Global Times: From follower to trendsetter - How China is redefining auto industry

BEIJING, Aug. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- China's new energy vehicle (NEV) industry has made striking progress in recent years, changing not only the cars themselves but also how they are developed, sold, and taken to global markets. The sector is also helping set new industry standards, making NEVs one of the most visible symbols of Chinese manufacturing.

As China enters the 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) and looks toward its 2035 modernization goals, a research team from People's Daily and China Automotive News examined how the country can sustain high-quality growth in the NEV sector and strengthen its competitive edge in the global market.

China's NEV production and sales have ranked first globally for 11 consecutive years since 2015. Behind that run is a transformation seven decades in the making — from a country that once struggled to build its first car to an industry now helping redefine what the car of the future looks like.

In the first half of 2026, China's NEV production and sales maintained strong growth, while sales in overseas markets surged 120 percent year-on-year. This year marks the opening year of China's 15th Five-Year Plan. Seventy years have passed since the first automobile of the People's Republic of China rolled off the production line at the First Automobile Works in Changchun in July 1956.

From the determined first steps to change a reality in which China "could not make a single automobile, aircraft, tank or tractor," to the successive birth of the Jiefang, Dongfeng and Hongqi vehicles; from the difficult exploration of "trading market access for technology" after reform and opening-up, to the rise of globally leading technologies in the new era, China's auto industry has undergone a sweeping transformation that has redrawn the global automotive landscape and established a distinctive Chinese presence.

In 2014, during an inspection of SAIC Motor, a major Chinese carmaker, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized the significance of developing products that cater to diverse needs and highlighted the importance of new energy vehicles (NEVs) in strengthening China's position in the automotive sector.

Redefining rules

Nowadays, one in every three cars sold worldwide is made in China. In China, two out of every three passenger vehicles sold are NEVs. How did China's NEV industry make the historical leap from follower to global frontrunner?

China's annual NEV sales soared from just 17,600 units in 2013 to 16.49 million in 2025, while their share of new vehicle sales climbed from a mere 0.08 percent to 47.9 percent.

Over those 13 years, NEV sales increased more than 930-fold and the penetration rate rose more than 590-fold, giving rise to a strategic emerging industry worth trillions of yuan.

China had already become one of the world's largest automobile markets, with vehicle production and sales ranking first globally since 2009. Yet behind that No.1 position, Chinese automakers remained learners rather than innovators in the internal-combustion-engine era, participants rather than industry leaders.

How to choose the right technological path became the first major question facing an industry seeking a breakthrough.

In December 2008, BYD launched the F3DM, the world's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid passenger vehicle, ushering China into the era of consumer NEVs. But an early start did not immediately translate into an established industry trajectory. Many domestic automakers remained hesitant about electrification, while debate over the technological path continued.

In 2014, China's NEV production and sales both more than quadrupled year-on-year, earning the year the description of the country's "first year of NEVs."

Since 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other government departments have introduced nearly 100 policy measures covering multiple aspects of the industry, providing broad support for the development of China's NEV sector.

"China must secure a voice in defining what an NEV is," said Zhang Jinhua, secretary general of the China Society of Automotive Engineers. "If you compete on a track set by multinational companies and play by rules written by others, no matter how hard you work, you remain a follower. Only by accurately identifying technological trends in the auto industry, opening up new tracks and putting forward new definitions can China lead globally."

China was the first country in the world to put forward the concept and definition of the "intelligent connected vehicle," a concept originating in China.

The Made in China 2025 plan, issued in May 2015, called for mastering core technologies in low-carbon, information-based and intelligent vehicles, linking NEVs and intelligent connected vehicles along the same path of industrial upgrading. It was the earliest top-level plan among major economies to coordinate intelligent technologies, connectivity and NEVs under a single framework.

That same year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers released a Chinese definition, classification system and technical architecture for intelligent connected vehicles, introducing a distinctly Chinese approach built around the twin drivers of intelligence and connectivity.

Rather than simply copying overseas experience, China stayed committed to a strategy centered on electric drive and established through its top-level policy framework that the mainstream NEVs of the future would be intelligent and connected. A distinctly Chinese approach was beginning to take shape.

Powered by intelligence

Intelligent connected NEVs represent a new definition of the automobile shaped by China's ambition to lead and its forward-looking approach to the industry.

A common saying in the auto industry holds that the first half of the NEV race is electrification and the second half is intelligence. But China's experience over the past decade and more has followed a different path: electrification, intelligence and connectivity have advanced in parallel and as an integrated whole from the top-level design onward. Electrification laid the foundation, connectivity built the bridge and intelligence set the direction, with all three reinforcing each other and gaining momentum together.

With the direction clear, the track established and policy support firmly in place, China's NEV industry expanded rapidly, gathering pace with remarkable vitality.

From then on, breakthroughs by Chinese automakers began to come thick and fast.

Emerging automakers including NIO, XPeng, Li Auto and Leapmotor were founded in quick succession around 2014 and 2015, entering the race through electrification and intelligent technologies. 

Traditional Chinese automakers including BYD, SAIC Motor, Chery, Geely, Changan and Dongfeng Motor accelerated their transformation, launching intelligent battery-electric brands and new models. Huawei expanded its Harmony Intelligent Mobility Alliance ecosystem, while the AITO M5 Intelligent Driving Edition, launched in 2023, became one of the fastest passenger vehicles with high-level assisted-driving functions to reach large-scale deployment in China. In March 2024, technology company Xiaomi entered the auto market with the launch and delivery of its first model, the SU7, featuring its in-house assisted-driving platform and seamless connectivity between smartphones and in-car systems. 

Together, new entrants and established manufacturers have made intelligence and connectivity defining features of China's NEVs.

Meanwhile, BYD pioneered mass-produced megawatt-level ultra-fast charging technology; CATL introduced the world's first cell-to-pack battery technology; SAIC-backed IM Motors debuted the world's first fully by-wire digital chassis; Geely unveiled the world's first AI electronic and electrical architecture equipped with quantum-secure encryption technology; Huawei launched the world's first 896-line image-level dual-optical-path LiDAR; and Li Auto put into mass production its M100 assisted-driving chip, delivering computing power of up to 1,280 TOPS.

A wave of breakthroughs in disruptive, world-first technologies and foundational core technologies, together with increasingly comprehensive indigenous capabilities across the technology stack, has helped turn China's new concepts and definitions into reality and build a generational advantage in intelligent electric vehicles. 

Data show that since the start of 2026, the penetration rate of Level 2 combined driver-assistance functions among new passenger vehicles sold in China has reached 70 percent.

This summer, Beibei, a primary school student, traveled to school for the first time in her family's new intelligent electric car. As the door opened, the chassis automatically lowered, allowing her to step easily into the seat. No sooner had she fastened her seat belt than the human-like in-car robot "smiled" and praised her: "Great job remembering your seat belt — thumbs up!" At her voice command, the sunshade slowly opened and a children's song began to play. Beibei's eyes widened in delight — the journey to school, she discovered, could be this much fun.

Attending the 2026 Beijing auto show, overseas buyers and media shifted their focus from curiosity about low prices to curiosity about technology. "They kept asking us how we improve R&D efficiency and whether our technologies could be licensed," a Leapmotor employee said.

Joerg Wuttke, former president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said German automotive executives had been jolted awake by Chinese auto shows that resembled a "digital wonderland." He said they had to accept a disruptive new reality: automobiles were no longer simply mechanical chassis paired with engines...

"Many executives from multinational companies fly to China specifically to see for themselves how the country's NEV industry has developed, and they are often amazed and impressed by what they find," a representative from Huawei's intelligent automotive solutions business said. Most Chinese NEV brands now offer a fairly standardized range of intelligent features, presenting overseas consumers with a new vision of what future mobility could look like.

Seventy years on, China's auto industry has moved from learning how to build cars to helping define what the next generation of cars should be.

SOURCE Global Times