The autonomous driving giant welcomes a new president

Author | Zhou Zhiyu

Horizon made a significant personnel change with an extremely low-key signing event.

Recently, Horizon signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Times Intelligent, a subsidiary of CATL. In the official signing photo released, a relatively familiar face in the industry sat at the center of power.

Zhu Wei made his public debut as "President of Horizon." Wall Street Insights learned that this former Executive President of CATL's passenger vehicle business officially joined Horizon earlier this month, succeeding the 63-year-old Chen Liming as president. Chen Liming has transitioned to the role of Vice Chairman.

Wall Street Insights learned from informed sources that Zhu Wei holds the positions of President of Horizon and President of the Intelligent Vehicle Division. In the internal announcement, he was described as "his addition will inject strong commercial implementation and ecological resource integration capabilities into the company."

This important personnel change is a key decision made by Horizon regarding its governance structure at different stages of the industry.

To understand why Zhu Wei is entering the scene at this time, one must first see the background left by Chen Liming.

Graduating from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1986, furthering his studies in the United States, and working at Bosch for 26 years—Chen Liming's resume is a standard history of the automotive industrial engineering. When he joined Horizon at the invitation of Yu Kai in 2021, this startup was facing the growing pains of transitioning from the laboratory to mass production. Chen Liming brought with him a rigorous supply chain order and Tier 1 engineering language, serving as a ballast to help Horizon solidify its delivery capabilities from 0 to 1.

During those years, Horizon not only had to sell chips but also had to learn how to become a qualified Tier 1 and how to engage in complex engineering collaboration with OEMs. Chen Liming successfully instilled a sense of order from the traditional automotive industry into this AI startup with a strong internet flavor.

However, by 2026, the battlefield has changed.

The current intelligent driving market is no longer just about whether mass production is possible, but rather a hand-to-hand combat on how to scale, how to make it accessible, and how to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Wall Street Insights learned that Horizon's founder and CEO Yu Kai has set multiple goals for the company's future development. Among the quantifiable data is that in the next 3-5 years, HSD (Horizon SuperDrive) aims to produce ten million sets, and by 2026, Horizon's urban MPI (Mean Distance Between Human Takeovers) is expected to increase tenfold, with the intelligent driving solution based on Journey 6M targeting the entry-level market priced at 70,000 to 100,000 yuan.

This demand for commercial expansion requires Horizon to evolve from a "technology company that understands cars" to a "business giant that dominates the supply chain."

This also necessitates the kind of fierce determination that belongs to CATL, emerging from extreme manufacturing and global expansion.

During Zhu Wei's eight years at CATL, he was responsible for the passenger vehicle business and overseas energy storage business. He experienced the complete process of CATL's growth from an industry dark horse to a global leader, deeply understanding the art of supply chain competition. If Chen Liming built the engineering standards for Horizon from "0 to 1," then Zhu Wei's task is to lead Horizon to complete the journey from "10 to 100." Zhu Wei's debut was chosen at the cooperation ceremony with CATL, which is no coincidence.

Horizon Robotics has deep ties with CATL. As early as 2021, CATL co-led Horizon's Series C2 financing. In the summer of 2025, CATL, together with Hello and Ant Group, established "Zao Fu Intelligent," with Horizon providing the Journey 6P chip and HSD system.

The core of this cooperation is the "Rock Solid Chassis." Times Intelligent's skateboard chassis is deeply coupled with Horizon's full-scene assisted driving products in both hardware and software. This is not just a business collaboration but a reconstruction of the car's "brain" and "skeleton."

As intelligent driving enters deeper waters, chip companies are no longer just behind-the-scenes solution providers. Through Zhu Wei, the former "executive president of CATL," the bond between Horizon and CATL has upgraded from capital and business levels to deep integration of people.

CATL represents the most extreme supply chain capability in China's new energy vehicle industry, while Horizon holds the key to intelligence. This strong combination of "energy + intelligence" is highly attractive to second and third-tier car companies that are still struggling with whether to develop their own full-stack solutions or purchase them.

A representative from Times Intelligent also expressed to Wall Street Insights that Times Intelligent is optimistic about intelligent driving, and the Rock Solid Chassis and intelligent driving are directions that can achieve good hardware-software integration and collaborative development.

Competition in the automotive industry has never been warm; it is only about the ruthless elimination of the weak.

For Horizon, 2026 is a decisive year. With the popularization of urban NOA (Navigation Assisted Driving), the industry has entered a "knife fight" stage. Huawei's Qian Kun, NVIDIA's Orin, and various automakers' self-developed solutions are engaged in a battle in a limited space.

Zhu Wei's entry reflects, to some extent, Horizon's strategic ambition. With Zhu Wei's resource accumulation in the passenger car market, Horizon needs to further expand its market share among core customers and attempt to penetrate more joint venture brand territories; facing overseas markets such as Europe and Southeast Asia, Zhu Wei's international vision from Valeo and CATL will become an accelerator; as Horizon's capital operations progress, a leadership team with both technical background, strategic height, and commercial decisiveness will be the best reassurance for the capital market.

At present, a group of people has come together for a common cause and vision. However, what the industry values more is whether the new president can carve out a bloody path to the "Inclusive Era" for Horizon amid fierce price wars and technological iterations in this major test of intelligent driving.

The spring water is just beginning to flow, and undercurrents are surging. Zhu Wei's game has just begun.

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