2026 World Power Technology Continuous Innovation and Market Trends Seminar Officially Held

June 11, the "Automotive Multi-power System Technology Upgrade and Market Adaptation — 2026 World Power Technology Continuous Innovation and Market Trends Seminar" organized by the Automotive Evaluation Institute was held in Chengdu.

This annual industry event, which witnessed the evolution of China's automotive power systems from DCT to hybrid and then to multi-power systems, brought together experts from industry organizations such as the China Machinery Industry Federation and the China Automotive Industry Consulting Committee, research scholars from universities including Tsinghua University, Beihang University, Harbin Institute of Technology, and others, and technical heads from more than 20 complete vehicle and core component enterprises such as FAW, Dongfeng, Great Wall, Geely, NIO, etc. Representatives from industry, academia, and research gathered together to jointly analyze the trend of global power technology development and build consensus for the high-quality development and global layout of China's automotive power industry.

Industry Transformation Enters Deep Water Zone, Long-term Consensus on Multi-Power Development

Zhang Wenhong, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of the China Machinery Industry Federation, emphasized in his opening remarks, "No single technology can dominate the global market in the next decade, and technology routes such as hybrid, pure electric, and hydrogen energy will run parallel for a long time." He proposed three suggestions: First, adhere to diverse technology routes and respect demand differences in different regions and scenarios; for commercial vehicles, cold regions, and scenarios with inconvenient refueling/recharging, hybrid and range-extended power still have long-term value; Second, focus on tackling core components, collaborating with universities and upstream and downstream enterprises to break through 'bottleneck' links such as high-safety batteries, high-efficiency motors, and silicon carbide controllers; Third, strengthen market adaptability, carry out scenario-based development for different markets such as Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, and promote the industry chain going out together.

Zhao Hang, Member of the China Automotive Industry Consulting Committee, used data to verify the trend of power diversification: "Although the top ten domestic car sales in May this year were all electric vehicles, internal combustion engines cannot turn the tables, nor will they dominate the world." He pointed out that it will take at least decades to digest and iterate the existing stock of fuel vehicles and corporate investment, hybrids, especially plug-in hybrids, still have huge development space, while hydrogen fuel is hard to compete with pure electric vehicles in the passenger car field and is more suitable for heavy-duty trucks and fixed power generation scenarios. He also reminded the industry to pay attention to the profitability problem of electric vehicles. Most enterprises still rely on capital and government subsidies to operate, which is not a long-term solution.

Li Qingwen, President of the Automotive Evaluation Institute, systematically elaborated on the judgment of the current industry situation in his speech. He pointed out that the Chinese automobile market experienced a rare significant decline in the first five months of 2026 in nearly 30 years, the industry profit margin dropped from 7% to 8% five years ago to 3.4%, the number of new car models last year reached over 1700, and in the first four months of this year, it has exceeded 1600. Excessive technological innovation and the clustering of model releases have intensified industry involution.

Addressing the view commonly circulated in the industry that 'the first half of the new energy electrification strategy is over', Li Qingwen explicitly expressed opposition. He pointed out that China has filled the moat of Western century-old internal combustion engines with electrification innovation, but if progress halts at this time, it may also be overturned in subsequent competition. "This is a process of technological and corporate cleansing. Whoever slows down suffers losses."

Regarding the profit margin dropping to 3.4%, he made a structural analysis: The main body of profit decline is joint venture companies — Beijing Benz's profit margin halved, while Brilliance BMW, Beijing Hyundai, and Dongfeng Peugeot-Citroën all dropped significantly. In the past era of 7% profit margin, joint venture companies took about 70% of the profits, while Chinese brands only accounted for 30%. "In the future, the profit margins of Chinese brands will rise, while joint venture brands will continue to decline."

He also judged that 35 million units is not the ceiling of the Chinese automobile market, and there is still room for slight growth in the future. It is expected that China's automobile exports this year will reach 9 to 9.5 million units, and is expected to hit 10 million units.

Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration Breaks Through Core Technologies, Clear Direction for Power 'Four Modernizations'

At the seminar, several university experts shared the latest research results in the field of power technology and industry-academia-research transformation practices, and agreed that power systems are evolving towards the 'Four Modernizations': power efficiency, electrification of drive, intelligence of control, and diversification of energy.

Xu Xiangyang, Chairman of the World Top Ten Gearbox Evaluation Committee, Professor at the School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University, and Executive Deputy Director of the National Light Vehicle Automatic Transmission Engineering Research Center, provided data support from a global perspective: "The technology routes in the four major regions of the United States, Europe, China, and Japan are not completely consistent, and a single technology route cannot meet the user needs of different regions; diversification is the core of power technology development." He revealed that at the Vienna Auto Show in April, almost every report mentioned China, and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has decided to place all R&D and the industry chain in China, implementing the strategy of 'In China for China, In China for the World'.

"We need to make China the source of original innovation in global automotive technology before 2040, with power innovation leading the world."

On the technical path, he proposed that the production heat efficiency of future hybrid dedicated engines will break through 47% to 48%, and the comprehensive efficiency of the electric drive system is expected to rise to 94.5%. AI technology will empower the full lifecycle of power systems, achieving maintenance on demand and intelligent energy management.

Cai Wei, Professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, Chief Scientist of the Engineering Research Center for Automotive Electronic Drive Control and System Integration of the Ministry of Education, and Foreign Academician of the Russian Academy of Engineering, focused on motor technology and new material applications. He pointed out that permanent magnet motors are still the mainstream, flat wire oil cooling is the trend, wide bandgap semiconductors installed capacity reached 20% last year, and sintered packaging will replace welding. But he also reminded that technology is far from the ceiling — "If you can't solve heat dissipation, everything is empty talk." He revealed that the hub motor loaded on the Dongfeng eπ 007, mainly designed by the HIT team, has obtained the MIIT announcement, becoming the world's first hub motor model that can be mass-produced. Regarding material cost reduction, his team uses copper sintering instead of silver sintering for silicon carbide controller packaging, with costs only one-tenth of silver sintering, solving the industry problem of copper oxidation. Currently, this technology has been supplied in mass production to several domestic complete vehicle and component enterprises.

Shuai Shijin, Professor at the Research Institute of Aero-Engines, Tsinghua University, verified the global trend of hybrids with a set of data: From 2024 to 2025, pure fuel vehicles decreased by 4%, hybrid vehicles increased by 4%, and China, the United States, and India are all growth markets. He also gave the physical upper limit of internal combustion engine thermal efficiency — the theoretical upper limit of gasoline engines is about 50%, and the so-called 70% to 80% has no theoretical basis. Currently, gasoline engines have been pushed from 35% to 45%, approaching 50% is feasible, and China's HEV has walked an independent technology path.

Enterprise Practices Blossom, High-Voltage Architecture and AI Calibration Advance in Parallel

At the level of enterprise practice, multiple complete vehicle and supply chain enterprises shared the latest technical progress, covering multiple dimensions such as high-voltage architecture, hybrid platforms, off-road power, and AI empowerment.

Zhao Xuesong, Chief of FAW Qixin Power (Changchun) Technology Co., Ltd. introduced: The Hongqi hybrid platform has formed three major platforms: transverse, longitudinal, and off-road, comprehensively covering all Hongqi models. The transverse platform, through joint research with universities on structural optimization and material application, controls the assembly weight within 100 kilograms, reserving sufficient space for batteries and high-end chassis configurations. His core judgment on the power system is: the power system is no longer an isolated power source, but the core execution unit of the whole vehicle, and will move from mechanical coupling to a global intelligent agent.

Zhu Yongqing, Chief Engineer of Power Chassis at Great Wall Motor Technology Center, shared the Hi4 off-road power grading system, covering from city SUVs to military-level super off-roading, and Hi4-T won 11 out of 13 stages in the recently concluded Ring of Tarim Rally. In terms of energy consumption optimization, Great Wall has mass-produced cloud-based path planning based on dynamic programming, reducing system-level energy consumption by 15%. He particularly mentioned that power split technology is worth digging deep into, comparing hybrid power energy management to the millennium wisdom of Dujiangyan's 'four-six water division'.

Ren Chuanwei, Director of NIO's Electric Drive & High-Voltage Mechanical Integration and EDU Department, detailed the technical advantages of NIO's global 900-volt high-voltage architecture. From 2021 argumentation to mass production landing, it took nearly 40 months. NIO became the first domestic automaker to mass-produce the 900-volt high-voltage architecture, with DC charging power reaching 600 kilowatts, and recharging 250 kilometers in 5 minutes. In terms of electric drive, NIO is the first enterprise in the industry to mass-produce distributed winding motors on a large scale, reducing weld points by 96%, with a mass production quality rate of 99.7%. He emphasized that high-voltage, high-speed, and integration are the direction, but safety and reliability are the premise.

How to break through 50% thermal efficiency for hybrid dedicated engines was the focus of the technical discussion at this seminar. Guan Yongchao, Chief Engineer of New Energy Power at Dongfeng Motor R&D Center, and Ma Yongquan, Chief Engineer of Foos Power Advanced Technology Development, gave the same answer: lean combustion.

Guan Yongchao expects mass production landing from 2027 to 2028, while Ma Yongquan judges it will be realized in the next two to three years.

Ma Yongquan revealed that Geely's alcohol engine route persisted for over 20 years has achieved the latest results — the 2.0TD ultra-lean alcohol engine thermal efficiency exceeds 48.7%, the high-efficiency zone accounts for over 50%, providing a new path for zero-carbon power development.

Xu Zhe, Calibration and Testing Manager of Xingqu Technology, started from the perspective of AI empowerment. Xingqu has been established for only 4 years and has already provided electric drive systems for models such as Zeekr 001, 8X, 9X, and Lynk & Co 900. The team's self-developed calibration data management platform 'Tree of the World' reduced communication costs by 80% and improved software integration efficiency by 100 times. In terms of NVH, the team achieved the theoretical limit of harmonic injection compensation — controlling harmonics to 5K under a 10K switching frequency, without increasing CPU load, reducing NVH levels by more than 20dB in most areas.

Going Global Must Shift from Product Export to Industry Chain Collaboration; Compliance and Localization are Key

Going global is another major hotspot of this seminar, the consensus among guest participants is: cannot just do product export, must do industry chain collaborative going global.

Ma Yongquan of Foos Power introduced Geely powertrain going global practices. Foos Power is held 45% by Geely, 45% by Renault, 10% by Saudi Aramco, headquartered in London, with nearly 20,000 global employees and annual revenue of 15 billion Euros. This 'Reverse Joint Venture' model, where 'traditional power comes from foreign partners, and new energy technology comes from Geely', aims to use the mature overseas sales system of foreign car companies to achieve power block going global.

The academic circle also holds similar views on powertrain going global. Professor Shuai Shijin from Tsinghua University pointed out that the market share of independent brands in China has exceeded 70%, joint venture brands face huge pressure, but for the industry to go out, joint venture brands must be given a reasonable space to survive, and respect their contributions to China's economy. He called for the industry to go out together — taking Thailand as an example, Chinese enterprises are not fighting alone but deploying as a Chinese legion with full-chain localization, which is the model welcomed by overseas markets. He also reminded that hybrid power is a new growth point for exports, with significant growth trends in regions such as Africa, South America, and Central Asia, the transition from single product export to industry chain collaborative going global is a transformation that must be completed.

Professor Xu Xiangyang from Beihang University gave systematic suggestions from the practical level. He emphasized standard docking and compliance first — the more developed the country, the higher the requirements for compliance, if this part is not done well, one fall will be a big stumble; this is not a one-off deal. Specifically: R&D and production must be localized, the industry chain cluster must collaborate, powertrain and component suppliers must go out with the complete vehicle; talent must be governed locally. He specifically pointed out that how multinational corporations came in during the Reform and Opening-up, that is how Chinese enterprises should go out; this idea itself is clear enough.

Roundtable Heated Discussion Returns to Rationality, Moving from Radical Iteration to Steady Innovation

In the free discussion session with the theme of 'When will technical iteration become steady from radical', representatives from industry, academia, and research conducted in-depth exchanges and formed several important consensuses.

Representatives generally believe that industry technical iteration in the past few years was too radical, development cycles were significantly shortened, engine development shortened from 3 years to 20 months, pure electric vehicle product development even compressed to around 1 year, leading to compression of the test verification link and increased potential risks in product reliability.

Zhao Hang said directly: "It is not now a problem of being radical, but a bit of leapfrogging. This leapfrogging is not a good thing."

Guan Yongchao also frankly admitted that there are still many problems in the first half that have not been solved — low-temperature sensing, high-temperature performance, and plateau climb stalling are still affecting user experience, "Returning to the source to look at reliability is the most important thing to add efforts to in power development."

Cai Wei provided a positive signal: the development cycle of many enterprises has now been extended to more than two years, "This shows your level is high, you have learned from many failures, and know when to hit the brakes." The industry is moving from radical back to rationality.

Regarding how to achieve steady development, representatives from industry, academia, and research jointly proposed three core suggestions: First, strengthen platform development, reduce repeated investment, and concentrate resources to tackle core technical difficulties; Second, return to the essence of the product, shifting from simply rolling parameters to improving user experience and product reliability; Third, deepen industry-academia-research collaborative innovation, establish a long-term docking mechanism for university basic research and enterprise industrialization applications, reduce enterprise R&D risks and costs, and accelerate the transformation and implementation of scientific research results.

This seminar built a high-end exchange platform for in-depth integration of industry, academia, and research, through keynote speeches, technology sharing, and roundtable discussions, realized the collision docking of research wisdom and industrial practice, forming a broad consensus on the development of multi-power technology and the steady progress of the industry. From Zhang Wenhong's proposed 'Parallel Diversification and Going Out Together', to the roundtable discussion where representatives from industry, academia, and research jointly called for 'Return to Reliability, Return to User Experience' — the direction is clear: multi-power is not a multiple-choice question, but a required question; technical iteration is not about comparing who is faster, but comparing who goes steadier.

In the future, all parties of industry, academia, and research will continue to deepen cooperation, joining hands to tackle core technical difficulties, pushing the Chinese automotive power industry from technology leadership to industry leadership, contributing Chinese strength to the high-quality development of the global automotive industry.