Wei Wenqing of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers disclosed that from January to July 2026, China's automobile exports reached 6.14 million units, up 66.8% year on year, while component exports totaled US$60.7 billion. Chinese automakers have more than 20 overseas full-process plants, and their overseas output exceeded 1.5 million vehicles in 2025. Eighty percent of the top 100 component suppliers have established overseas operations. In 2025, Chinese-brand automobiles rose to first place in global market share, but their overseas operations systems still lag behind those of Japanese and European automakers. Wei Wenqing pointed out that going global across the industrial chain, going global with intelligent connected vehicles, and brand efficiency are the three major topics. Chinese automobiles have just entered the going-in stage and are expected to reach a medium level of internationalization by 2035.
Export Scale Reaches the Top: Hard Power Is Already Ahead
The scale of China's automotive exports continues to rise rapidly. Wei Wenqing, Special Deputy Secretary-General of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), disclosed at the 20th anniversary ceremony of the Automotive Talent Committee of the China Talent Research Society on September 10 that from January to July 2026, China exported 6.14 million vehicles, up 66.8% year-on-year; over the same period, parts and components exports reached US$60.7 billion.
This growth rate is built on an already sizable base. In 2023, China became the world's largest automobile exporter; in 2025, vehicle exports reached 7 million units, and this year's full-year figure is expected to surpass 10 million units. Chinese-funded companies absolutely dominate these exports: foreign-invested and joint-venture enterprises (excluding SAIC-GM-Wuling) accounted for 13.1% of exports from January to July 2026, down 1.4 percentage points from 2025. Wei Wenqing also noted that the export strength of foreign and joint-venture companies should not be underestimated; starting this year, most foreign companies such as Volkswagen and BMW have increased their efforts to export China-made vehicles.
The overseas layout of production capacity and supply chains is also accelerating. Currently, Chinese companies have more than 20 overseas full-process vehicle plants that have been acquired, built, or are under construction; by 2025, the overseas output of Chinese automakers had exceeded 1.5 million vehicles, with most plants landing in recent years. At the components level, 80% of China's top 100 parts suppliers have established production bases overseas, covering business in more than 50 countries worldwide. AlixPartners predicts that the annual production capacity of Chinese automakers overseas (including plants already in production and planned) will reach about 3.4 million vehicles by 2030, nearly doubling from 2025. At the same time, European and American automakers are facing capacity contraction and cost cuts in the global market.
Behind the Rise to the Top in Share: First-Mover Advantage and Shifting Landscape
The export of products and production capacity has directly changed the global competitive landscape. In 2025, Chinese-brand automobiles jumped to first place in global market share; in overseas markets, Chinese brands' share surpassed Korean and American brands in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
The core support for the rapid rise of Chinese brands' share comes from their first-mover advantage in electrification and the cost competitiveness brought by a complete supply chain. At the same time, Korean and American automakers' lagging pace in new energy transformation created a window of opportunity for Chinese brands. This growth is especially prominent in emerging markets; relying on new energy products, economies of scale, and supply chain advantages, Chinese brands have achieved rapid expansion in the vast majority of emerging markets.
But reaching the top in share does not equate to comprehensively leading in overseas operating capability. Compared with Japanese and European automakers, which have completed decades of global layout, Chinese brands still have a considerable gap in overseas markets. Although the overall share of Japanese brands has declined somewhat, it remains above 25%; European brands' share in overseas markets is also stable at above 10%. Japanese automakers began large-scale overseas expansion in the 1970s and 1980s, and European automakers likewise have a long history of overseas expansion. Both have built complete global systems covering R&D, manufacturing, sales, and after-sales, and both lead Chinese brands in overseas brand awareness and accumulated localization operations.
Wei Wenqing believes that the gap between Chinese brands and Japanese and European automakers is not reflected in hard metrics such as the products themselves, but more in the entire set of global operations system capabilities forged through decades of multinational operations.
Three Practical Challenges: Industrial Chain, Intelligent Connected Vehicles, and Brand Efficiency
Hard power is only the ticket to entry. In Wei Wenqing's view, Chinese brands going global still have shortcomings, among which taking the industrial chain overseas, exporting intelligent connected vehicles, and brand efficiency are the three most urgent practical challenges for the industry to break through.
Selling cars overseas can be won through product cost-effectiveness; but to build factories and produce locally, a series of practical issues must be handled, including supply chain supporting facilities, local employment, compliant operations, and cultural adaptation. Low brand efficiency and weak industrial concentration are also unavoidable pain points for China's auto industry.
As the scale of going global expands, external resistance is also increasing. Multiple factors such as geopolitical disputes, green and digital trade barriers, and intellectual property rights all bring uncertainty to Chinese automakers' overseas expansion. These issues have different appearances, but they point to the same thing: Chinese automakers have the ability to sell products, but truly taking root locally and integrating into overseas markets still takes time.
From "Going Out" to "Going In": The Challenge of Soft Power and People
Wei Wenqing divides the internationalization of Chinese automobiles into four stages: bringing in, going out, going in, and going up. Bringing in laid the foundation for the domestic industry; going out means selling large volumes of cars overseas; going in represents deep integration of enterprises into local industries and is the intermediate stage of internationalization; going up is a higher goal, meaning that Chinese automobiles' brands, standards, technologies, and industrial influence gain broad recognition.
In his judgment, Chinese automobiles' going out is already fairly mature, and they have just entered the going in stage. There is still a considerable distance to going up, which is also the biggest challenge for going global in the future. Whether they can truly achieve going up depends decisively on soft power.
Soft power involves multiple levels: aligning regulations and standards across countries, improving trade and investment protection agreements, building platforms for international exchange and industry information, establishing risk early-warning mechanisms, and also cultivating an industrial culture that belongs to Chinese automobiles. Among these, building industrial culture is the most difficult — different parties themselves have very different understandings of cultural soft power, and directly copying domestic business practices does not work overseas. Automakers need to respect different local cultures and explore communication and business models adapted to local conditions.
System and culture building ultimately still comes down to people. Wei Wenqing mentioned that to build a world-class automotive power is equivalent to recreating a Chinese auto industry overseas. The environments at home and abroad differ enormously; international talent cannot be solved simply by recruiting more people, but requires a qualitative leap in capabilities. The industry currently urgently needs a group of interdisciplinary talents who understand cross-cultural communication, are familiar with international rules, and possess a global vision; such talent — familiar with overseas markets, versed in global regulations, and able to bridge domestic and international barriers — is difficult to purchase directly and can only be cultivated through long-term hands-on experience. Insufficient talent reserves, in turn, will slow progress in soft power building such as implementing regulations, risk control, and cross-regional operations.
Wei Wenqing regards automobile internationalization as a super marathon. By his judgment, by 2035 China's auto industry is expected to basically reach a medium level of internationalization, and by the middle of this century it will have the opportunity to rank among the world's first-class automotive countries. Sales scale can be piled up through products and production capacity, but there are no shortcuts to a global operations system, brand influence, and cross-cultural business capabilities.
