China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology published the 410th batch of its road vehicle production catalogue on 7 August. The filing is a compulsory disclosure rather than a marketing event, which is why the industry reads it so closely. Dimensions, motor outputs, battery chemistry and cell suppliers all appear before a car is launched. … Read more
Five days separated the two events, and nearly ten thousand kilometres. On 27 July Baidu’s Apollo Go began public-road testing with nobody in the vehicle at all on Hong Kong’s airport island, the first fully driverless deployment anywhere in a left-side, right-hand-drive traffic system. On 28 July its sixth-generation RT6 appeared on the streets of … Read more
Unmanned-delivery vehicles are suddenly everywhere in China, and the question for 2026 is whether this is real scale or another bubble pumped up by capital and industry hype. The trigger was not a 2025 technology break but an economic case that finally started to close. Three years ago a single vehicle cost 200,000 to 400,000 … Read more
July sales data from China’s carmakers delivered a quiet shock. Leapmotor, founded in 2015, delivered 101,300 vehicles globally in July, its first month above 100,000, and about 84,300 of those were domestic. Great Wall sold 108,100 in July, with roughly 46,100 domestic. Chery Group sold 276,800, about 74,300 domestic. The result: in the core home … Read more
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has put its mandatory national standard for L3 and L4 autonomous driving out for public comment. The draft, Safety Requirements for Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Automated Driving Systems, would replace the old voluntary standard and for the first time set a legally binding floor for L3 and L4. … Read more
A new national standard effective this July classifies lithium batteries as liquid, semi-solid or solid, with semi-solid also called half-solid and solid meaning all-solid-state. The road map is explicit: 2026 for semi-solid volume production, 2030 for small-batch all-solid-state, and 2035 for next-generation solid-state in some affordable cars. Semi-solid comes in two paths, an all-inorganic solid … Read more
Richard Yu, Huawei’s executive director, called it a ‘generation-leading and comprehensively leading’ product. Unlike earlier HIMA launches built around driving, cockpit and chassis, this pair devotes most of its airtime to luxury: two-tone paint, full-colour interactive lighting, a retractable starry roof, a private drinks bar, an electric shoe cabinet and privacy glass. It is HIMA’s … Read more
The traditional makers carried the export story. BYD shipped close to 420,000 units in July, up 22 per cent, with overseas sales of 179,800 setting a record. Chery delivered 276,800 units, up 23 per cent, and its exports of 202,500, up 70.1 per cent, made it the first Chinese carmaker to top 200,000 monthly exports, … Read more
Lidar was once the most contested sensor in autonomous driving. Supporters argued it supplies 3D information cameras cannot, a safety redundancy high-level driver assistance cannot do without. Opponents, led by Tesla, called it expensive, bulky and transitional. Yet since 2025, as advanced driver assistance spread, lidar has not exited, it has entered mass production, and … Read more
According to figures from the China Passenger Car Association based on OICA data, China’s vehicle exports reached 5.31m units in the first half of 2026, up 53 per cent year on year, with June alone at 1.07m units, up 73 per cent and 8 per cent month on month. The export momentum is broadening, not … Read more