FAW

FAW is one of China's oldest state-owned automakers, headquartered in Changchun: it built the first Hongqi sedan (then called "Dongfeng") in 1958, which plant director Rao Bin famously drove from Changchun to Beijing and into Zhongnanhai. In 暗涌Waves' interview with Peking University scholar Feng Kaidong, FAW stands as the archetype of why indigenous carmaking stalled — resources tilted toward its Volkswagen joint venture (Jetta localization at FAW-VW), talent drained from its own Changchun research center into the better-paying assembly business, and a 1992 side project by veteran Hongqi engineers who hand-built two "Sankoule" cars in their spare time was criticized as a distraction from JV work . More recently FAW shows up in elsewhere's corpus mainly as a partner to newer players: Pony.ai lists it among its OEM relationships alongside Toyota, BAIC and GAC , and Horizon Robotics counts it among its deep-cooperation automakers and was setting up a joint AI lab with it as of late 2020 .