On October 10, the fourth stop of Changan Mazda's "Seedling Program Season 2" national university tour arrived at Beijing Jiaotong University. With the theme "Beyond the Surface — The Aesthetics and Art of Automotive Industrial Design," the event built a face-to-face industry-academia exchange platform through lectures, roundtable discussions, on-site interactions, and campus ambassador appointments.
A Century-Old Encounter: Industry and Academia Join Hands to Cultivate Automotive Youth
Wu Xuxi, Executive Deputy General Manager of Changan Mazda Automobile Sales Branch, and relevant leaders from the School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering of Beijing Jiaotong University attended the event. Wu Xuxi stated that Beijing Jiaotong University has strong strengths in vehicle engineering and has consistently delivered top talent to China's automotive industry over the years.
Beijing Jiaotong University traces its origins to 1896 and is the birthplace of modern railway management education in China; Changan Mazda, a joint venture formed by two century-old enterprises, Changan Automobile and Mazda, has become Mazda's global R&D and manufacturing center for new energy vehicles and complete vehicle export center, with EZ series new energy models exported to more than 60 countries and regions.
Rebirth of Kodo: Discussing the Design Aesthetics of New Energy Vehicles
Liu Yifan, Chief Designer of Changan Mazda Styling Design, delivered a keynote sharing session, using the EZ-60 production vehicle as a case study to explain the iterative innovation of "Kodo Design" in the electric era and explore approaches to breaking the homogenization of new energy vehicle styling.
[Liu Yifan, Chief Designer of Changan Mazda Styling Design]
[Engineers from Changan Mazda Product R&D Center and professors and experts from the School of Mechanical, Electronic and Control Engineering of Beijing Jiaotong University engage in a roundtable dialogue]
At the roundtable dialogue, Changan Mazda R&D experts and Beijing Jiaotong University professors held in-depth discussions on automotive design aesthetics and manufacturing quality. Students raised questions on hot topics such as AI car manufacturing, battery safety, intelligent cockpits, and motion sickness prevention in electric vehicles, and engineers provided on-site answers. The event also appointed the first batch of Beijing Jiaotong University KOC campus promotion ambassadors, establishing a communication link between the university and the enterprise.
Seedlings Continue to Grow: University-Enterprise Collaboration Heads Toward a New Energy Future
Season 2 of the Seedling Program was launched in May at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and has since visited Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Chongqing University. Seedling Program students were previously invited to appear on the stage at the EZ-60 Laser Edition launch event; the EZ-60 University Modification Design Competition has opened for Beijing Jiaotong University students, and outstanding works may be put into actual modification.
In 2026, Changan Mazda's transformation achievements have been remarkable, with sales from January to August growing 20% year-on-year, and new energy vehicles accounting for 57% of sales. In the future, Changan Mazda will continue to use the Seedling Program as a vehicle to deepen university-enterprise cooperation, invite young students to participate in the R&D of global models, and jointly create a new future for the new energy vehicle industry.
[Wu Xuxi, Executive Deputy General Manager of Changan Mazda Automobile Sales Branch]
