Foton Motor Unveils "15th Five-Year" Strategy: One Million Vehicles by 2030
Throughout the plan period, Foton will stay firmly committed to its core commercial vehicle business, pursuing scale-driven quality improvement and revenue-driven efficiency gains in parallel. Leveraging the coordinated strength of four core business segments — complete vehicles, intelligent driving and unmanned equipment, core components, and the automotive aftermarket — the company will continuously optimize its industrial structure, tackle key core technologies and refine its industrial ecosystem, comprehensively strengthening its competitiveness and overall profitability. Foton has set one million complete vehicles in annual sales by 2030 as its headline strategic target, advancing steadily toward its vision of becoming a world-class commercial vehicle enterprise.
Delivering the one-million-unit target hinges on deepening three core strategic transformations: full-scale internationalization, full-scale new energy and full-scale intelligence. For the new cycle, Foton will build on its existing technology accumulation, market achievements and industrial footprint, iteratively upgrading and deepening these three strategies to move its development model toward a fully formed system and sector-wide leadership.
I. Full-Scale Internationalization: Deepening Global Footprint to Open New Space for Scale Growth
Internationalization is the main battlefield for Foton's future incremental growth, the inevitable choice in its pursuit of world-class status, and the key vehicle for exporting China's commercial vehicle industrial advantages to the world. After years of systematic investment, Foton's overseas operating system, product matrix and channel service capabilities have been continuously strengthened, with its export scale firmly positioned at the front of the industry. In January–August 2026, overseas sales reached nearly 150,000 units, up 44.3% year on year, with core categories such as heavy trucks leading the industry in export growth. To date, Foton's cumulative overseas sales have surpassed 1.39 million units, with products and services covering more than 140 countries and regions. Its export volume has ranked first in China's commercial vehicle industry for 15 consecutive years, laying a solid foundation for deeper internationalization in the new plan period.
Going forward, Foton will keep upgrading its internationalization strategy, achieving a full-quality leap from traditional "product export" to "system export, intelligent manufacturing export and brand export." The company will maintain a differentiated market approach of "consolidating the base while breaking into the high end": continuing to cultivate traditional strength markets in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, deepening localized channel, service and parts systems to secure its installed base; while concentrating premium resources on high-end markets in Europe and Australia/New Zealand, using high-quality products, standardized services and full-lifecycle operating solutions to steadily raise its international brand voice and high-end market influence.
At the same time, Foton will roll out a multi-brand synergistic model of "Foton + Forland + Cavan" across overseas markets to further activate global incremental demand. It will replicate its mature domestic industrial ecosystem abroad, building an integrated "product + service + ecosystem" overseas operating system and completing full-chain capabilities including used-vehicle circulation, localized refueling and recharging, centralized parts procurement, telematics operations and maintenance, and financial services — realizing "global footprint, local service, full-domain empowerment." These measures are designed to underpin the strategic target of 400,000 overseas sales by 2030, representing 40% of total volume.
II. Full-Scale New Energy: Multi-Path Technology Iteration to Lead Green Industry Development
New energy is the central trend of the global automotive transformation, Foton's core growth engine for upgrading, and its green passport to world-class status. After years of intensive R&D investment and scaled commercialization, Foton's new energy business has achieved the critical breakthrough of commercial volume ramp-up, with its growth momentum continuously released. New energy sales have grown steadily since early 2026, rising 50% year on year in August. Full-scenario new energy products are widely deployed in urban distribution, trunk logistics, ports and mining areas, and municipal sanitation, while overseas exports of new energy models have sustained growth above 60%, demonstrating fully delivered green transformation results.
For the new cycle, Foton will continue to honor its green development responsibility, using full-scale new energy as its core lever to lead the industry's low-carbon transition, green upgrading and sustainable development. The company will pursue three parallel technology paths — battery electric, hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell — building a new energy product matrix that is fully covering, full-scenario and full-spectrum, precisely matching different operating conditions. Battery-electric products will focus on urban logistics, short-haul shuttle and municipal work, with continuous optimization of range, charging efficiency and whole-vehicle reliability. Hybrid products will be tailored to long-haul trunk routes, complex road conditions and heavy-load transport, achieving the optimal balance between power performance and fuel economy. Hydrogen fuel cell products will track the national hydrogen strategy, with intensified investment in core technology breakthroughs and industrialization, prioritizing high-end categories such as hydrogen heavy trucks and hydrogen buses to seize the industry's technological high ground.
On core capability building, Foton relies on its self-developed AIYKE three-electric technology platform to press ahead in batteries, electric drive, electronic control and hydrogen fuel cell components, and is establishing a dedicated new energy components industrial base. It is steadily raising in-house production rates for core modules such as battery packs, electric drive axles and vehicle control units, constructing a new energy supply chain that is independently controllable, safe, stable and cost-leading. The company is simultaneously extending its green service ecosystem — deploying intelligent replenishment and smart micro-grid linkage systems and building a full-lifecycle service system covering "purchase, use, replenishment, maintenance and residual value management" — to upgrade customer operating experience and cost efficiency across the board. These efforts fully support the strategic target of 500,000 new energy sales by 2030, representing 50% of total volume, and consolidate Foton's position as the industry's green transition benchmark.
III. Full-Scale Intelligence: Deepening Digital-Intelligent Value Innovation to Build a Core Technology Moat
Intelligence is the key foundation of Foton's long-term core competitiveness and the underlying support and core differentiator for achieving high-quality development and world-class status. Over the past three years, Foton's intelligent strategy has been solidly executed with technology results delivered in rapid succession. The company has completed full-chain deployment across intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, steer-by-wire chassis and enterprise digital intelligence, and launched "Cangqiong" (Azure Sky), an intelligent brand powered by the industry's first commercial-vehicle AI large model, achieving an integrated self-developed breakthrough in driving and cockpit intelligence — a solid technological base for the leap-forward intelligent development planned for the next five years.
In this new phase, Foton will use full-scale intelligence as its strategic breakthrough point, continuing to drive digital and intelligent upgrading across the entire value chain — products, manufacturing, services and management. In intelligent driving, it will adhere to scenario orientation, tiered deployment and scaled volume, advancing full-stack self-development of L2–L3 algorithms and scaling the installation of highway navigation assist, intelligent obstacle avoidance and adaptive cruise control to fully cover core commercial scenarios such as long-haul trunk logistics and urban delivery. In closed and restricted scenarios — port terminals, mining districts and industrial parks, and last-mile logistics — Foton will keep pushing the boundaries of L4 high-level autonomous driving, iterating unmanned tractors, unmanned sanitation vehicles, unmanned delivery and smart buses, and expanding commercial demonstration operations, targeting full commercialization of L4 intelligent driving technology by 2030.
At the intelligent cockpit level, Foton is upgrading to a new-generation highly integrated electronic and electrical architecture, optimizing human-machine interaction, intelligent connectivity, remote control and intelligent diagnostics, and supporting rapid OTA iteration and personalization of whole-vehicle functions to comprehensively elevate the user experience. On the enterprise intelligence side, Foton applies AI across the full value chain — building smart production lines, intelligent logistics systems, intelligent marketing and intelligent service platforms — to enable precise R&D iteration, lean and efficient production, targeted marketing and rapid service response. By deeply mining telematics big data and integrating core data on vehicle operation, working-condition demand and market dynamics, the company is iteratively developing digital service products such as fleet management, energy consumption analysis and safety risk control, helping customers operate leanly and cut costs. This shifts Foton's business model from traditional "selling products" to a high-value model of "products + data + services," continuously thickening operating returns and core barriers.
The release of the "15th Five-Year" plan is a comprehensive, strategic deployment in which Foton positions itself within the tide of industrial change and anchors long-term high-quality development. Over the next five years, Foton will remain fixed on its goal of becoming a world-class commercial vehicle enterprise, continuously deepening execution of the three core strategies, and unwaveringly advancing technological innovation, industrial upgrading and global footprint. It will go all out for the one-million-unit target in 2030, using the results of its own high-quality development to help China's commercial vehicle industry climb to the high end of the global value chain.
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