Back then you came to grab my market, now I'm out to take over your factory.

When closely observing this global shift in production capacity, the most intriguing aspect has never been the change of ownership of the factories themselves, but rather the quiet shift in industrial discourse behind it.

When documents showing that XPeng Motors recently completed the acquisition of 90.1% equity in Indonesia's core electric vehicle manufacturing entity appeared on the screens of the Indonesia Stock Exchange, the significance of this transaction went far beyond the landing of a new production base.

In just a month, Dongfeng and Stellantis Group prepared local production for their French factory, Leapmotor connected with existing capacity in Spain, and together with BYD, Great Wall, Chery and other automakers continuously laying out idle capacity across the globe, a series of moves are outlining a new profile for Chinese automakers going global.

But if we turn the clock back ten years, no one would have guessed the picture we see today.

Once, automotive giants from Europe, America, Japan, and South Korea came to China with blueprints and capital to build new factories, spreading production capacity to the world's largest emerging market. Today, Chinese automakers bring new energy technology and capital, take over the idle capacity they left behind, take root locally to produce, and reactivate machines one by one that were sleeping.

Localization Transformation Comes Naturally

The latest data from the General Administration of Customs is bright enough; in the first quarter of 2026, China's new energy vehicle exports approached one million units, surging more than double year-on-year. In other words, for every ten new energy vehicles sold globally, six carry a 'Made in China' label.

But as ro-ro ships for exports run more densely, new problems are also accumulating at the docks. Logistics costs crossing the ocean are getting higher, and the anti-subsidy tariffs imposed by the EU directly push up terminal prices. Waiting for ships to arrive at port before delivery to consumers involves a cycle of often two or three months. Market hotspots change on a whim, and distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.

"The 1.0 era of exporting goods relying on ro-ro ships can no longer hold the ambitions of Chinese automakers." This is how an industry insider describes it. Against this backdrop, those idle factories that traditional automakers put on the balance sheet to 'gather dust' suddenly became desirable treats in the eyes of Chinese automakers.

From the industry's perspective, building a new factory from scratch not only requires heavy investment and a long cycle, but also has to deal with a series of uncertainties such as land, approvals, and labor. Acquiring or cooperating to utilize existing mature factories overseas can significantly shorten the production capacity landing cycle, quickly achieve local production and supply, avoid trade barriers, and also show sincerity for long-term investment to the local market.

Whether it is to consider avoiding tariffs or to realize sharing with local industries and stakeholders, localized production has changed from a long-term plan to a realistic issue that Chinese automakers must face.

So we have also seen a series of industrial turnovers.

Idle factories originally tagged as 'non-performing assets' by traditional automakers have come back to life in the hands of Chinese automakers. In the old Ford factory in Camaçari, Brazil, the retrofitted production line rolls out thousands of BYD vehicles every month; workers who were originally going to be laid off have returned to their posts; the former GM factory in Rayong Province, Thailand, has now become the core production base for Great Wall Motor in Southeast Asia...

It can be said that behind the dense takeover of overseas idle capacity by Chinese automakers lies the restructuring of production capacity brought about by the electrification transformation of the global automotive industry.

In recent years, traditional automotive companies in Europe and America have been under obvious pressure in electrification transformation. Demand for fuel vehicles continues to decline. Electrification transformation involves heavy investment and a long return cycle. The production capacity utilization of a large number of traditional fuel vehicle factories is insufficient, becoming low-efficiency assets for enterprises. Long-idle factories not only require continuous investment in depreciation, labor, and maintenance costs but also tie up a lot of energy for enterprise transformation.

For these traditional automakers, opening idle capacity for cooperation with Chinese automakers is essentially an asset optimization. It revitalizes existing assets to gain revenue, stabilizes local employment, maintains supply chain operations, and secures a buffer space for their own electrification transformation. It is a win-win deal where everyone gets what they need.

From the perspective of global industrial division of labor, behind this production capacity flow is the shift of the value center of the automotive industry.

In the past, these mature overseas factories were the core assets of traditional automakers' global expansion, representing manufacturing capabilities and market discourse power in the fuel vehicle era. In the electrification era, traditional fuel capacity gradually became a burden for transformation. Chinese automakers, relying on new energy technology advantages, complete supply chain systems, and high cost-performance product competitiveness, take over these existing assets, turning them back into bridgeheads to enter the local market.

What New Wine Can the Old Bottles Hold?

Revitalizing idle capacity sounds light, but for Chinese automakers, it is actually a difficult exam more challenging than exporting complete vehicles. Taking over the factory keys is just the first step; whether one can make the cars, sell them, and survive is the real test.

The most intuitive challenge comes from 'acclimatization issues'.

Factories in each country have their own 'rules'. For example, European factories have strict working hour systems, trade unions have significant discourse power, wage increases and process changes require half a day of negotiation; environmental protection regulations and certification standards in the South American market are completely different from domestic ones, and a slight lack of attention could cross the red line; even workers' operational habits are different. Highly efficient management methods honed in domestic factories may not even work when applied to overseas factories.

If only the production line modification is implemented, but the localization construction of the operational system and service network is ignored, it is difficult to achieve stable production and continuous profitability.

The head of the German Association of the Automotive Industry said straightforwardly: 'Factories are just skeletons; service and brand are the soul. Without a soul, even the newest production lines cannot produce cars that sell well.'

Guest Professor Zhang Xiang from Huanghe Science and Technology University also pointed out that after entering overseas markets, Chinese automakers need to complete the localization reconstruction of the entire chain from production to service. Especially for Chinese automakers used to efficient domestic supply chains and rapid decision-making, how to adapt to regulatory environments and cultural differences in different countries and establish operational systems that conform to local rules is a more difficult topic than obtaining production capacity.

So taking over idle capacity is just getting the ticket to enter the game. Whether you can win this battle depends on whether Chinese automakers can calm down and learn to live on others' land. As Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue said, 'Overseas factories are not tools for short-term sales promotion, they are touchstones. They test the enterprise's true global capabilities.'

However, having said that, closely observing this global shift in production capacity, the most intriguing aspect has never been the change of ownership of the factories themselves, but rather the quiet shift in industrial discourse behind it.

Thirty years ago, when the Chinese auto market first opened, the script was: European, American, and Japanese automakers brought technology and money to open factories in China, transferring their capacity to the low-cost Chinese market. We gave up the market to exchange for technology, and they took profits and occupied the market.

At that time, the rules of the global automotive industry were set by them, and they decided where production capacity would flow. In the past decade or so, Chinese automakers also completed their own technical accumulation and product upgrades through acquiring core technologies of bankrupt overseas automakers. From acquiring Rover and Saab to Volvo, the Chinese automotive industry completed the technical pursuit from 0 to 1.

It can be said that the switch to the electrification track has completely rewritten the script.

Chinese automakers laid out plans in advance, gathered a complete supply chain, leading three-electric technologies, and rapid iteration product capabilities, leaving traditional European and American automakers behind. They transitioned slowly, dared not close fuel factories lightly, and could not afford new EV production lines, so they could only watch idle capacity and step-by-step yield the market.

From another angle, behind the flow of global automotive capacity to Chinese automakers is the transfer of discourse power in the global automotive industry.

Of course, we must also see that shifting to 'local production' is just the new starting point for the globalization of Chinese automakers. From operational challenges of acclimatization to long-term construction of brand awareness, this 2.0 journey of Chinese automakers going global is destined not to be smooth sailing. But it cannot be denied that those old factories originally silent across the globe have started the rumble of machines again because of the arrival of Chinese new energy vehicles.

Looking back from the crossroads of industrial change, this reversal of production capacity flow is like a mirror, reflecting the vivid trajectory of the 100-year change in the global automotive industry, and even more predicting that a new era of automobiles is slowly opening its curtain. In the future, there will be more and more locally produced Chinese electric vehicles running on the global roads, and this is the best footnote that the Chinese automotive industry has written for the world's industrial change.