Geely and Ford will establish a joint venture at their Valencia factory in Spain, Xiaopeng will complete the localization acceptance test of Xiaopeng Turing AI intelligent driving in Germany, Horizon and Volkswagen have announced further deepening their technical cooperation in the field of AI based large models... Recently, Chinese car companies are accelerating their pace of going global, gradually shifting from simple vehicle exports to a diversified and advanced path of capacity building and intelligent technology export. Industry insiders believe that China's automobile industry is currently moving from simple product trade to a "deep water zone" of industrial chain collaboration and localization, and going global has become an important driving force for the development and upgrading of China's automobile industry.
From 'borrowing a ship to set sail' to 'building a ship for a long voyage'
Implementing a layered breakthrough in the overseas mode
On July 23rd, Geely Automobile Holdings Limited and Ford Motor Company of the United States reached an agreement to establish a joint venture at their Valencia factory in Spain. Through capacity sharing, the two parties will create new energy vehicle products under the Geely and Ford brands for the European market, accelerate the implementation of Geely's localization strategy in Europe, and promote economic development in the Valencia region. After obtaining regulatory approval, the joint venture company will officially enter operation in the first half of 2027, and the first brand new model will be launched in 2028.
Nan Shengliang, Vice President of Geely Automobile Group, stated that this strategic cooperation with Ford is an important measure for both sides to open up, collaborate, and achieve mutual benefit. It is also a milestone event for Geely Automobile's global development and will further solidify Geely's localization layout in Europe. In the future, Geely will leverage its advantages in safe and low-carbon hard core products, leading new energy technologies, and establish a foothold in Europe, deeply cultivating the European automotive industry and assisting in its green transformation.
Market institutions have responded positively to this cooperation. Huachuang Securities analyst Zhang Chenghang stated that compared to building its own base, Geely does not need to build a factory from scratch to share the existing production capacity, labor force, and supply chain network of the Valencia factory, significantly shortening the landing cycle, reducing capital requirements, and execution risks. The establishment of local production capacity in Europe this time will help to avoid risks, meet demand, and further enhance the certainty of going global.
Chinese automobiles are not only deepening their layout in production, but also in technology cooperation and global localization.
On July 22nd, Volkswagen Group and Horizon announced that they will further deepen their technological cooperation in the field of AI based large models through their joint venture company, Carizon. Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Group, Obomu, said, "China has become one of the important innovation engines of the group globally, especially in the fields of software, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving. This deepening cooperation will further strengthen our ability to develop and scale up AI autonomous driving solutions. By combining world-class AI capabilities with the group's strong engineering expertise, we will be able to better serve Chinese customers and support the group's business development in some international markets in the future. ”
Xiaopeng Group Chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng and General Intelligence Center Manager Liu Xianming recently completed the localization acceptance test of Xiaopeng Turing AI intelligent driving in Germany. At the same time, targeting overseas markets, Xiaopeng has also introduced Google Maps service to create a native in car navigation experience that is more in line with the habits of overseas users through Auto SDK. Localized intelligent driving, multilingual intelligent cockpit, and local navigation ecosystem together constitute Xiaopeng's complete intelligent capabilities. Its goal is to gradually deliver intelligent assisted driving systems that are more suitable for local road environments to global users from 2027 onwards.
From exporting complete vehicles to exporting technology platforms and industrial chains, Chinese automotive companies are occupying an increasingly central position in the global automotive industry chain. Advanced intelligent driving is moving from China to the world, and Chinese car companies are exporting core technology standards to the world.
Comprehensive iteration of industry logic
The goal of going global is to shift towards deep cultivation of the entire value chain
At present, China's automobile industry has completely bid farewell to the primary mode of simply exporting complete vehicles, and there has been a profound transformation in market layout, competitive core, and industrial synergy logic. From the perspective of market structure, the domestic market has reached its peak in growth, and going global has become a necessary option for car companies.
Fu Bingfeng, Vice President and Secretary General of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, pointed out at the 2026 China Automotive Forum that the industry showed structural characteristics of "domestic demand pressure and strong foreign trade" in the first half of the year. From the current development status of the industry, the incremental space of the domestic automobile market has narrowed, and it has entered a new stage of stock competition. Enterprises need to establish themselves in the domestic market to hone their core competitiveness, steadily participate in international competition, and achieve high-quality and healthy development.
Roland Berger Global Partner Xu Huxiong also believes that the period from 2020 to 2030 is the golden window for Chinese car companies to go global. But in order to firmly establish a foothold in the global market, it is necessary to promote vertical and deep layout of overseas business. Currently, the proportion of localized overseas production by domestic car companies is much lower than that of European, American, Japanese, and Korean car companies. We need to make synchronized efforts in five major areas: product, brand, research and development, production and supply chain, and operation system, to further implement deep localization overseas and vertically expand global business.
Zhang Fangfei, an overseas analysis expert at BYD Auto's CEO's Office, bluntly stated that for Chinese companies, achieving long-term international operations and deepening local cultivation may no longer be a multiple-choice question, but a compulsory course. The localization production requirements of various countries are squeezing the profits of whole vehicle exports layer by layer. The short-term loose component assembly (KD) model has three major problems: unstable supply chain, disconnected after-sales service, and low-end brand. Only by localizing the entire process of factory construction can we effectively control the quality of the entire vehicle, create local employment, establish a comprehensive after-sales service system, and thus help upgrade the brand image. ”
Jia Jianxu, President and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Automotive Group Co., Ltd., stated that China's automotive industry is entering a stage of high-quality global development. The layout mode has upgraded from trade going global to full value chain localization and deep cultivation, and the value pursuit has shifted from seizing the market to building a global industrial community.
The core of high-quality globalization is localized operation. The industry has formed a consensus to promote the integration of domestic research and development, localized manufacturing, and localized supply chain layout. Domestic car companies have successively established overseas factories, regional R&D centers, and parts supporting parks, driving the collective development of the industrial chain overseas and achieving industrial synergy and mutual benefit, "said Jia Jianxu.
The interweaving of opportunities and risks
Chinese Enterprises Play in the Deep Water Zone
Despite the broad prospects, Chinese cars going global are facing a severe test from "selling" to "entering", with opportunities and challenges like two sides of a coin.
From the perspective of opportunities, the window of opportunity for technological dividends and brand improvement has already opened. Tang Liming, Chief Product Strategy Officer of Geely Automobile Group, believes that a new era of development led by Chinese automobiles has arrived, shifting from mechanical competition to competition in three electric and intelligent driving. Chinese brands are gradually restructuring their brand landscape.
Lin Huaibin, Sales Forecast Director of S&P Global Automotive China Light Vehicle, predicts that by 2030, the market share of Chinese brands in overseas markets excluding China will reach around 15%.
But behind the prosperous data, there are also some fragile points that cannot be ignored, and enterprises need to think about the future medium - and long-term development pattern.
In terms of compliance, the market access threshold for various countries continues to increase. Li Feng, Deputy Director of the Vehicle Networking and Intelligent Transportation Research Department at the Institute of Technology and Standards of China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, stated that the logic of international competition has changed, and the barriers to entry in multiple markets have significantly increased hardware delivery costs and implementation difficulties.
The Chinese automotive industry needs to deepen the ecological synergy of the entire industry chain, and transform domestic industrial practices into international industry rules from the dimensions of standards, policies, and industries. At the same time, the entire industry should carry out core technology research and development, focusing on communication continuity, distributed architecture, and data engineering, and relying on technological breakthroughs to solve the problem of going global, "said Li Feng.
In terms of industry self-discipline, the industry needs to pay attention to the spillover phenomenon of "internal competition". Tang Liming bluntly stated, "It is suggested to jointly build from four dimensions: price self-discipline, channel self-discipline, compliance self-discipline, and brand self-discipline, in order to achieve better healthy competition
From 'selling' to 'entering', this is not only a simple production migration, but also a deep transformation from business models to thinking concepts. As emphasized by Fu Bingfeng, the industry needs to adhere to long-term principles and achieve comprehensive upgrades in areas such as technological innovation, green transformation, global development, and modernization of governance systems.