From Product Export to System Operations, Compliance Becomes the New "Hard Currency" for Chinese Automotive Global Expansion

September 1, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly released the "Guidelines on Foreign Competition Behavior and Compliance Construction for the Automotive Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), putting forward systematic requirements for the overseas market competition behavior and compliant operations of Chinese automotive enterprises. This is the first domestic normative guideline specifically targeting the overseas operations of the automotive industry, released at the node where Chinese automotive exports have led the world for three consecutive years.

In the past few years, Chinese automobiles have quickly opened up the global market relying on product strength and supply chain advantages. While scale growth occurred, problems such as spillover of low-price competition, chaotic channel order, and insufficient compliance preparation also emerged. The release of this guideline marks that the internationalization path of the Chinese automobile industry is accelerating towards the deepening stage of quality and system competition.

▍Background and Market Reality of the Implementation of Foreign Competition Standards

The guideline released by the three departments has the core objective of regulating overseas market competition order and guiding enterprises to operate in compliance. Chapter 2 of the "Guidelines" makes provisions specifically for market competition behaviors, clarifying that enterprises should establish pricing strategies based on costs and guided by international market supply and demand, and must not disrupt market order to gain unfair competitive advantages. Regarding terminal pricing, the guideline requires enterprises to set clear price gradients according to different configurations, avoid frequent and large-scale price adjustments, while respecting the pricing autonomy of overseas dealers and reasonably agreeing on sales incentive policies. In addition, the guideline also requires compliance in promotional activities and publicity and promotion, prohibiting false advertising and requiring enterprises to comply with local business practices and cultural customs.

According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs, the volume of complete vehicle exports from China reached 8.32 million in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 29.9%, ranking first in the world for three consecutive years, with products sold to over 200 countries and regions worldwide. The enthusiasm of domestic car companies for going global remains high. In the first seven months of 2026, the export volume of passenger cars continued to maintain double-digit growth, among which the export growth rate of new energy passenger cars exceeded 120%. However, while scale expanded rapidly, signs of domestic price wars transferring outward appeared in some markets. Taking the Southeast Asian market such as Thailand as an example, selling prices of some Chinese brand models were reduced multiple times shortly after launch, with the reduction magnitude reaching around 30%. Although this pricing strategy boosted sales in the short term, it also disrupted the price system of the local market, and even cases of cross-regional cross-selling and mutual price undercutting between dealers of the same brand appeared.

In addition, the issue of "0-kilometer used cars" reported by media will also trigger consumer complaints due to problems such as language mismatch in infotainment systems, non-compliance with local information security regulations, and lack of official warranty services. Meanwhile, the inflow of such low-price vehicles will impact the price system of local regular new cars, putting car manufacturers who invested heavily in certification and channel building into a passive position.

Except for problems at the market level, disordered competition may also trigger more trade risks. If Chinese car companies continue to expand overseas with low-price strategies, it is easy to trigger local anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations. In recent years, the EU, the US and other markets have already implemented tariff policies for Chinese electric vehicles, and the risk of trade barriers always exists. From this perspective, the "Guidelines" are not only a regulation of the industry competition order but also a risk reminder to enterprises, reminding enterprises to avoid dissipating long-term market space with short-term pricing strategies.

▍From Product Export to System Overseas Expansion: Localized Compliance Practices of Automotive Companies

Facing changes in regulatory orientation and deep requirements of overseas markets, the logic of Chinese car companies' going global is undergoing transformation. In the past, the core goal of enterprises was to sell products out, now they increasingly value the output of systematic capabilities. From the in-depth dialogue between Karis and the Car Quality Network with quality and service management teams of multiple car companies, it can also be seen that top brands have layout in advance in multiple dimensions such as product certification, quality systems, channel layout, and regulatory adaptation, promoting the overseas expansion model to upgrade from "product export" to "system operations".

Voyah is one of the earliest Chinese brands to layout in the European market. Li Jiayao, a senior manager in the quality field mentioned in the exclusive interview that quality management in overseas markets has significant differences compared to domestic ones. This difference is reflected not only in technical standards but also in cultural habits, laws and regulations, consumer demands and other levels. In order to cope with these differences, Voyah established a dual-layer response mechanism: holding special promotion meetings for market issues every day at noon, and holding quality feedback and countermeasure meetings every day in the evening, jointly with market, R&D, manufacturing and other departments to quickly handle problems in overseas markets. At the product access level, in 2022, the Voyah FREE model obtained European Whole Vehicle Type Approval (EWVTA) before being shipped from Wuhan to Norway and could be formally registered in EU countries. Subsequently, Voyah cars entered Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czechia, Italy, Spain and other countries successively.

SAIC Maxus is a representative enterprise for the overseas expansion of Chinese commercial vehicles, and its products have been sold to more than 100 countries and regions worldwide. Pu Dengxiang, Vice General Manager of SAIC Maxus Automotive Co., Ltd. clearly stated in the interview that globalization is not simple product export, but comprehensive overseas expansion of brands, standards, and services. He believes Chinese car companies face three quality challenges in going global: consistency of quality definition, localization of service capabilities, and cross-border data closed loop. User usage habits, road conditions, and regulatory standards differ in different markets, overseas service network capabilities are uneven, plus cross-time zone and cross-language communication obstacles, it is easy to make quality problems in overseas markets become information silos. In specific practice, SAIC Maxus was the first to pilot the supplier on-site support model in the Australia and New Zealand market, promoting key suppliers to deploy technical personnel locally, while conducting comprehensive capability training for technical personnel of local service outlets, effectively solving the pain points of slow on-site response, difficult diagnosis, and long repair cycle overseas, and this set of experience is being promoted to the UK and other core European markets.

Geely Auto chose another path of systematic overseas expansion, integrating into the local industrial ecosystem through capacity cooperation. A person in charge of Geely Holding Group stated in a public interview that enterprise going global does not necessarily require new capacity construction, but can share capacity and share markets with local partners. Geely reached cooperation with Ford to jointly operate Ford's production base in Spain, utilizing local idle capacity to produce Geely brand models. This model can not only avoid trade barriers but also drive local employment and is easier to obtain host country policy support.

The core of systematic overseas expansion is to place compliance awareness forward to the product R&D stage. Multiple executives also stated that in the past many enterprises tried to export after products were made, now they consider regulatory standards of different markets synchronously in the R&D stage. For example, for EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, data privacy regulations, and Southeast Asia automotive safety standards, enterprises need to include them in the product definition stage. In addition, systematic capabilities also include overseas supply chain layout, HR localization, intellectual property protection and other dimensions. The "Guidelines" also specifically mention that enterprises should improve overseas quality management system and after-sales service system, comply with local labor regulations, and strengthen IP layout, these are all core components of system overseas expansion.

Overall, the "Guidelines" defined competition boundaries for overseas operations of the Chinese automotive industry, and also conveyed a clear policy orientation: the internationalization of Chinese automobiles cannot walk the old path of low-price race to the bottom, it must turn to high-quality, systematic competition. After several years of rapid expansion, Chinese automobiles have already established preliminary product awareness in the global market. Next, what needs to be made up are shortcomings in compliance operations, brand building, and ecosystem layout.

Different car companies chose different paths of systematic overseas expansion based on their scale and strategy. Some enterprises built factories and R&D centers themselves, deeply penetrating mature markets; some enterprises shared capacity through cooperation models to enter regional markets with light assets; some enterprises started with service and quality systems first, gradually perfecting localization capabilities. But no matter which path is chosen, compliance operations and long-termism have already become industry consensus.