Zhongce Rubber Takes Major Move! Academician Zhang Liqun Workstation Signing and Landing

On August 8, Zhongce Rubber Group Headquarters held the "Academician Zhang Liqun Workstation Project Signing Ceremony and Tire Industry Trends and Technology Frontier Forum". Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, President of Xi'an Jiaotong University Zhang Liqun, Chairman of Zhongce Rubber Group Shen Jinrong, as well as representatives from government, universities, and automotive manufacturers gathered together to jointly witness the formal signing and landing of this workstation, marking a new stage for the industry-university-research cooperation between the two parties lasting over ten years.

Zhongce Rubber Chairman Shen Jinrong stated that relying on the top-notch basic research capabilities of the academician team and Zhongce's industrialization platform, both sides will build a complete innovation closed loop of "Basic Research — Technical Breakthrough — Pilot Scale-up — Industrial Implementation — Market Application", focusing on key breakthroughs in core fields such as green bio-based rubber and new materials for high-performance tires. Academician Zhang Liqun emphasized that the workstation will practice the logic of "Industry poses questions, research solves them, enterprises use them", closely following the new requirements of new energy vehicles for high load-bearing and high durability of tires, breaking the "Magic Triangle" puzzle of tire performance, and promoting the industry to upgrade towards high-end, intelligent, and green.

It is reported that since 2022, Zhongce Rubber Academician Expert Workstation has cumulatively invested more than 50 million yuan in R&D funds, and has achieved breakthrough results in four directions: First, high-performance tires such as "Chaoyang No. 1" were successfully original-matched with high-end new energy vehicles such as Zunjie S800; Second, the "4+7" waste tire green self-cycling production line was built, with an annual processing capacity of 100,000 tons, accumulating 800 million yuan in revenue; Third, special bionic elastomer research for crewed lunar vehicles was carried out to serve national major science and technology tasks; Fourth, an ultra-wear-resistant all-steel radial tire with a bio-based content of 91% was developed.

Zhongce Rubber Director and Senior Vice President Shen Haoyu shared the company's latest development status. As a tire enterprise that ranks in the global top ten and is number one domestically, Zhongce Rubber's sales revenue reached 44.049 billion yuan in 2025, and successfully listed on the A-share Main Board in June of the same year. Facing the trend of "East Rising, West Declining" in the global tire industry and challenges such as trade barriers, the company established a dual-track strategy of "High-end Customization and High Cost-performance", and accelerated global capacity layout. Thailand and Indonesia factories are already in production, and the new Vietnam factory is about to start. Currently, the company has provided original factory matching for domestic high-end models such as AITO, Zunjie, and Leapmotor. In the future, it will deepen AI technology application and seize the opportunity of new energy vehicles going global.

During the forum session, Cao Li, Executive Director and Senior Vice President of Leapmotor Automobile, pointed out that tire performance plays a key role in new energy vehicle range, handling, and quietness. He called on automotive manufacturers and tire manufacturers to advance cooperation to the vehicle architecture and product definition stage, and suggested domestic complete vehicle and parts and components enterprises build a large group system to go global hand in hand.

This signing is a solid step for the Chinese tire industry to move towards the high end of the global value chain. In the future, Zhongce Rubber will take research original advantages with industrialization capabilities, and comprehensively promote the Chinese tire industry to leap from scale advantages to technology, product, and brand advantages.