Smart vehicles participated for the first time. (Photo by Xia Tiantian)

■ Reporter from China Industry Daily Qi Xiaoling

On August 30, the closing ceremony and award presentation of the 2026 China Society of Automotive Engineers Baja Race Tongxiang Station was successfully held in Tongxiang, Zhejiang. Heads of industry societies, science associations, automotive enterprises, and university competition personnel attended the event, reviewing the race process and commending the winning teams together with event partners, referees, and participating teachers and students. This competition welcomed Smart Baja for its formal debut for the first time, while attracting overseas teams to compete on the same stage. It demonstrated the practical innovation capabilities of domestic young automotive talents from all aspects through education via racing and promotion of innovation via racing.

Hou Fushen, Vice Chairman and Secretary-General of the China Society of Automotive Engineers, stated in his address that the research and manufacturing of Baja racing vehicles is a systematic engineering project where young students balance performance, reliability, cost, and safety throughout the entire process of design, manufacturing, debugging, and verification, requiring practical acceptance tests on real tracks. The competition brings students not only practical accumulation of vehicle manufacturing technology but also cultivates their comprehensive qualities in dealing with unknown problems, collaborative breakthroughs, and taking responsibility. This is also the core value of the Baja Race: "Practical Education and Challenging Limits".

Hou Fushen pointed out that currently new technologies such as new energy and artificial intelligence are deeply integrated with the automotive industry, and the industry's interdisciplinary development characteristics are becoming more prominent. The industrial transformation urgently requires young talents with solid professional foundations, systematic thinking, practical abilities, and innovative spirit. In the future, the China Society of Automotive Engineers will continue to practice the concept of "promoting teaching, learning, innovation, and industry through racing", deepen industry-education collaboration, integrate industry frontier topics, advanced R&D tools, and high-quality technical resources into the competition scenarios, help young students move from the classroom to the competition arena, from theory to practice, grow and become talents through practical training, and reserve high-quality talents for the high-quality development of the automotive industry.

It is understood that this Baja Race officially started on August 26. During the five-day competition, multiple racing teams from across the country sequentially completed vehicle technical inspections, static evaluations, and multiple dynamic race competitions, comprehensively testing the students' design and manufacturing, assembly and debugging, fault analysis, on-site repair, and team collaboration abilities. On the race course, there were intense competitions in speed racing, as well as the youth spirit of technical exchange and collaborative breakthroughs.

This competition welcomed a major innovative upgrade, with the Smart Baja project making its formal debut. Participating smart vehicles sequentially completed subject tests such as off-road straight obstacle racing, off-road single-lap timed racing, and off-road trace durability racing. Under complex off-road scenarios, core performance such as vehicle traction and directional stability, autonomous path planning, and system operation robustness were comprehensively verified, building a professional practical test platform for young students to explore the implementation and application of intelligent driving off-road scenarios.

The international atmosphere of the competition continued to heat up. Four university racing teams from Thailand were invited to participate. Chinese and foreign young students exchanged in-depth communications, competed on the same field, and learned from each other around racing design, manufacturing debugging, competition organization, etc., breaking geographical and language barriers, making the Baja race course a high-quality platform for domestic and international automotive youth to communicate, interact, and grow together.

The Automotive Technology New Media Talent Challenge ATMIC held concurrently focused on competition communication and industry popularization. Participating young people recorded the race scene style from a unique perspective, dug into team stories, and interpreted racing technology, popularizing automotive professional knowledge and disseminating race culture with vivid lenses and text, further enriching the educational connotation and communication dimensions of the competition.

During the holding of the event, Chongfu Town of Tongxiang City provided all-round, refined competition guarantees. Focusing precisely from event organization to life services, a safe, orderly, high-quality, and comfortable competition environment was created for all participating teachers, students, staff, and referees, fully guaranteeing the successful implementation of the event.

After five days of high-intensity, all-round fierce competition, the awards for all major groups of this competition were announced. The champion of the Smart Group was won by Beijing Institute of Technology; Hunan Automotive Engineering Vocational University and Wuhan University of Technology took the 2nd and 3rd places respectively; The champion of the Hydrogen Group was awarded to Sichuan Engineering Vocational University, with Western Yunnan University of Applied Technology and Guangzhou Industry and Trade Technician College ranking after them; The champion of the Off-road Upgrade Group was Geely University, with Ubon University and Hebei Institute of Science and Technology taking the 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

In addition, the results of the Electric Vehicle Group, Vocational School Group, and Undergraduate Group competitions were released simultaneously. Henan Institute of Technology took the championship of the Electric Vehicle Group; Sichuan Engineering Vocational University and Beijing Institute of Technology took the 2nd and 3rd places respectively; Guangxi Ecology and Engineering Vocational College topped the Vocational School Group; Guangxi Mechanical and Electrical Technician College and Chongqing Traffic Vocational College obtained the 2nd and 3rd places respectively; The Undergraduate Group champion was won by Liuzhou Institute of Technology; Beijing Institute of Technology and Sichuan Engineering Vocational University took the 2nd and 3rd places respectively.

According to introduction, the Baja Race has been cultivated for twelve years. Starting from 29 teams initially, it has grown into a youth practice competition platform with great influence in the domestic automotive field. This competition attracted 122 teams from 86 institutions. Participating students autonomously completed the entire process of racing car design, manufacturing, assembly, debugging, verification, and competition, transforming classroom theory into practical solutions, honing skills and increasing capabilities through repeated testing, tackling difficulties, and team collaboration.

The organizers of the competition stated that the end of the competition is a new starting point for young students to deepen their work in the automotive field and chase dreams of industrial futures. In the future, the Society will continue to gather resources from universities, enterprises, and all sectors of society, continue to improve the competition system and enrich competition content, introduce more industry frontier resources, continuously build a broad stage for young talents to practice innovation, compete, and exchange, and continuously deliver high-quality innovative and practical young talents for the industrial transformation and upgrade and innovative development of the Chinese automotive industry.