From April 11-12, the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Development High-Level Forum (2026), hosted by China EV100, was held in Beijing. Over the two-day agenda, more than a hundred representatives from government, industry, academia, research, and other sectors gathered for in-depth discussions on industry hotspots, producing numerous remarkable outcomes that provide important guidance and new perspectives for the high-quality development of the global automotive industry. Below is a comprehensive presentation of the eight core highlights of this year‘s forum.
10 Sessions, Over 100 Guests Covering the Entire Industry Ecosystem
This forum featured a carefully designed series of 10 sessions, structured as “1 High-Level Forum + 1 International Forum + 8 Thematic Forums.” The thematic forums included: AI+Automotive Forum, Market & Consumption Forum, New Energy Vehicle Intelligent Powertrain Innovation Forum, the 6th Vehicle-Road-City Integrated Development Forum, Automotive Design Forum, Intelligent Vehicle Forum, Commercial Vehicle Sustainable Development Forum, and the Automotive “Three New” Frontier Technology Forum, forming a systematic “Automotive+N” ecological agenda.
Adopting a full industry chain perspective, the forum broke down single-industry boundaries, focused on industry pain points, and deeply explored future development paths. It brought together over a hundred heavyweight guests from multiple fields including automotive, information technology, transportation, energy, and urban development, achieving a cross-sectoral discussion landscape of “looking beyond the car to see the car.” This injected diverse perspectives and cutting-edge ideas into high-quality industry development. Total attendance exceeded 3,000 participants, with online viewers reaching 20.45 million.
Over 50 Research Achievements Released, Offering Insights for Automotive Industry Development
During the forum, the China EV100 Think Tank released over 50 research outcomes, including more than 10 research reports, over 40 survey reports, and several specialized books.
The research focused on key areas of current automotive industry transformation, including aggregate intelligence, heavy-duty electric truck charging solutions, AI and autonomous driving scenario deployment, charging infrastructure globalization, diversified technology pathways (methanol, extended-range, etc.), vehicle-road-city collaborative development, and new models of global cooperation in the automotive industry. These provide professional analysis to diagnose industry trends and inject strong intellectual support into high-quality industry development.
Four Platforms Launched Simultaneously to Foster a New Industrial Ecosystem
Against the backdrop of accelerating global automotive industry transformation and deepening international cooperation, two major events were held at the forum: the “Launch Ceremony for Best Practices of Multinational Automotive Enterprises in China” and the “Launch Ceremony for the China Auto Center (Hong Kong).” These events convened industry forces and built consensus, injecting new momentum into the high-quality development and internationalization of China‘s automotive industry.
On the industrial collaboration front, the “Strategic New Materials Innovation and Application Platform,” jointly initiated by the China EV100 Innovation Center and nearly 30 vehicle manufacturers, parts suppliers, and materials enterprises, was also officially launched during the forum. The platform focuses on deep integration between new materials and the automotive industry, aiming to build a full-chain collaborative innovation system covering “vehicle manufacturers + parts suppliers + materials + technology + standards + supply chain.” Its mission is to identify industry innovation needs, promote breakthrough of original technologies, and accelerate the popularization and application of new materials, precisely matching application scenarios, breaking through technical bottlenecks, and accelerating the transformation of research outcomes.
Concurrently, the Global Methanol-Electric Mobility Ecosystem Alliance was officially established. The alliance is jointly led and operated by China EV100, the China Automotive Technology and Research Center Co., Ltd. (CATARC), the Methanol Vehicle Promotion Expert Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Methanol Institute. It will continuously provide research support and intellectual services to member units, fully leveraging the platform‘s role as an industry hub to facilitate collaborative innovation.
Three Special Exhibitions, Over 70 Enterprises Participating, Fully Showcasing Industrial Innovation Vitality
As a key highlight of the forum, three special exhibitions achieved a "forum + exhibition" two-way empowerment, allowing participants to unlock cutting-edge products, core technologies, and pioneering design concepts in one stop, while comprehensively experiencing the innovation vitality and development pulse of China's new energy vehicle industry.
Among them, the New Energy Vehicle Industry New·Intelligent Achievements Exhibition gathered the most popular and influential models currently on the market, showcasing breakthroughs and innovations by various automakers in intelligent electric vehicle technology.
The Supply Chain Innovation Technology Exhibition brought together over 40 leading enterprises across the entire industrial chain, covering core areas such as automotive materials, automotive chips, high-performance computing platforms, power batteries, and intelligent driving systems. Each technological breakthrough represents the foundation for China's new energy vehicle industry to move upward and the core code for the industry's continuous progress.
The Automotive Lifestyle Aesthetics Special Exhibition, with its three themes — "Materiality Shaping All Things," "Ancient Techniques, Modern Interpretations," and "Intelligent Evolution of Sensibility" — interprets China's advanced productivity and the source empowerment of cockpit lifestyle aesthetics, showcasing the aesthetic trend of the car as a "third living space" and enriching the cultural connotations of the automotive industry. It is not only a feast of design achievements but also a declaration of value creation originating from China's productive forces.
Authoritative Voices and Expert Advice Anchor Industry Development Trends
"By 2030, new energy vehicles will become the absolute mainstream in the automotive market, with domestic penetration exceeding 70%," said Su Bo, Deputy Director of the National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategic Advisory Committee and Former Deputy Secretary of the CPC Leadership Group and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in his speech. He stated that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is a decisive period for China to transform from a major automotive country into an automotive powerhouse, with new energy vehicles bearing the national missions of building a manufacturing powerhouse, a technology powerhouse, a transportation powerhouse, and achieving the "dual carbon" goals. At the same time, he cautioned that behind the achievements of China's automotive industry, deep-seated industrial contradictions are gradually emerging, and intensified global competition and rapid new technology development are also bringing new challenges.
Ouyang Minggao, Professor at Tsinghua University, stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, automakers need to focus on functional value, emotional value, and asset value, allowing these three values to couple together. He predicted that new energy passenger vehicles will account for more than 70% of annual new passenger vehicle sales by 2030, over 80% by 2035, and are expected to reach over 85% by 2040. The future will see a landscape dominated by battery electric vehicles and the widespread application of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology
Professor Li Keqiang, Dean of the School of Vehicle and Mobility at Tsinghua University, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Green Vehicles and Transportation, and Chief Scientist of the National Innovation Center of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles, stated that "vehicle-road-cloud integration" will become the inevitable path to realize the industrial development of high-level autonomous driving. He emphasized that safety remains the primary issue that the industry urgently needs to solve, and the industry must abandon impetuous gimmicks and always respect technological limitations.
Reconstructing Competition Logic from a Whole-Vehicle Perspective: Decoding the Future Pattern of the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Industry
Regarding the industrial competition pattern, several representatives from the whole-vehicle field combined their own practices to collide with diverse development ideas. Zhao Fei, General Manager of Changan Automobile, stated that with the rapid integration of new production factors such as AI large models into the automotive industry, the automotive industry is accelerating its transition from a "large industry with a small ecosystem" to a "large industry with a large ecosystem". Cross-domain and cross-entity ecological collaboration has become inevitable, and future competition will be ecological competition.
Feng Xingya, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of GAC Group, stated that technological competition has shifted from relying on a single technological advantage to win the market to competing for the advantages of technological systems such as chips, operating systems, batteries, and AI integration. Market competition has shifted from a "single battlefield" to "dual-cycle integration", and internationalization has become a must-win battlefield.
Li Shufu, Chairman of Geely Holding Group, stated that methanol electric and lithium battery routes are not substitutes but complements. The application of China's green energy development of wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol in the transportation sector is a very down-to-earth scientific and technological route.
Li Bin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO, bluntly stated that the current prominent profitability pressure in the intelligent electric vehicle industry is largely due to excessively fast product iteration, high proportion of battery and chip costs, and large supply chain fluctuations. He suggested promoting industry-wide unified standards for battery cells and chips, which is expected to achieve cost reduction of hundreds of billions of yuan and alleviate the profitability dilemma of the entire industry.
Li Ming, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of JAC Motors, suggested implementing hierarchical and classified supervision for different levels of driving automation functions (L2, L3, L4), and establishing a dynamic fault-tolerant supervision mechanism. This would replace pre-event rigid approval with data backtracking and risk assessment, and replace post-event accountability with full-process data supervision.
"Facing the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the development of new energy vehicles coexists with certainty and uncertainty," said Lian Yubo, Chief Scientist, Chief Engineer of Automobiles, and Dean of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of BYD Group. He believes that policy support, increased consumer awareness, and comprehensive electrification are clear directions, but technological inflection points and industrial boundaries still have variables.
Yang Xueliang, Senior Vice President of Geely Holding Group, proposed that driven by the wave of artificial intelligence, "Software-Defined Vehicles (SDV)" is rapidly evolving to "AI-Defined Vehicles (AIDV)". The cars of the future will be intelligent mobile terminals, data carriers, and even ecological entrances.
He Liyang, President of Seres Automobile, stated that the automotive industry is the best carrier for developing new quality productive forces. Automakers should build core competitiveness around four directions: cross-border collaboration, AI empowerment, intelligent manufacturing, and smart services.
Wang Lang, Vice President of Chery Automobile Co., Ltd., stated that in the future, Chinese automakers going global will face increasingly strict compliance challenges and policy barriers for a long time. Compliance capability has become the underlying logic that determines whether an automaker can survive in the global market.
Tao Hailong, Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of SAIC Volkswagen, believes that current competition has deepened from "whole-vehicle competition" to "system competition", and from "product power" to "comprehensive value experience". The industrial pattern is also changing, shifting from the vertical chain structure of the fuel era to the networked ecological structure of the intelligent era. To achieve high-quality development, enterprises must build a highly resilient industrial chain that is co-creative, sustainable, and pressure-resistant.
Liang Linhe, Director of Sany Group and Chairman of Sany Heavy Truck, stated that the industry's "involution" in the new energy heavy truck field is reflected as healthy competition, which has forced the emergence of a complete industrial chain, advanced technology, and extreme costs. This is precisely the core competitiveness that Chinese enterprises are expected to surpass international heavy truck giants.
Deepening Participation of Supply Chains and Technological Forces Drives the Reconstruction of Intelligent Infrastructure
In the process of electrification and intelligent transformation, supply chains and technology enterprises have become key driving factors. Jin Yuzhi, Senior Vice President of Huawei and CEO of Yinwang, pointed out that assisted driving has been fully popularized in new energy vehicles in the Chinese market. The penetration rate of Level 2 and above assisted driving in models above 100,000 yuan has exceeded 90%, and 2026 will become the first year of global autonomous driving.
Yu Kai, Founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics, proposed that autonomous driving foundation models are core infrastructure. In recent years, new power automakers have broken the organizational segmentation between cockpits and intelligent driving. In the future, it is necessary to build a central computing supporting organizational architecture centered on an intelligent base to adapt to industry trends.
Li Qiang, General Manager of the AI Automotive Industry Division of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, believes that current automotive intelligence is rapidly evolving towards a super intelligent body with integrated cockpit and driving. In the field of intelligent driving, VLA + vision models are defining the next technological paradigm for intelligent driving; in the cockpit field, the end-cloud collaborative large model architecture is reshaping user experience.
Shan Jizhang, Founder and CEO of Black Sesame Intelligent Technology, stated that in future high-level intelligent driving, VLA + world models are expected to become the mainstream solution, and their capabilities are expected to surpass human driving levels.
Zhang Bo, Co-founder of Didi and CEO of Didi Autonomous Driving, believes that for a long time to come, human drivers and autonomous vehicles will need to jointly provide very stable travel services. A hybrid travel network is the best path for the commercialization of Level 4 autonomous driving technology.
Shen Shaojie, CEO of Zhuoyu Technology, predicted that intelligent driving is only the primary form of physical AI. In the future, the intelligent driving enterprises that survive will transform into mobile physical AI companies.
Hong Tao, Vice President of Feishu Products and Head of Feishu Projects, believes that the automotive industry chain is ushering in the digital reshaping of R&D management. Therefore, we should jointly shape a new R&D paradigm for the electric vehicle industry facing the future, empower the industry through software, and precipitate advanced R&D processes.
Hou Jinlong, Director of Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. and President of Huawei Digital Energy, believes that accelerating the construction of a charging network dominated by megawatt ultra-fast charging is the key to promoting the sustainable and healthy development of heavy truck electrification. He suggested strengthening industrial chain ecological collaboration, accelerating the demonstration and promotion of megawatt ultra-fast charging networks, and continuing to implement support policies for heavy truck electrification.
Miao Qin, Vice President of JD.com and President of JD Auto, stated that in recent years, the number of new energy vehicles has been continuously rising, but there are pain points in the new energy after-sales service field such as insufficient maintenance outlets and a large gap in professional technicians, resulting in the after-sales needs of new energy vehicle owners not being fully met.
Gao Dapeng, Chairman and President of Desay SV, believes that China's successful experience cannot be simply copied and pasted overseas. It is necessary to combine China's verified technologies and models with overseas localization advantages, such as Europe's industrial accumulation, Japan's lean management, and the United States' AI chip capabilities.
Shi Qinghua, Vice President of Baidu, believes that when AI truly becomes standard equipment for automobiles, it is recommended that automakers make early plans for computing power reserves, platform construction, and data governance, and find long-term computing power "partners" or data "partners".
"Currently, the intelligent driving industry is evolving towards the popularization of experience and safety," said Qiu Xiaoxin, Founder and Chairman of Axera Semiconductor. Facing the "dumbbell-shaped" structure presented in the intelligent driving market, Axera has laid out a clear chip roadmap to cover the core needs at both ends with a "both-and" strategy.
International Representatives Gather to Focus on Industrial Restructuring from a Global Perspective
This forum not only focused on domestic industrial development, but also many representatives from international automotive and related fields took the stage to share industrial insights from a global perspective and promote Sino-foreign industrial collaborative development.
Han Sanchu, Executive Vice President of Volkswagen Group (China) and CEO of CARIAD China, stated that the Chinese market presents a state of fierce competition parallel to rapid technological iteration. Traditional market stratification is being broken. The boundaries between "mainstream" and "luxury" are gradually blurring, and products and technologies are beginning to compete across price ranges.
Dr. Becker, Senior Vice President of BMW Group, believes that building a healthier, more profitable, and sustainable automotive industry ecosystem is crucial. At the same time, he looks forward to promoting the coordination of Chinese and foreign standards and regulations, especially in key areas of digitalization, intelligent technology, and green transformation.
Makoto Uchida, Global Executive Committee Member of Nissan Motor and Chairman of China Region, stated that "going global" is one of Nissan's important strategies in China. Chinese automakers are leading the transformation of the global automotive market, and we hope to use Nissan's mature global network to serve global consumers with excellent products created in the Chinese market.
Wu Zhen, President of Magna China, pointed out that the automotive industry is entering a new stage defined by innovation, speed, and execution. Product development has shifted from the traditional linear model to an innovative parallel development model, and the industry's development focus is shifting from pursuing individual component optimization to achieving overall system optimization.
Cao Yanfei, Senior Vice President of Infineon Technologies and Head of Automotive Business Greater China, believes that China's automotive industry is developing towards a second growth curve and entering a new stage of deep integration with multi-field scientific and technological innovation. Automakers are generally laying out the "three intelligent components": intelligent vehicles, humanoid robots, and flying cars. China's automotive industry has formed a comprehensive capability center covering technologies such as powertrains, intelligent driving, sensors, domain controllers, and embodied intelligence, which can naturally extend to the fields of robots or flying cars.
Xu Changchun, President of China Region of the Electric Drive Systems Division of Bosch Mobility Solutions, stated that China's electrification technology presents four major trends: greenization, integration, intelligence, and internationalization. Greenization achieves efficiency improvement and consumption reduction, helping to achieve the dual carbon goals; integration breaks system boundaries and promotes deep integration of components; intelligence promotes software empowering hardware and software-defined vehicles; internationalization is reflected in technology going global and global collaboration.
Shalini Palmer, Global Vice President of ADI Automotive Business, stated that the automotive industry is ushering in one of the most profound transformations in history, and China is leading this transformation with unparalleled speed, scale, and innovation. Innovation in the automotive industry is continuously radiating outward and widely applied to related fields such as humanoid robots and energy systems.
The High-Level Forum on the Development of Intelligent Electric Vehicles (2026) has gathered consensus from all parties of government, industry, academia, research, and application through multi-dimensional and multi-level exchanges and discussions. In the future, it is expected to take this forum as an opportunity to continue deepening cross-industry collaboration, strengthening technological innovation, promoting the transformation of achievements, and helping China's automotive industry achieve higher-quality development in global competition.
