Gasgoo Munich- In 2025, China's vehicle exports surged past 6 million units, securing its title as the world's largest car exporter for the second year running.
Yet, for the executives on the front lines, the numbers tell only half the story. The real challenges of going global lie not at the ports, but deep within the operational ecosystem.
At the "4th China Automotive and Components Overseas Ecological Conference 2026," hosted by Gasgoo, a panel titled "From Technology Export to System Export: How Chinese Automakers Build Global Supply Chain Resilience" brought industry practitioners together to decode the rules of this "deep water."
Moderated by Yu Guangxin, general manager of B-side business at SAIC-GM-Wuling's overseas division, the panel reached a core consensus:
First, technology export has shifted from a question of "can we go out" to "can we form a system"; second, while there is no single optimal solution for supply chain layout, there is certainly a best-fit one; and third, the path from following rules to helping write them is long, but we are already on it.
Hot talk scene, Image source: Gasgoo
From "Selling a Single Car" to "Exporting an Entire System"
The globalization of Chinese autos has evolved through three stages. The first was trade export: build the car, load it, and sell it. The second was KD assembly: ship parts and screw them together locally. Now, the industry is entering a third phase: systemic export. It’s no longer just about moving products, but delivering a combination of technology architecture, operational ecosystems, and localized capabilities.
Tu Yilin, product planning manager at Dongfeng Motor Industrial Import & Export Co., noted that Dongfeng's journey mirrors this evolution. "Many Chinese companies going overseas, including Dongfeng, have undergone a transformation—gradually shifting from simple sales or trading firms to operating enterprises."
Tu Yilin, Image source: Gasgoo
For instance, Dongfeng no longer just sells a standalone truck to overseas clients. Instead, it offers a complete solution wrapped around the customer's operational scenario—covering everything from charging pile deployment to energy storage configuration.
Yet, the hardest part of systemic export isn't the technology itself—it's understanding the local market.
Tu Yilin is acutely aware of this. In his view, the global commercial vehicle market is highly fragmented, with road conditions, regulations, and customer demands varying by country. "Every customer has different pain points, including regional needs and policies. We must gain a deep understanding of local regulations and customer needs, then build the vehicles they truly require."
In other words, the prerequisite for systemic export is to first "read" the local market.
If traditional automakers are moving from products to systems, emerging players like Gecko New Energy are taking a different approach.
Yan Ji, general manager of overseas business at Shenzhen Gecko New Energy Automotive Technology, described Gecko's unique "technology open" strategy. Unlike traditional brand export, Gecko chooses to export technology solutions first. "We start with technology, scaling it up to build volume. Once volume is achieved, we can secure reasonable profits during the expansion process."
Yan Ji, Image source: Gasgoo
Using Intel's "Intel Inside" model as an analogy, he proposed a "Technology Inside" brand embedding concept—entering markets with technical solutions first, then gradually permeating brand value.
Behind this strategy lies the team's confidence in migrating passenger vehicle electrification experience to the commercial sector.
"In the EV era, our domestic brands are surging, leading in vehicle performance, interiors, and intelligence. Gecko wants to transplant this leadership from passenger to commercial vehicles," Yan said. He emphasized that Gecko's founding team is battle-hardened and extremely pragmatic, focused on "getting things done and landing them." Their overseas investment strategy follows a "progressive on-demand" principle—starting light and increasing investment based on market feedback.
From vehicle platforms to electronic-electrical architectures and software ecosystems, Chinese technology export is shifting from isolated breakthroughs to systemic capability output. When technical capability is no longer the bottleneck, the real test begins: how to make this system take root in the supply chain soil of a foreign land?
Localization: A Mandatory Question for Global Supply Chain Layout
For Chinese automakers going global, a core choice is unavoidable: ship parts from home or build them locally? This choice involves a complex trade-off between cost, efficiency, response speed, and even political risk.
In fact, for Chinese automakers, localization is not a question of "whether to do it," but a mandatory exam of "how to do it."
Yang Tianyu, chairman of Russian Veles Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd., offered a sobering judgment based on his deep experience in the Russian market: "The biggest resistance is actually the supporting facilities—localization support."
Reportedly, industrial plant construction costs in Russia remain high. This challenge is not unique to Russia; Europe and Central Asia (like Kazakhstan) face similar hurdles.
He cited a comparison: in southern China, excluding heating, plant construction costs can drop below 2,000 yuan per square meter. In Russia, constrained by strict building standards, the minimum cost hits 6,000 to 7,000 yuan per square meter.
Yang Tianyu, Image source: Gasgoo
Furthermore, local governments do not provide "three connections and one leveling" (utilities and site grading). Chinese enterprises must handle land leveling and basic infrastructure themselves. This means the actual cost of local plant construction is far heavier than the numbers on paper.
Even more headache-inducing than hardware infrastructure is the legal system.
Yang revealed a telling detail: before signing in Russia, Veles' entry agreement alone ran 8,000 pages, covering approval standards and execution logic from nearly every government department.
"Russia's legal system is very complex," he sighed. "You need a deep understanding of every department and every critical checkpoint. This is crucial for truly breaking bottlenecks and moving from signing to execution."
Localizing in overseas markets is less a business decision and more an extreme test of comprehensive capabilities in law, infrastructure, and talent.
Beyond these "hard environment" challenges like infrastructure and law, Baolong Tech shifts the focus to the "soft logic" from a supplier's perspective: the business model itself.
“Regarding the question of when the timing is right, market demand exists, and the business model must be fully verified.” said Zhou Liangjie, vice president and general manager of the automotive sensor unit at Shanghai Baolong Automotive Technology. He offered a vivid example:
Baolong once received an invitation to build a plant overseas, with the promise that "every project would be an opportunity" if they came. After thorough evaluation, they found that transferred production capacity would sit idle, and since the products are small with low shipping costs, maintaining domestic supply remained the optimal choice.
Zhou Liangjie, Image source: Gasgoo
Zhou believes following the OEMs' layout is a pragmatic and efficient approach.
"Beyond M&A and greenfield investment, partnership is an excellent choice," he noted. Partners can be OEMs or industry peers, reducing investment pressure while enabling rapid production. He mentioned that models like "park within a park, factory within a factory" are mature in the home appliance industry and are accelerating in the auto sector.
Zhou's view sends a pragmatic signal: product value, production efficiency, transport costs, and energy levels dictate different localization paths—there is no one-size-fits-all standard answer.
Yan Ji shared a "three-layer progressive" localization strategy based on Gecko's practical experience.
The first layer is "leverage for cost reduction." As a startup, Gecko naturally has weaker bargaining power, so it shares procurement resources with partner OEMs. "We open up core component costs with our partner OEMs, using their resource leverage to lower our own costs," Yan explained, passing the savings on to overseas customers.
The second layer is "following core suppliers." Take CATL as an example: "Batteries account for a huge portion of EV costs. Any country requiring local content rates needs local battery supply." Therefore, Gecko prioritizes entering markets where CATL has already built or planned plants.
The third layer is "peripheral localization." Non-core components like wiring harnesses, glass, and tires are handed to local partners. "Even if the cost is the same, we choose local supply," Yan said, to meet localization rate requirements.
However, this strategy has collided with reality in practice.
Yan candidly shared a real case from the Vietnamese market: despite the client's high quality, CATL had no presence there. The client demanded a switch to another power battery supplier already established in Vietnam. "This caused us significant trouble, but we had no choice. To build volume in that market, we switched the battery development."
Dongfeng Motor, leveraging years of overseas experience, has established a more systematic risk control mechanism. Tu revealed, "We have a basic assessment model, and we adapt responses according to local changes."
Facing uncertainties like exchange rate fluctuations, geopolitical risks, and logistics disruptions, Dongfeng maintains sufficient strategic flexibility within a unified risk control framework, making differentiated adjustments based on real-time dynamics in different markets.
Efficiency and Security: Finding Balance on a Knife's Edge
The most impactful discussion of the session went beyond supply chain efficiency and safety, extending to a higher-dimensional proposition: the power to set standards.
Zhou Liangjie used Baolong Tech's global leadership in sensors to paint a picture of "role reversal."
He revealed that executives from chip suppliers Infineon and NXP have started asking him a pointed question: "Your sales rankings are high now. Definitions used to be set by competitors, but you are the leaders now—will you propose your own definitions?"
The answer, of course, is yes.
In TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System), Baolong has already proactively defined new functions like "pre-burst sensing," gaining wide recognition from global clients. In air suspension systems, since China's market development speed far outpaces overseas, "Chinese component suppliers and OEMs have absolute say."
From product definition to warranty standards, and from service life to specific parameters, Chinese enterprises are completing a transformation from "rule followers" to "rule makers."
Yang Tianyu brought the battle for standard-setting power to a more operational level.
He dissected the unique logic of Russia's industrial standard system. Unlike China, where associations and enterprises lead, Russia's standards are led by the university system, with the core body being NAMI (Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute). For the past two decades, NAMI was run by foreign executives, tilting policy toward European firms. But geopolitical shifts are rewriting this: NAMI's leadership has shifted to former employees of local giant Kamaz, and the logic of standard-setting is undergoing a subtle but profound shift.
Yang's experience shows Chinese firms aren't powerless in standard-setting. In negotiating special investment agreements, "most Chinese companies just sign whatever the government stipulates. We, however, secured our own voice in negotiations—using solutions we could deliver to replace those we couldn't."
He offered a forward-looking suggestion: establish joint research institutes with overseas universities and industrial research bodies to systematically export Chinese automotive R&D and industrial standards. For example, creating a "Second Automotive Research Institute" to execute Chinese standards abroad would benefit Chinese companies' global expansion.
Conclusion:
From Moscow to São Paulo, from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City, the global footprint of China's auto industry is expanding at an unprecedented pace. There is no existing experience to copy on this road; every market is a new exam question.
Yet, as this dialogue reveals, as technology export elevates from products to systems, as supply chain layout shifts from cost-driven to strategy-driven, and as standard power moves from passive adaptation to active shaping, Chinese automakers are no longer just "participants" on the global industrial map—they are becoming "shapers" capable of defining the rules of the game.
