Former NIO and Ford Executive, Zhu Jiang, Joins Jidu as Vice President

Chinese media outlet 36Kr reported on Tuesday that Zhu Jiang, a former senior executive of car companies such as BMW, Lexus, NIO and Ford, has confirmed his appointment as vice president of Jidu Automobile. His new role will see him responsible mainly for user development and operations, channel expansion, sales and after-sales.

Zhu Jiang has been deeply involved in the automobile industry for many years. After leaving Ford’s EV Department in April this year, Zhu Jiang’s next job remained focused on the industry he has known for so long.

According to Baidu insiders, Zhu Jiang, who has over 20 years’ working experience in automobile industry, has a good reputation in the circle. After receiving recommendations from Baidu and having discussions with Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, he agrees with Baidu‘s CEO Robin Li and Xia Yiping’s view that “cars must exist in the form of automobile robots in the future.”

In terms of team composition, Jidu already has specialists working experience in both the Internet and traditional automobile industry, such as Xia Yiping, Zhu Jiang and Wang Weibao. In regard to the progress of the company’s automobile manufacturing and design, the company entered the engineering development phase at the end of August. At the end of September, the company was using a SIMU Car (simulated prototype car) in the early stages of the development process. SIMU Car refers to an engineering prototype car and a process prototype/trial production prototype car.

At the beginning of November, Wang Weibao, the head of Jidu Auto’s intelligent driving division since August, said that their SIMU Car is now undergoing testing.

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