On 21 August, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a cluster of recall notices. Dongfeng, XPeng, Leapmotor, Chery, Geely, Tesla, Xiaomi, BAIC BluePark and FAW, nine carmakers in total, recalled about 7.0164 million vehicles. Nine carmakers announced mass recalls the same day, led by Tesla and domestic brands. Of these, about 4.2757 million vehicles, … Read more
On 19 August, Pony.ai and global mobility platform Uber announced a further expansion of their strategic cooperation, planning to deploy over 2,000 Pony.ai Robotaxis across five European cities, one of the largest Robotaxi deployment plans in Europe and taking Pony’s overseas deployment plan past 4,000 vehicles in total. The expansion with Uber will extend from … Read more
When typhoon White Dolphin landed in early August, cities from Shanghai to Beijing flooded and thousands of cars sat submerged. The annual question returned: can a car actually ford standing water? For petrol cars the answer is fixed by the air-intake height. For electric cars, the answer has quietly moved. Lei Jun posted that drivers … Read more
On 18 August, Xiaomi president Lu Weibing and chief financial officer Lin Shiwei took an earnings call to answer questions on the group’s second-quarter results and, above all, its car business. The headline number was a deepening loss in the unit that holds Xiaomi’s smart electric vehicles and artificial-intelligence work, even as volume kept climbing. … Read more
On 20 August local time, Uber said its platform had gone live in Dubai with Baidu’s Apollo Go driverless vehicles, operated by UAE firm New Horizon Luxury Transport. Riders choosing UberX or Uber Comfort can now be matched to an Apollo Go, and an ‘autonomous’ option in the app raises the odds. Service starts in … Read more
On 20 August, Harmony IntelliDrive launched its first boxy hardcore SUV, the Xiangjie G9, with prices from 429,800 to 549,800 yuan. Within one hour it took 3,100 pre-orders. Richard Yu called it able to replace a holiday rental and a camper van. The G9 comes in Max+, Ultra, and Ultra+ trims, in five- or six-seat … Read more
Pony.ai and Uber said on 19 August they will deepen their strategic partnership and deploy more than 2,000 Pony.ai Robotaxis across five European cities, one of the largest Robotaxi deployment plans in the region. Pony.ai’s total overseas deployment target now exceeds 4,000 vehicles. The expansion builds on Pony.ai and Uber’s existing commercial operation in Zagreb, … Read more
On 18 August, Xiaomi president Lu Weibing and vice president and CFO Lin Shiwei took questions on the group’s second-quarter 2026 results. On the smart-EV business they addressed five points: the Pengcheng model’s buyers barely overlap with existing models; the Pengcheng N90 Max and N70 Max are not yet priced, so margin impact is unclear; … Read more
Chery’s full takeover of a Nissan factory in South Africa sends a signal: China’s auto exports could top 10 million units and reach 2.5 times Japan’s level. The move shows how Chinese carmakers are not just shipping vehicles abroad but acquiring and operating foreign production assets, a step change in globalisation. For European supply chains … Read more
2026 is the first year of mass production for hybrid, or solid-liquid, batteries. Huang Xuejie, one of China’s leading lithium-battery scientists and convener of the energy-storage direction at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, argues that all-solid-state batteries cannot overturn the table before 2035, so hybrid electrolytes must be taken seriously. … Read more