nov. 29.
In July, Zhao stepped down from his four-year role as general manager of Denza’s sales division in a management reshuffle and left the brand entirely last month, ending a 16-year career at BYD. His reported move to Luxeed comes as Huawei and Chery deepen cooperation under Huawei’s Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance (HIMA).
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Luxeed currently sells the S7 sedan and R7 coupe SUV, and in August the partners said the brand would enter a new “Phase 2.0,” backed by planned investment of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) and an expanded research and development team of about 5,000 staff.
