New-energy vehicles roll off the production line at a company in Liuzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on July 8, 2026. Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

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 moves toward its goal of basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035, 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. This is the fifth installment of the series.


"Intelligent Manufacturing in China has become another shining hallmark of Chinese modernization," Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World AI Conference and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance.

China's new-energy vehicle (NEV) industry is an iconic symbol on this shining hallmark. Why can China's NEV industry succeed? 

First, it benefited from a unique institutional advantage.

China possesses the institutional advantage of a socialist market economy. It has promoted the implementation and tangible results of a series of policies covering top-level planning, fiscal and tax subsidies, and infrastructure development, thereby providing strong strategic support and institutional guarantees for the leapfrog development of the NEV industry. 

Second, it benefited from an unparalleled demand advantage. 

In today's world, the scarcest resource is market. China has the world's largest vehicle ownership base and a massive market demand, with automobile sales staying above 20 million units for many consecutive years. 

Third, it benefited from an irreplicable supply advantage. 

After more than a decade of development, China's NEV industry has connected key segments including basic materials, core components, complete vehicles, manufacturing equipment, and charging/refueling infrastructure.

Fourth, it benefited from a continuous advantage in talent supply. 

China ranks first in the world in total R&D personnel, and the engineer dividend continues to emerge. The achievements of China's NEV industry today are built on the sustained efforts of a large number of highly skilled workers.

New development philosophy
Innovation is the soul of China's NEV industry.

Chinese automakers have reshaped the global trajectory of technological evolution in NEVs and have achieved reverse technology export. High-level scientific and technological self-reliance and self-strengthening are the key engine driving China's NEV industry from being large to being strong and toward the top of the global value chain.

Coordination is the lifeblood of China's NEV industry.

Relying on the industrial foundations and resource endowments of eastern, central, and western China, production bases for NEVs and key components are being laid out in an orderly manner. Gradually, five major NEV industry clusters are taking shape: the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Hubei-Henan-Hunan region, and Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone. 

Green is the defining color of China's NEV industry.

Having put forward its "dual carbon" goals with great solemnity, China has integrated the concept of green development across the entire value chain of the NEV industry.

Openness defines the vision of China's NEV industry.

In 2018, China lifted the foreign ownership restriction on NEV manufacturing, paving the way for Tesla to become the first foreign company to establish a wholly owned plant in the country. Construction of Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory broke ground in January 2019, and by December of the same year, the first car had rolled off the line.

Setting global standards
On the new track of high-quality development, Chinese automakers are launching a new race to set the world's "new standards" for the global automotive industry. 

They are leading the way in establishing new safety standards. 

China has introduced the world's strictest safety standard for power batteries. The newly released national standard for intelligent connected vehicles requires that the safety level of Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous driving must not be lower than that of a qualified and attentive human driver. 
They are leading the way in establishing new functionality standards. 

In Shenzhen, Tiannian No. 1 flying car developed by FAW Hongqi completed final assembly and rolled off the line, making its maiden flight; in Guangzhou, XPeng AeroHT has successfully completed batch trial production and multi-aircraft test flights for its modular "Land Carrier" flying cars.

They are leading the way in establishing new quality standards. 

In 2019, Li Auto first brought onboard refrigerators, front-passenger entertainment screens, and ultra-comfortable seats into vehicles. Today, "large screens, refrigerators, and big sofas" have become defining labels of Chinese NEVs, and have also become a new trend in cockpit design among multinational automakers. 

They are leading the way in establishing new service standards. 

NIO pioneered the world's first "chargeable, swappable, upgradable" charging and battery-swapping system, as well as a "battery-as-a-service" leasing model. 

High-quality development
As China advances into the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the NEV industry will embark on a new cycle of high-quality development.

First, it will accelerate the transition toward a new stage of autonomous driving.

By the end of 2025, two models from Changan and BAIC had received the first batch of domestic Level 3 conditional autonomous driving product access permits. China's autonomous driving industry is rapidly moving from "technology validation" to a new stage of "mass production and application."

Second, it will accelerate its leap toward modern service industries.

In June this year, the Ministry of Commerce and multiple other Chinese government departments jointly issued 17 specific measures across six key areas to cultivate and expand consumption in the automotive aftermarket, providing clear policy guidance and broad market space for automakers to deepen their presence in the service sector and develop new profit growth points.

Third, it will accelerate the expansion of the value chain.

In Beijing's Yizhuang district, breakthroughs have been made in the construction of five major systems - "smart vehicles, intelligent roads, real-time cloud, reliable networks, and precise maps" - with efforts underway to support automotive industry development and smart city construction through iterative upgrades of autonomous driving technologies.

The rise of China's NEV sector captures the upward march of Chinese manufacturing, reflects the confidence and self-reliance of an open major country, and carries the shared aspiration of over 1.4 billion Chinese people for a better life.

This was excerpted from an article originally published on the front page of the People's Daily on August 30, 2026. The article was written by the research team members Xu Lijing, Xie Rongbin, Du Haitao, Gui Junsong, Wang Zheng, Shen Qian, Ge Mengchao and Feng Yingjie.