A peek under the hood of the global automotive industry.
On October 1, BYD reported September sales of 463,600 vehicles. Passenger vehicles accounted for 456,700. Overseas passenger vehicles and pickups hit 179,900, up 153.9% from a year earlier.
By Jin24 days ago in Wheel
We used to say, “It’s easy to buy a car, but hard to maintain it.” Now that sentence needs a rewrite: It’s easy to buy an electric car, but even harder to repair it.
On September 29, GAC Group’s A-shares resumed trading. The stock hit the daily limit at the open. Sealed orders reached 650 million yuan. The night before, GAC released 16 announcements. The company plans to issue shares to buy the 50% stake in FAW Toyota held by FAW. It also plans to raise matching funds. The pre-suspension closing price was 5.08 yuan. The issue price is 5.75 yuan, a premium of about 13%.
By Jin25 days ago in Wheel
A 10°C wind at 60 km/h feels like 0°C. This is not a metaphor. Riders know. At 6:40 in the morning, the red light has ninety-eight seconds left. He has both feet on the ground. His fingers squeeze the brake. The tips go from numb to painful. The visor fogs. He lifts it a crack. Cold air rushes in. His eyes water. The engine throbs below. Heat rises and gets torn apart by the wind. He wears three layers. The outer shell is windproof. The zipper is up to his chin. Wind still finds his cuffs. He puts his hands beside the engine. Two seconds of warmth. The light turns green.
By Jin26 days ago in Wheel
Alibaba Wants to Be the Electric Company for AI Thinking At Apsara 2026, CEO Wu Yongming made an economic case: machine thought will be sold like power. Alibaba is building the plants, the grid, and the meters.
By Jin27 days ago in Wheel
At the 2026 Apsara Conference Automotive Summit, Frost & Sullivan and LeadLeo released a report. The number was simple: Alibaba Cloud held 45.2% of China’s automotive public cloud market. It ranked first in six tracks, including intelligent driving, intelligent cockpits, and industrial efficiency.
At 6:40 p.m. in the underground garage of Bairuijing community in Wuchang District, Wuhan, Ms. Liu parks her Li L7 and kills the engine. Then she does something she could not have imagined three years ago when she bought the car. She pulls out her phone, opens the app, and taps “remote park out.”
On September 25, Tesla China said customers who order by October 31, 2026, will get 5,000 yuan off the final payment on every Model 3 and 7,000 yuan off some Model Y trims.
By Jin29 days ago in Wheel
On September 26, a new route appeared in the NIO app. Open the map. From Xi’an westward, through the Hexi Corridor, past Dunhuang, and into Xinjiang, 33 battery swap station icons form a line. NIO says its Silk Road battery swap route is fully connected. It runs 3,605 kilometers and uses 33 battery swap stations.
By Jinabout a month ago in Wheel
One Post, One Tunnel, One Railway On September 20, 2026, Musk replied on X to an AI-generated science-fiction video. The video showed humanity building a colony on an alien world. Musk quote-posted it with one line: “This is the future we are going to build.”
I. One Earnings Report and $700 Billion Gone In March 2026, CATL released its 2025 annual report. Revenue: RMB 423.7 billion. Net profit: RMB 72.2 billion, up 42.28% year on year. Nearly RMB 200 million in net profit per day. Gross margin: 26.27%, 6.4 times that of the auto industry. By any measure, those are strong numbers. The capital market answered with the opposite. The share price fell from a May high of RMB 467 to RMB 297. That is a cumulative drawdown of more than 36%. Over RMB 700 billion in market value disappeared.
The Front End Was Crushed. The A-Pillar Didn't Break. In August 2026, a dashcam video spread on Weibo. A black Model 3 rear-ended a semi-trailer. The front compartment was flattened. The hood twisted. The windshield shattered. The driver climbed out, stood by the road, and called someone. A bystander asked if he was okay. He waved.
