Li Auto is planning a new round of organizational restructuring aimed at accelerating product development and improving decision-making efficiency as competition in China’s electric vehicle market intensifies.
According to a report by Chinese media outlet 36Kr, the company will reorganize several key functions within its product department by integrating them into its research and development (R&D) organization.
Product Teams to Move Into R&D
The restructuring will primarily affect teams responsible for product definition in areas including electric vehicles, spatial intelligence, and autonomous driving.
According to the report, employees have already received verbal notice of the planned changes.
The electric vehicle product definition team will be transferred into the vehicle R&D division led by Liu Liguo, while the autonomous driving end-product team will be merged into the foundation model R&D group headed by Zhan Kun.
The report also said that some user experience-related product personnel may join the product line division led by Liu Jie.
Before the restructuring, Li Auto’s product department, led by Fan Haoyu, was responsible for defining many of the customer-facing features across electric vehicles, autonomous driving, spatial intelligence, and interaction design.
Following the changes, the department is expected to continue overseeing businesses including spatial intelligence and smart glasses.
Streamlining Product Decisions
According to people familiar with the matter cited by 36Kr, the primary objective of the restructuring is to shorten the product definition process.
Previously, new vehicle development required coordination across three separate organizations: the product line division, the product department, and the R&D division.
The new structure is expected to reduce the process to two core departments—the product line organization and R&D—allowing product definition responsibilities to move closer to engineering teams.
People close to Li Auto’s management told the publication that the company’s lengthy product approval process had long been viewed internally as inefficient.
The restructuring is intended to improve both the speed and quality of product development by placing greater responsibility for product definition within the R&D organization.
Part of Broader Organizational Changes
The latest restructuring follows several organizational changes implemented by Li Auto this year.
In January, the company reorganized its R&D operations around foundation models, software platforms, and hardware engineering. In May, it further expanded its foundation model division by creating three additional second-level departments focused on embodied intelligence.
According to the report, Li Auto’s current organizational evolution reflects a strategy that began in 2022, when the company studied Huawei’s management structure in an effort to evolve from relying on successful individual vehicle models toward building standardized product development processes.
The latest changes come as Li Auto faces increasing pressure to sustain sales growth in China’s highly competitive electric vehicle market, where manufacturers continue to accelerate product launches and technological innovation.
