Gasgoo Munich-On October 20, Secop officially launched the second BD Nano production line at its Tianjin factory. This marks another milestone in the company's capacity buildout, coming just after the 1 millionth BD Nano compressor rolled off the line in September 2025.
Secop developed its first miniaturized compressor for the third-generation Audi A8 in 2010, effectively opening the passenger-car fridge market. In 2022, Li Auto championed the "fridge, TV, and recliner" trifecta — the standard fridge in its L9 SUV ran on a Secop compressor.
Today, car fridges are shifting from premium add-ons to mass-market staples. That makes the compressor — the component dictating cooling power, noise, and energy draw — a critical link in the automaker supply chain.
In this niche, Secop has long ranked at the front of the OEM market, backed by nearly half a century of accumulated DC compressor technology.
The new line's launch is a direct reflection of how Secop is meeting the EV wave with both product strength and manufacturing scale.
Image credit: Secop (same below)
Behind the Capacity Push, a Market on the Rise
The October 20 ribbon-cutting was Secop’s most visible signal yet of its capacity ambitions. It marks another acceleration in BD Nano’s production footprint since the line first launched in 2022.
Once fully ramped up, the new line will unlock an additional 1.6 million units of BD Nano production capacity. It features an MES execution system alongside specialized processes like laser welding, servo pressing, and helium leak detection. Quality assurance uses poka-yoke mechanisms to prevent errors at critical stages and ensure process traceability — underpinning both product consistency and delivery reliability.
For Secop, however, the second line means far more than just added output.
A veteran in global DC compressors, Secop watched its 1 millionth BD Nano unit roll off the line in September 2025. Under current plans, DC product sales are projected to top 2 million units by 2026.
Jumping from 1 million to 2 million units takes more than order books — it demands matching manufacturing capability. The second line provides the production foundation to hit that target.
Notably, the journey from the first line’s ramp-up to the second line’s launch underscores a simple truth: visible capacity investments are chasing genuine market demand.
Liu Shujing, General Manager of Secop Compressor (Tianjin) Co., Ltd.
Gasgoo has learned that during the rapid growth phase for Chinese NEVs around 2022, BD Nano was involved in over 90% of domestic EV fridge projects.
The Tianjin factory — BD Nano’s manufacturing base — spans 33,300 square meters and houses specialized laboratories. It secured IATF 16949 certification in 2023, a quality-management standard rare in the compressor industry, signaling that its manufacturing and quality control now operate at automotive grade.
Within Secop’s global footprint, the Tianjin site serves as a comprehensive hub for sales, application engineering, R&D, logistics, and production — placing it on the front lines alongside Chinese EV makers.
From R&D and mass production to vehicle-level validation, BD Nano closes the loop locally. That proximity explains its ability to expedite custom requests from domestic automakers.
This capacity expansion, as it happens, is perfectly timed.
According to CICC Qixin data, China’s car fridge market is projected to reach 2.68 billion yuan in 2026 — a 32% annual increase. OEM penetration is set to exceed 22%, up 8.3 percentage points from 2025, reaching mainstream family cars in the 150,000-yuan class. Fridges in mid-range models are becoming the new industry norm.
Taking a longer view, a joint report by China EV100 and McKinsey forecasts global NEV penetration will reach 50% by 2030. Every step up the EV ladder, in effect, drives new demand for car fridges.
Use cases are broadening, too. From keeping drinks cold on road trips and storing food while camping to chilling medicine for family travel, the car fridge is evolving from a niche category into a mass-market feature.
Surging orders, climbing penetration, chasing capacity — Secop’s second line is, at its core, a reflection of the OEM market’s rapid scaling.
Why BD Nano Became the Standard Heart of EVs
So why do automakers trust Secop with their fridges? It comes down to the product.
The successor to the BD Micro, the BD Nano translates "smaller, leaner, quieter, and smarter" into hard specs.
On weight: the BD Nano weighs just 1.5 kg and stands 9.3 cm tall. It integrates tightly with the fridge’s internal structure, maximizing storage space.
On efficiency: its coefficient of performance (COP) peaks at 1.6 W/W, delivering stronger cooling while trimming vehicle-level energy draw — a natural fit for efficiency-focused EVs.
On acoustics: optimized sound design cuts noise by 6 dB/A versus the prior generation at equivalent cooling capacity, preserving cabin quietness.
On smarts: a next-gen electronic control unit (ECU) pairs with the fridge’s main controller gateway, supporting CAN, LIN, and other interfaces for seamless integration with the vehicle’s central system. Drivers can adjust temperatures and cooling modes via the infotainment screen or a smartphone app.
The architecture scales across passenger cars, trucks, RVs, and yachts, offering tailored cooling solutions for diverse vehicle types.
Within Secop’s portfolio, the BD Nano doesn’t stand alone. For the passenger-car OEM market, Secop deploys a dual-platform strategy: the BD Micro and BD Nano platforms.
The BD Micro serves as the market opener and tech validator, while the BD Nano iterates specifically around the space and energy constraints of EVs. Add the PLBD platform — aimed at commercial vehicles, RVs, and yachts — and the three platforms cover distinct segments, forming a comprehensive DC cooling network.
Beyond the specs, the BD Nano’s underlying engineering is technically sound.
Built on an upgraded classic architecture, it holds 22 related patents and won the Innovation Product Award at the China Refrigeration Expo upon its 2022 debut.
Behind that product strength lies Secop’s half-century of DC technology accumulation.
Secop successfully developed its first DC compressor back in 1977. The classic PLBD, launched in 2000, is still used by many peers as the benchmark for DC controller interface definitions — its applications spanning aviation transfer containers, commercial-vehicle OEM fridges, and yacht cooling, alongside a vaccine-box project with the World Health Organization.
From 1977 to today, nearly 50 years on, Secop has evolved "mobile cooling" from a business line into an entire system.
That institutional knowledge now extends to shaping industry standards.
Secop has been involved from the outset in drafting the Technical Development Report for Car Fridges, organized by the Light Commercial Refrigeration Industry Collaborative Innovation Center under the Chinese Association of Refrigeration.
At the 2026 Automotive Thermal Systems Academic Conference, Secop will release a technical white paper: A New Decade of Mobile Cooling: Technology Roadmaps, Product Iterations, and Market Outlooks for Car Fridge Compressors. The report focuses on automakers’ core demands for miniaturization, pull-down speed, low noise, and high reliability.
Backed by over 400 global patents, 33 laboratories, and more than 150 R&D engineers, Secop is shifting from a product supplier to a technology leader.
From EV Startups to Mainstream Brands, the Automaker Circle Widens
Technical prowess ultimately means little without volume. A review of Secop’s partner list traces the history of the passenger-car fridge.
In 2010, Secop developed the miniaturized BD Micro for the third-generation Audi A8, opening the passenger-car market. In that era, a fridge was a status symbol reserved for flagship luxury sedans.
The real inflection point came in 2022.
Li Auto debuted its "fridge, TV, and recliner" ethos, and the standard fridge in its L9 SUV ran on a Secop compressor. For the first time, a car fridge became a core selling point for an EV.
That same year, the BD Nano launched — perfectly timed to catch the rapid growth phase of China’s EV market.
From there, Secop’s partnership map expanded swiftly.
Its key automaker partners now span Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Land Rover, Cadillac, Volvo, Seres, Li Auto, BYD, Hongqi, Great Wall Motor, NIO, XPENG, Geely, Leapmotor, Chery, and Zunjie.
This year, Secop also became the compressor supplier for Tesla’s newly released aftermarket premium fridge.
Underpinning this partner network is Secop’s global supply and service footprint: headquartered in Germany, with production plants in China and Slovakia, serving over 50 countries.
From luxury brands to EV startups to mainstream players, this partnership arc traces three leaps in the car fridge market: luxury cars validated the tech, startups created the demand, and mainstream brands are now driving mass adoption.
For automakers, the fridge compressor dictates more than cooling power — it shapes NVH performance, energy consumption, and the digital experience. Those are precisely the frontiers the BD Nano targets.
Crucially, the OEM market carries high barriers to entry. Compressors must survive rigorous vehicle-level validation cycles, with strict demands on reliability, consistency, and supply stability. Once designed into a platform, a compressor typically stays for the vehicle’s entire lifecycle.
Supplier selection, in effect, is a long-term lock-in. Secop’s near-50 years of DC cooling experience, global supply network, and custom development capabilities serve as the foundation to overcome this hurdle.
The Bottom Line
With the second line now live, Secop’s capacity story is just beginning.
The 2026 target of over 2 million DC unit sales requires the new line to deliver consistently. Meanwhile, OEM fridge penetration is still climbing rapidly, and the demand unlocked by "standardization" is far from hitting the ceiling.
For the Chinese market, Secop offers a case study in how a niche component supplier can leverage technology and capacity to climb from a peripheral vendor to a critical supply-chain partner amid the EV transition.
For Secop, a half-century of DC technology has already answered the "why." The second production line is now answering the "how much."
For automakers, choosing a supplier is equivalent to choosing supply-chain certainty for the next three to five years. As more mainstream models write fridges into their spec sheets, the competitive focus will shift from whether a car has a fridge to how well it performs. And the balance of power will always tip toward those who command both technology and capacity.
