In the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, the battery of a new energy vehicle can be charged from 20% to 80%; open the mobile phone app and enter the departure and destination. In less than 3 minutes, an unmanned vehicle equipped with various sensors will stop by the roadside with “double flash”; in the congested traffic during the morning and evening rush hours, the car can automatically follow the car and predict the lane change… These scenes that once appeared on the screen are accelerating into real life with the technological innovation of China’s new energy vehicles.
According to the data of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the basic market of China’s new energy vehicles will grow steadily in 2024, with annual sales reaching 12.866 million vehicles, a penetration rate of 40.9%, and a total of 31.4 million vehicles, accounting for 8.9% of the total number of vehicles. The first half of the market replacement of new energy vehicles for traditional fuel vehicles was a victory. The second half will be dominated by intelligent networked vehicles, starting the technological competition of intelligent networked mobile terminals, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of my country’s automobile industry to green, intelligent, and high-end. With the rapid popularization of new energy vehicles, assisted driving has been applied on a large scale, and the technology of intelligent networked vehicles has accelerated its iteration. High-level autonomous driving technology is in a critical period of transitioning from testing and verification to large-scale application. The focus of technology development is shifting from pure innovation and research and development to relying on large-scale data training and optimization. It is urgently needed to obtain a wider range of application scenarios to obtain massive driving data to feed back technology development, evolve in the direction of “driving better and better”, and continuously improve safety and stability.
In the early stage of new energy vehicle promotion, the technical level of batteries, motors and electronic controls (“three electrics”) is the key indicator for evaluating vehicles. Today, the “three electrics” technology is becoming more mature, the supporting industry chain is becoming more complete, and the gap between various vehicle products in this field is gradually narrowing. In order to innovate and create new selling points in products, vehicle companies must not only maintain the “three electrics” industry level, but also seek breakthroughs in the fields of intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, and intelligent networking (“three intelligences”), establish a new technology “moat”, and enhance core competitiveness.
Iterative upgrades of intelligent driving technology have become a “technical vane”
At present, new energy vehicles are transforming from simple means of transportation to intelligent mobile terminals, and intelligent driving technology is the core driving force of this transformation. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the penetration rate of new L2-level assisted driving functions in Chinese passenger cars has reached 55.7% in 2024. The industry predicts that this figure is expected to exceed 65% in 2025.
Facing the trend of industry change, major car companies have seized the high ground of intelligent driving with technological innovation.
On February 9, Changan Automobile released the intelligent strategy “Beidou Tianshu 2.0” plan, and joined hands with partners such as Chery and Geely to jointly create a new business card for China’s intelligent driving. Zhu Huarong, chairman and party secretary of Changan Automobile, said that the plan adheres to the dual-track parallel of “independent research and development + cooperative co-creation” and fully launches the “four major digital upgrades” action, marking a new starting point for Changan’s intelligent journey, and also demonstrating its responsibility as a representative of Chinese brands to lead the new era of intelligent driving.
On February 10, BYD released the high-end intelligent driving system “Eye of God”. Chairman and President Wang Chuanfu said that the system aims to achieve unmanned driving on the track based on the vehicle’s excellent performance and intelligent control. It can collect track information in all directions without blind spots, and achieve the ultimate fusion of performance and intelligence through automatic control and distribution of torque vectoring.
On March 3, Geely Auto released the intelligent driving solution “Qianli Haohan”. Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Auto Group, introduced that “Qianli Haohan” is a unified intelligent travel solution created by Geely using AI technologies such as end-to-end, VLM, and world models. It will cover all models of different prices and realize the “equality” and “safety” of intelligent driving.
On April 16, Lantu Auto released the world’s first L3 intelligent architecture “Tianyuan Intelligent Architecture”. The architecture integrates two core technology clusters, Qingyun L3 intelligent safety driving platform and Kunpeng L3 intelligent safety driving system, to set a new safety benchmark with systematic innovation. Lu Fang, CEO of Lantu Auto Technology Co., Ltd., said that the architecture will significantly improve the level of vehicle intelligence and bring users a safer and smarter travel experience.
Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, said, “With the application of end-to-end big models on vehicles, big data and algorithm capabilities are constantly improving, and current intelligent driving is experiencing rapid iterations and technological breakthroughs.”
Sun Fengchun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Beijing Institute of Technology, explained the evolution of China’s future industrial engineering and technology system for intelligent networked new energy vehicles: from the initial “three verticals and three horizontals” (three verticals: pure electric, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen-electric hybrid vehicle platforms; three horizontals: batteries, motors, and electronic control systems), to the “four small electrics” (electric steering, electric active suspension, electric braking, and electric air conditioning) including the wire-controlled chassis. In the future, intelligent networked vehicles will develop in the direction of mobile embodied intelligent bodies, and the technical system will cover sensing, networking, computing power, big models, communications, manipulation (human/machine), vehicle control safety, and vehicle network information security.
“In the past, China was a follower in global automotive technology, but now China has become the world’s largest automobile market and producer. It is also the strongest automotive technology ecosystem that has spawned all kinds of new automotive technologies, new models, and new business formats, providing the global automotive industry with a ‘technological weather vane’ and ‘innovation treasure chest’.” Hou Fushen, vice president and secretary general of the China Society of Automotive Engineers, said with emotion.
Power battery energy density continues to break through
As the core component of new energy vehicles, power battery technology breakthroughs have always been the top priority for the development of the industry. In the past, “mileage anxiety” has always troubled new energy vehicle consumers, but now, with my country’s continuous innovation in the field of battery technology, this problem is gradually being solved.
According to Xu Yanhua, Secretary-General of the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, 2024 is a milestone year for the power battery industry. The shipments of power + energy storage batteries will reach 1039GWh, and the battery industry will enter the TeraWh era, with a year-on-year growth of 42.4%. Exports are close to 200GWh, with a growth rate of more than 29%, continuing to maintain global leadership, of which power battery shipments account for more than 67% of the world, energy storage battery shipments account for more than 93% of the world, and positive and negative electrode material shipments account for about 90% of the world.
Xu Yanhua told a reporter from China Industrial Daily that under the general trend of energy transformation in China and the world, China’s battery industry has played an important supporting role. In terms of material innovation, materials such as lithium iron manganese phosphate, lithium-rich manganese-based positive electrodes, silicon-carbon negative electrodes, lithium metal negative electrodes, and solid electrolytes and solid-liquid mixed electrolytes have entered small-scale production or mass production preparation stages; in terms of battery technology, solid-liquid mixed batteries have begun to be installed in small batches, and all-solid-state batteries have entered the pre-installation preparation stage, and are developing in parallel with multiple technical routes such as sulfides, polymers, oxides, and halides.
In the field of lithium-ion batteries, my country has achieved leapfrog development with continuous technological innovation. CATL’s Kirin battery uses high-nickel ternary materials and advanced thermal management systems, with an energy density of up to 255Wh/kg, allowing new energy vehicles equipped with this battery to have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, which can meet consumers’ daily commuting and long-distance travel needs. BYD’s blade battery, through its unique structural design, has greatly improved the safety of the battery while increasing the energy density, essentially solving the hidden dangers of battery thermal runaway, and providing a strong guarantee for the safe use of new energy vehicles.
As an important supplement to lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries have become a “new star” in the diversified layout of China’s battery industry with their cost and safety advantages. The sodium-ion battery launched by CATL has an energy density of 175Wh/kg and can be adapted to the full temperature range of -40°C to 70°C. In experiments such as multi-faceted extrusion, needle penetration, electric drill penetration, and battery sawing, the battery can achieve “no fire and no explosion.”
At the same time, solid-state batteries, which represent the future development direction, have also ushered in important breakthroughs. On May 17, Guoxuan High-tech Co., Ltd. announced that the company’s first all-solid-state battery pilot line has been built, with a designed output of 0.2GWh, achieving 100% independent development of the line, and 100% localization rate of core equipment. In addition, Qingtao Energy, Weilan New Energy and other companies have also successively announced their all-solid-state battery mass production schedules.
Huaxi Securities said that high performance and high safety are the core performance advantages of solid-state batteries, which meet the country’s requirements for power batteries. At present, with the joint efforts of the material side, the battery side and the car company side, the industrialization process of solid-state batteries is constantly advancing.
Zheng Hongyu, chairman of the China Chemical and Physical Power Sources Industry Association, said at the CIBF2025 Advanced Battery Frontier Technology Seminar held recently that from the performance improvement of lithium-ion batteries to the dawn of industrialization of solid-state batteries, from the cost and safety advantages of sodium-ion batteries to the multi-scenario application of hydrogen fuel cells, the iteration of new energy technologies is reshaping the industrial landscape at an unprecedented speed.
A diversified energy replenishment pattern is gradually taking shape
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in May, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.27 million and 1.307 million respectively, up 35% and 36.9% year-on-year, and the sales of new energy vehicles reached 48.7% of the total sales of new vehicles. From January to May, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 5.699 million and 5.608 million respectively, up 45.2% and 44% year-on-year, and the sales of new energy vehicles reached 44% of the total sales of new vehicles.
New energy vehicles have entered a stage of rapid development, driving the leapfrog development of my country’s charging and swapping fields. According to statistics from the China Charging Alliance, from January to May 2025, the increase in charging infrastructure was 1.583 million units, up 19.2% year-on-year. Among them, the increase in public charging piles was 504,000 units, up 55.8% year-on-year, and the increase in private charging piles equipped with vehicles was 1.079 million units, up 7.4% year-on-year. As of May 2025, the total number of charging infrastructure in China will be 14.4 million, up 45.1% year-on-year.
While the scale of infrastructure continues to expand, my country’s charging and battery swapping technology is constantly breaking through the boundaries of innovation. In the field of charging, ultra-fast charging technology is developing rapidly. BYD’s “megawatt flash charging” technology can achieve 407 kilometers of charging in 5 minutes. Huawei has released a megawatt-level supercharging product that can replenish about 20 kWh of electricity per minute, and a heavy truck can be charged to 90% in 15 minutes. The maximum charging speed of Juwan Technology’s XFC ultra-fast battery is more than 6 times that of ordinary batteries now, with a maximum charging power of 480kW.
Pei Feng, president of Juwan Technology, said in an interview with a reporter from China Industrial Daily that ultra-fast charging will usher in an explosion this year, that is, it will quickly penetrate into the user end. “The speed of ultra-fast charging development is the same as the development curve of the popularization of new energy vehicles. Once it exceeds the inflection point of 5%, it will occupy more than half of the market within 3 to 5 years.”
Battery swapping technology, as another important way to replenish energy for new energy vehicles, also maintains a good development trend. According to data from the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, as of May 2025, the number of battery swap stations in my country will reach 4,819.
At the same time, cooperation between enterprises continues to develop in depth. On March 17, CATL and NIO signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two parties will leverage their respective advantages in technology, management, platform, and brand to build the world’s largest and most technologically advanced passenger car battery swap service network. At the same time, they will jointly promote the formulation and promotion of national standards for battery swap technology and promote cross-brand and cross-model battery compatibility.
On April 2, CATL once again made efforts and joined hands with energy giant Sinopec to reach a strategic cooperation on jointly building a nationwide battery swap ecological network. It plans to build no less than 500 battery swap stations in 2025, with a long-term goal of 10,000 stations.
Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, said in an interview with China Industry News during the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2025), “Charging and battery swapping are suitable for different scenarios and are good complements, not opposites.”
Ling Jianming, dean of the School of Transportation Engineering at Tongji University, vice president and secretary general of the Shanghai Transportation Engineering Society, said at the 11th China International Electric Vehicle Charging and Battery Swapping Industry Conference 2025 that at present, the charging and battery swapping industry is showing a diversified trend, and all parties have obvious advantages. Diversified energy replenishment is the key to sustainable development, and innovative breakthroughs must be made in existing technologies.
Shi Jianhua, deputy secretary general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2025), said at the expert media exchange meeting of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2025), “2025 is a key year for China’s automobile industry to consolidate its development achievements and achieve high-quality development. New energy vehicles will continue to maintain rapid development and become the dominant force in market growth. Intelligent technology will also be fully accelerated and applied, and reversely promote the innovation and progress of electrification technology, forming a virtuous cycle of two-way drive.”
Leave a Reply