On 5 August, SAIC Motor and General Motors signed a renewal in Shanghai that extends SAIC-GM to 2047, another 20 years. It is a symbolic number. Since its 1997 founding, SAIC-GM has run nearly three decades. As China’s industry moves from combustion to electrification and intelligence, the two sides chose to renew now, which raises … Read more
In the first half of 2026, China’s car market moved through pressure and change at once. Domestic passenger-car registrations fell about 20 per cent year on year, even as close to 500 new models launched. With supply and demand out of step, a new car’s hot-selling window shrank sharply, and the average industry profit margin … Read more
On 8 September Noetix Robotics formally launched Scalabot, a general embodied-intelligence technology brand, together with HERON-World Model, the first world model under its HERON architecture. The move extends the company beyond robot bodies into full-stack capability that pairs body with embodied brain. Noetix Robotics unveils its Scalabot embodied-intelligence brand. (Source: Gasgoo) Scalabot fuses Scale and … Read more
On 7 September Tesla China abruptly announced price cuts through a limited-time purchase incentive, and a wave of owners who had only just taken delivery found themselves thousands of yuan underwater. Under the policy, valid for orders placed and delivered by 30 September, the entire Model 3 lineup of in-stock cars carries a RMB 5,000 … Read more
China’s smart-car industry is still accelerating. The pace shows up not just in shorter launch cycles but across how consumers adopt new technology, how products are developed, how supply chains cut cost and how companies make decisions. For automotive suppliers, the rules of competition are shifting: products must land faster and cheaper while still meeting … Read more
Li Xiang wants to be a top-three brand in China’s above-RMB-200,000 passenger market. On 26 August, at the second-quarter earnings call, he and president Ma Donghui laid out exactly how: two pure-electric flagships in two weeks, an in-house battery rolling out across the range, and a first appearance in Europe. Li Auto’s Q2 2026 financials. … Read more
A self-driving system can see a car, a pedestrian, a red light. What it struggles with is time. XPeng says its second-generation VLA model fixes exactly that, trading a static 3D view of the world for a moving 4D one. XPeng’s assisted-driving system reading a complex road scene. (Source: CheDongXi) From 3D space to 4D … Read more
Thirteen carmakers turned in their August scorecards on 1 September, and the split between China’s new-force brands could hardly be sharper. At the top, Leapmotor crossed 100,000 deliveries for a second straight month. At the bottom, four ecosystems slipped. The through-line for European readers: Chinese electric vehicle exports are climbing off the same momentum. August … Read more
From 1 September, China charges a 2 per cent consumption tax on lithium batteries, rising to 4 per cent in September 2027, while sodium-ion, solid-state and fuel cells stay exempt through the end of 2028. The levy ends an 11-year tax holiday for an industry that now dominates global lithium supply. A rush to beat … Read more
NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong says the range-extender wave that swept Chinese large SUVs is losing steam, and pure electric is set to take more than half the market as charging and battery tech cross a tipping point. A NIO pure-electric large SUV, a segment shifting from range extender to battery (Source: LeiPhone) The … Read more