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In the workshop of Leapmoto Automobile Smart Factory in Jinhua New Energy Vehicle Town, Zhejiang, workers are assembling new energy vehicles. Photo by Hu Xiaofei (Zhongjing Vision)

  In the automotive industry chain, parts suppliers play a crucial role. They not only provide key components directly or indirectly to vehicle manufacturers, but also participate deeply in the R&D and design process to ensure that every car can meet consumer expectations and is called the base of the automotive industry.

  "In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, the supply chain established by joint ventures in China is relatively closed. Among some first-level suppliers of joint ventures, foreign-invested parts companies account for more than 80%. "Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Electric Vehicles 100 People's Association, said that with the acceleration of the transformation of electrification and intelligence in the automobile industry and the reconstruction of the industrial chain and supply chain, China's automobile supply chain's global position has continued to rise, and has become a source of innovation for global automotive technology.

  Run in both directions

  "Our domestic consumers can buy Model 3/Y at the lowest price in the world, which is thanks to the 'China Intelligent Manufacturing' in the Shanghai Super Factory." On May 6, Tao Lin, head of Tesla's China Region and vice president of Tesla, posted on Weibo.

  She said that this achievement is inseparable from close cooperation with more than 400 local supply chain partners in China, who have performed outstandingly in quality, efficiency and cost control, providing high-quality products to millions of users in the domestic, Asia-Pacific and European markets. At present, Tesla has included more than 60 of these Chinese suppliers in its global procurement system, further improving the internationalization level of the supply chain.

  Tao Lin’s price chart previously released shows that the Model 3 rear-wheel drive version starts at RMB 229,900 in mainland China, while the same model in the United States starts at RMB 288,600, with a price difference of nearly RMB 60,000. The Model Y rear-wheel drive version starts at RMB 261,900 in mainland China, while the US market is approximately RMB 343,600, with a price difference of more than RMB 80,000. In contrast, Tesla is indeed selling at a lower price in the Chinese market, while in the US market, due to its high supply chain costs and Tesla has not yet enjoyed the same localization dividend, it is therefore selling at a relatively high price.

  BMW China announced its access to DeepSeek on April 27. In the future, DeepSeek function will also be applied to the new generation of domestic BMW models. Starting from the third quarter of this year, this feature will be the first to be used in a number of new cars on sale in China equipped with the 9th generation (BMW) operating system, empowering a human-computer interactive experience centered on BMW's intelligent personal assistant through in-depth thinking capabilities. BMW has also become the first luxury car brand to connect to DeepSeek.

  "Artificial intelligence (AI) is a key area of ​​future cooperation, demonstrating the continued deepening of BMW's localization strategy," said Zipze, chairman of BMW Group. "We are strengthening cooperation with Chinese technology leaders to further empower AI models in China. In BMW's view, intelligence means cleverly integrating different AI models and capabilities. BMW has always insisted on working with local pioneer companies to quickly implement breakthrough technologies. With similar innovations, we are taking smart driving interest to a whole new level."

  It is reported that the two BMW exclusive AI intelligent bodies "car use experts" and "travel companions" that BMW and Alibaba have deeply customized have made their debut in the world at the Shanghai Auto Show. At the same time, the new BMW Smart Personal Assistant supported by a customized AI engine also made its debut at the BMW booth.

  On the same day, Dongfeng Nissan's mid-to-high pure electric sedan N7 was officially launched. This is the first model built by Dongfeng Nissan based on the new generation of new energy technology - Tianyan Architecture. It is equipped with Momenta one-stage end-to-end combined driving assistance system, marking Dongfeng Nissan's new breakthrough in the new energy field.

  Momenta CEO Cao Xudong told reporters that Momenta's cooperation ecosystem is constantly expanding, and its customers have covered nearly 70% of the top 10 car companies in the world, including not only domestic OEMs such as SAIC, GAC, FAW, and BYD, but also Audi and Mercedes-Benz in the European market, Toyota, Honda, Nissan in the Japanese market, and Cadillac under GM in the North American market.

  Accelerate change

  "In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, Chinese companies account for a low proportion of key components, and are basically dominated by European, American and Japanese companies; entering the era of smart electrification, Chinese automobile supply chain companies are collectively rising and are expected to become important global centers and create higher value." Zhang Yongwei said.

  The collective rise of China's automobile supply chain enterprises is on the one hand due to the opportunities brought by industrial transformation and reshaping. With the acceleration of the transformation of electrification and intelligence, automobiles have evolved from traditional mechanical products to a "large terminal" integrating multiple technologies such as machinery, electronics, computing, perception, and energy storage. Changes in product functions and attributes not only reconstruct the supply chain, but also reconstruct the innovation chain and value chain. Batteries, motors and electronic controls replace the transmission system composed of engines and gearboxes, which injects new impetus into Chinese power battery companies represented by CATL and Yiwei Lithium Energy. The accelerated "get on the car" of intelligent assisted driving and the accelerated "get on the car" have opened up a new track for Chinese technology companies represented by Huawei and Horizon.

  On the other hand, it is due to the virtuous cycle formed by technological innovation and scale cost reduction. Competition in the automobile industry relies heavily on technological innovation and scale advantages. The larger the market size, the lower the innovation cost required for a unit product is diluted, and companies are more motivated to seize market share through technological innovation. China's super-large-scale market, with low local supply costs and guaranteed timeliness. In addition, the mature systems of R&D, manufacturing, etc. have high matching of talent teams. This series of advantages makes enterprises more competitive in building supply chains in China.

  From a speed perspective, local suppliers have a keener insight into the demand and changes of the Chinese market, and can quickly respond to the needs of car companies and accelerate technology research and development and application. From a cost perspective, local suppliers have certain advantages in raw material procurement, labor costs, etc., and can provide more cost-effective intelligent automotive solutions. Take lidar as an example. 10 years ago, the cost of a single lidar was as high as 80,000 US dollars, and it could only be carried by luxury models. With the transformation of the lidar architecture from the traditional "stack-type" discrete architecture to chip integration and large-scale applications, the cost of related products such as Hesai and Sagitar has dropped to less than US$200.

  The challenge remains

  This year, the Shanghai Auto Show has set up an automotive technology and supply chain exhibition area for the first time, and nearly 50 well-known domestic and foreign technology companies, including semiconductors and chips, made their debut. Both the number of exhibitors and the area of ​​exhibitors have achieved significant growth compared with the previous session. This fully reflects that the transformation of electrification and intelligent industries is accelerating the deep integration of technology and automobiles. In particular, cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data have become an important innovative force leading the development of the automobile industry.

  What is more worthy of attention is that there are quite a lot of Chinese automobile supply chain companies entering the vehicle hall, heading towards the front and competing with the vehicle companies. According to statistics from the organizer, there are more than 20 supply chain companies in the vehicle hall. From power batteries to energy replenishment systems, from new sensing components to automotive-grade chips, from smart driving solutions to smart cockpits, not only Chinese supply chain companies play the leading role, but their popularity is not inferior to vehicle companies at all. It can be said that the advantage of China's automobile industry today has formed a leading lane change advantage due to the rapid growth of vehicle companies and the collaborative innovation of the entire industrial chain.

  "The role of the Shanghai Auto Show has surpassed the auto show itself and has become a strategic high ground for reconstructing the rules and value coordinates of the global automobile industry. While feeling the prosperity of the auto show, we must also rationally recognize the existing problems and challenges." Liu Yan, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Industry Association, said that through the release of a large number of new cars, we can see that the homogeneity and low-price of products are obvious, and the "intra-roll" competition is full of hidden dangers, and the heating of industry competition will continue to undermine the profitability of enterprises. In particular, some key links in the supply chain have not yet been independent and controllable, and there is still a long way to go to research and development in the "bottleneck" field.

  There are challenges in the electrification industry chain such as raw materials, batteries, and core components. Zhang Yongwei said that in the field of raw materials, the global distribution of lithium, cobalt and nickel resources is too concentrated. With the rapid development of the market, the supply gap of upstream resources may always exist. At the same time, batteries will gradually become a relatively large area affected by trade and investment policies, and the price fluctuations in power batteries, carbon tariffs, investment risks, major technological breakthroughs, etc. will affect the supply chain.

  There are also some prominent problems in intelligent supply chains such as chips, software, and hardware. "The automotive chip industry is both highly divided and highly concentrated, with high risks, high uncertainty and high vulnerability; the scale of automobile software has increased, and safety issues are highlighted; the centralization of operating systems and large models has led to high uncertainty in the development of the industry; the deep binding of automobile software and hardware has deepened the vulnerability; the development and application of large computing power computing platforms has caused the R&D investment of automobile companies to increase sharply, and solutions for reducing costs and increasing efficiency are urgently needed." Zhang Yongwei emphasized. (Reporter Yang Zhongyang)

[Editor in charge: Zhou Jingjie]