Leapmotor Chairman Zhu Jiangming Admits Huge EV Investment, Says He Might Have Stayed Out If He’d Known

In an upcoming podcast episode, Zhu Jiangming, Chairman of Leapmotor, said, "If I’d known how much money carmaking would burn, I wouldn’t have done it." He noted that building a car company requires at least RMB 20 billion in investment. After leaving Dahua Technology in 2015 to enter the automotive industry—a move he made at age 48 without any prior experience in vehicle manufacturing or connections to automakers—he described himself as a “true outsider” who was “completely clueless” about the sector. Yet, driven by the mindset that “ignorance breeds fearlessness,” he has persisted to this day. In an interview with the media last October, Zhu recalled that nearly everyone around him had opposed his decision to build cars. Some advised him to focus on auto parts rather than whole vehicles, while others believed his chances of success were extremely slim. At Leapmotor’s 10th-anniversary event in December 2023, Zhu stated that the company had endured a “near-death experience” over the past decade, had only just crossed the breakeven point, and still had no room to catch its breath. He emphasized that the window of opportunity in the new energy vehicle (NEV) market would last only a few more years and that Leapmotor’s market share—both in China and globally—remained small, necessitating an all-out sprint into the next decade. In March this year, he reiterated that although there are currently 17 automakers in China, the market cannot sustain them all, and Leapmotor must race against time. In July, during another interview, he claimed that Leapmotor’s current market capitalization of approximately HK$50 billion is severely undervalued and revealed that the company had repurchased HK$1.9 billion worth of its own shares within one year since 2023. By 2025, Leapmotor aims to achieve sales of 590,000 vehicles—exceeding expectations—and is targeting 1 million units sold in 2026.