On September 25th, with the crisp sound of a gong echoing, Chery Automobile officially landed on the Hong Kong stock market, completing a crucial leap towards becoming a significant participant in the capital markets.
The rise of Chery Automobile is not an isolated case but a microcosm of the wave of globalization in China’s automotive industry. A Securities Daily reporter once saw the sleek Zeekr vehicles weaving through traffic beside the canals in the morning light of Amsterdam; also, upon arriving at Singapore’s Changi Airport, witnessed three BYD Han EVs being charged in sequence. These vivid scenes, visible everywhere, are showcasing the new story of Chinese automotive globalization.
Ji Xuehong, a professor at North China University of Technology and Director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center, stated in an interview with a Securities Daily reporter that Chinese automobiles today are breaking the traditional global automotive industry structure at a pace far exceeding market expectations. From the initial simple product exports to now actively exporting technical standards, supply chain systems, and innovative business models, the entire Chinese automotive industry chain has formed an “overseas fleet” sailing into foreign markets, participating in the global supply chain, and progressing solidly and firmly on the path of collaborative prosperity.
Chai Zhanxiang, Assistant President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Automotive Industry Branch, predicts that China’s automobile exports will exceed 6 million units in 2025, maintaining the top global position.
From “Following” to “Leading”
The narrative of Chinese automotive “going overseas” must start from the initial OEM model. In the era of internal combustion engine vehicles, Chinese automakers produced components for foreign brands: introducing foreign technology, following foreign standards from engines to vehicle design, acting as “followers” on the established path of the global automotive industry. In the current chapter of the story, as the global automotive industry undergoes profound changes with new energy and intelligentization, Chinese automobiles have become “leaders.”
Yin Yi, Deputy General Manager of Changan Automobile’s European Business Unit, said in an interview with a Securities Daily reporter: “In core areas such as new energy, intelligentization, and design styling, Chinese automakers have already taken the initiative and carved out a path of differentiated competition.”
“In Amsterdam and Rotterdam stores, BYD has become a hot-selling model, no longer the ‘niche brand’ it was a few years ago,” said a person in charge of a Dutch car dealership, deeply impressed by the changes in Chinese cars. In recent years, Chinese brands like BYD and XPeng with their fast-charging speeds, and NIO with its efficient battery swap services, have won the favor of Dutch consumers.
In an interview with a Securities Daily reporter, the aforementioned Dutch car dealership executive expressed full recognition of the rise of Chinese automotive brands: “More and more Dutch consumers are willing to choose Chinese cars. Many car owners report that driving to Switzerland, charging and battery swapping are very convenient; the advanced technology is incredible.”
This shift in perception stems from a fundamental leap in the strength of China’s automotive industry. On the green pitch of the 2024 European Championship, the huge “BYD” logo was particularly eye-catching. BYD, with core technologies like the Blade Battery and e-Platform 3.0 as its competitive edge, is imprinting the technical prowess of Chinese automobiles onto the map of the global market.
It’s not just BYD; Chinese automakers have distinct “going overseas” strategies. Geely Auto uses technical cooperation as a breakthrough to open the door to the Southeast Asian market: the company exports technical standards and supply chain systems to Malaysia’s Proton, helping its new energy vehicle market share rise to 25%. Chery Automobile has extended its “Owner Health Guardian Plan” overseas—establishing a 24-hour road rescue network in Russia and launching a “7-day no-reason return and exchange” service in Brazil, boosting its overseas customer repurchase rate to 42%.
With the help of various “going overseas” models, China’s automobile exports have surged since 2021, with annual increases of millions of units. Data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that from January to August this year, China’s total automobile exports reached 4.292 million units, a year-on-year increase of 13.4%. Among these, new energy vehicle exports were 1.532 million units, a year-on-year increase of 87.3%.
Notably, the regional layout of Chinese automotive “going overseas” is also accelerating optimization. According to reporter summaries of data from multiple institutions, in the first half of this year, in the Russian market, the share of Chinese automotive brands has climbed to 50%, becoming a mainstream choice for local consumers; in Europe, Chinese brands accounted for 5.1% of new car registrations; in the South American market, Chinese automakers’ share reached 6.7% and is still growing; Asia, Europe, and South America together form the “foundation” of China’s overseas automotive market.
Bidding Farewell to “Going It Alone”
While whole vehicle exports repeatedly achieve new records, the Chinese automotive industry is not only building factories overseas but also “going overseas” through industrial chain collaboration models, breaking through trade barriers and supply chain risks, and achieving a deep transition from “product export” to “ecosystem leadership.”
Zhang Yongwei, Chairman of the Hundred Automobile Committee (Note: likely “车百会” refers to a specific automotive industry association or think tank, translated contextually), analyzed for the Securities Daily reporter that with increasingly complex international trade relations, potential risks like technical barriers and cross-industry integration make the traditional single model of “brand export + whole vehicle investment” difficult to sustain. Against this backdrop, promoting the deep integration of Chinese whole vehicle enterprises and their supply chains into the world automotive market, achieving industrial chain collaborative “going overseas,” has become a key path to break through the predicament. The advantage of “one vehicle going overseas driving the entire chain” is accelerating its manifestation in the global market.
Today’s Chinese automotive “going overseas” has completely moved beyond the early stage of “lone advance” whole vehicle exports, entering a new stage of an “overseas fleet” led by automakers, followed by component companies, and supplemented by service support.
In Thailand, the “cluster effect” of the Chinese automotive industry chain has already taken shape. More than 20 Chinese automotive brands, including BYD and Great Wall Motor, have taken root locally first, followed by the密集落地 of upstream and downstream component companies: power battery giants like CALB, Gotion High-tech, and Svolt Energy Technology have invested in building factories in Thailand, with total investment exceeding 300 billion Thai baht, providing core energy support for vehicle production; leading auto parts company Ningbo Tuopu Group will also invest up to $300 million to build a new factory in Thailand, further improving the local parts supply system.
Such scenes of industrial chain collaboration are being replicated in many places around the world. For example, in Hungary, located in the heart of Europe, BYD took the lead in investing and building its European headquarters factory, becoming the “pathfinder” of the industrial chain; CATL and Eve Energy quickly followed suit, with CATL planning to build its Hungarian factory into the largest battery factory in Europe, providing local supporting services for regional vehicle production; subsequently, the first phase of the Hungarian factory of lithium battery separator producer Yunnan Energy New Material Co., Ltd. (恩捷股份) was successfully put into operation, and the high-nickel ternary cathode project for power batteries laid out locally by Huayou Cobalt is steadily advancing. From whole vehicles to core components, the Chinese automotive industry chain has formed a tight collaborative network in the European market.
In addition to collaboration on the production side, the “supply” role of service support is becoming increasingly prominent. Taking Anji Logistics, under SAIC Motor, as an example, its self-operated fleet not only meets SAIC’s own overseas transportation needs but also opens services to other automakers like Chery and Great Wall. This cross-enterprise logistics collaboration reduces transportation costs for individual companies and enhances the overall efficiency of Chinese automobile exports.
Beware of “Internal Competition Spilling Over”
As Chinese automotive brands emerge in the global mainstream market, behind the industry’s prosperity, a profound transformation regarding the “concept of globalization” is quietly taking place—shifting from going it alone to collaborative prosperity. Chinese automakers are using innovative cooperation models to break the traditional logic of “going overseas.”
Chinese automakers have realized that simply replicating the domestic automotive industry chain overseas and continuing internal competition with “price wars” will not only lead to Chinese automotive brands being labeled as “low-quality and low-price” in overseas markets, losing consumer trust, but will also seriously disrupt local market order, triggering “anti-dumping” and “unfair competition” investigations, and even causing trade friction.
A “reverse joint venture” mindset for “going overseas” has quietly taken shape. For example, Leapmotor and Stellantis Group established a joint venture, “Leapmotor International,” leveraging the latter’s mature local channel network to smoothly enter the European market with a light-asset model; Volkswagen utilizes its globally deployed channels and supply chain advantages to help XPeng accelerate its expansion into the European market; the controlling shareholder of Geely Auto invested and became a minority shareholder of Renault Brazil, gaining access to localized production bases and service network support. Although these “reverse joint venture” cases have not been established for long, they show strong development momentum and are continuously penetrating into technology, supply chain, and other levels.
Lin Hongchang, a researcher at Zhejiang University’s New Energy Collaborative Innovation Center, believes that “reverse joint ventures” signify that China’s automotive industry is leaping towards “global collaboration,” upgrading the role of Chinese automobiles in the global industrial chain from “participant” to “collaborator.”
Meanwhile, the matured overseas automotive industry clusters not only supply Chinese automotive brands but have also become part of the global automotive supply chain. For instance, CATL’s Hungarian factory serves leading automotive brands including Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen, while Yunnan Energy New Material’s Malaysian factory serves the Southeast Asian, Japanese, and Korean markets.
Looking ahead, Zhang Xiang, Visiting Professor at Huanghe Science and Technology College, told the Securities Daily reporter: “From exporting products to taking root locally and building ecosystems together, the globalization layout of China’s automotive industry has entered a new stage. Today’s Chinese automobiles, with their optimized structure, diverse forms, industrial chain collaboration, and win-win cooperation with local partners, are rewriting the competition rules of the global automotive industry. Abandoning zero-sum games and embracing collaborative prosperity, Chinese automobiles are not only reshaping their own global image but will also provide Chinese solutions for the sustainable development of the global automotive industry.”
