An entrance of the IAA MOBILITY 2025 held in Munich, Germany on September 8, 2025 Photo: VCG

The global automotive industry will once again turn its attention to Munich, Germany, where the highly anticipated IAA MOBILITY 2025 opens on Tuesday, with Chinese automakers having a strong presence and bringing their major models and technologies to the event.

German host companies, including the Volkswagen Group, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, are making grand appearances, while the number of Chinese exhibitors has continued to grow this year, exceeding 100 companies spanning sectors including complete vehicles, power batteries, autonomous driving, lidar, and smart cockpits. 

Judging from the exhibition layout, automakers such as BYD, XPeng, and Leapmotor have relatively large outdoor exhibition areas. Among them, Leapmotor is globally launching the Lafa5 and marking the European debut of its overseas model B10. Leapmotor revealed that it already has two stores in Munich, bringing its total number of stores across Germany to 109, reported cnautonews.com on Monday.

In addition to automakers, a large number of Chinese auto parts exhibitors will also attend, covering fields such as power batteries, autonomous driving, and automotive electronics. Among them, power battery companies include CATL and Gotion High-tech; in the autonomous driving sector, companies such as Black Sesame Technologies and Horizon Robotics and DeepRoute.ai will attend.

At CATL Open Day on Sunday, the company unveiled Shenxing Pro, the world's first lithium iron phosphate battery that can achieve sustained high-voltage supply, maintain power, and have no fire or smoke after thermal runaway. 

Collaborating with more than 200 carmakers worldwide, including long-standing European partners and more than 1,000 European suppliers, CATL advances innovation by collaboratively integrating state-of-the-art battery technologies into electric vehicles, the company said in a release sent to the Global Times on Monday.

"By combining our advanced capabilities with Europe's decades-long automotive expertise, we aim to go beyond 'in Europe, for Europe' and ultimately 'of Europe,' building a greener, smarter and more thriving EV ecosystem that ranges from material production and battery making, to remanufacturing and recycling to accelerate the region's energy transition," said Tan Libin, CCO and SVP of global business of CATL. 

DeepRoute.ai will showcase its latest-generation assisted driving platform, DeepRoute IO 2.0, and its proprietary Vision-Language-Action model. The company said that it is actively expanding into key overseas markets, including Europe, Japan, and South Korea.

DeepRoute.ai is leveraging its extensive mass production experience and technological maturity to help domestic clients accelerate the global rollout of intelligent products, providing localized and highly adaptable assisted driving solutions to overseas and joint venture automakers, empowering them to expand into broader markets, the company said in a release sent to the Global Times on Monday.

Chinese companies are demonstrating comprehensive efforts to expand globally across the entire industry chain, which is expected to inject more Chinese momentum into the green and intelligent development of the global automotive industry, Wu Shuocheng, a veteran auto industry analyst, told the Global Times on Monday. 

In Wu's view, Chinese automakers have evolved from initially exporting products to establishing overseas production bases and ultimately promoting the global expansion of their entire industrial chain. More foreign carmakers will seek cooperation with Chinese auto parts manufacturers, Wu predicted. 

The BMW Group announced that the first production model of the Neue Klasse, the new BMW iX3, had its world premiere on Friday and made an appearance at the IAA Mobility on Monday. The group said its China-specific model will debut within the year and enter production in China in 2026.

China's automotive industry is entering a new phase of tech-driven transformation. With the Neue Klasse, BMW has embraced its Chinese partners for a new phase of Partnership 2.0. "The technology race in our industry will be decided in China, where AI is widely adopted. That is why we are establishing AI partnerships with leading Chinese tech companies, to integrate these innovations directly into our vehicles in China," Oliver Zipse, chairman of the board of BMW AG, said in a release sent to the Global Times.