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The 2026 Shanghai APES International Auto Parts Exhibition concluded. In a keynote speech, Secretary General Xu Haodong of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers revealed the clearest development logic in the auto parts industry at present: China's automotive industry has completed the pure product export stage and officially entered the ecological globalization era.
As a core component in essential automotive needs, tires are firmly riding two major trends: the explosive growth of complete vehicle exports and the new energy boom, with a completely new model of integrated OEM-parts R&D, overseas local manufacturing, and technology customization upgrades, thoroughly reshaping the global tire market landscape.
Explosive Growth in Complete Vehicle Exports
Opening Global Incremental Channels for Tires
China's automotive industry has ranked first in global production and sales for 17 consecutive years. A massive domestic market has solidified the cost base for parts R&D and manufacturing. Large-scale export of complete vehicles directly supplies a continuous stream of matching orders for tires:
In 2025, domestic automotive production and sales exceeded 34 million units. Full-year complete vehicle exports reached 7.098 million (more than 28 million tires supplied), a year-on-year surge of 21.1%, and a surge of over 6 times compared to 2020; among them, new energy vehicle exports reached 2.615 million units, achieving doubled growth.
Unlike the scattered tire foreign trade exports of the early years, OEMs like BYD, Geely, and Chery are no longer fighting alone when going global; instead, they are launching collectively with the local parts industry chain. Currently, over 23 overseas CKD complete vehicle factories have been established domestically. More than 80% of the top 100 parts companies have established production bases in over 50 countries globally. As car companies establish factories locally, tire matching supply nearby has become the industry standard.
Wherever complete vehicles go, the market for domestic tires extends; after millions of new exported cars hit the road, the accompanying demand for replacement tires opens up a long-term and stable overseas aftermarket space.
Overtaking on the New Energy Curve
Domestic Brands Gain Power in Premium Original Equipment
New energy vehicles have greater weight, stronger torque, and stricter requirements for low rolling resistance, energy saving, quietness, comfort, abrasion resistance, and stable low-temperature range. This technical threshold for tires is far higher than traditional fuel vehicles, making it the perfect track for domestic tires to achieve technical leapfrogging.
Chaoyang Tire (Zhongce Rubber) customized the Chaoyang No. 1 ARISUN1 Tire for the million-level flagship Zunjie S800 this year, abandoning universal specifications: Low-temperature active rubber improves EV winter range, with winter range increased by 15% compared to overseas high-end tires; combined with adaptive stability structure and multi-layer noise reduction structure, balancing shock absorption, handling, and cabin quietness; can also interact with smart chassis and intelligent driving systems to perceive road conditions and adjust body posture, breaking the inherent perception that premium cars are originally equipped with foreign tire brands, creating a category of original high-end custom tires for independent car manufacturers.
On the production capacity level, in 2026, Zhongce invested 1.04 billion yuan to build a Vietnamese tire base, succeeding Thailand, Indonesia, and Mexico to finalize the fourth major overseas factory. Relying on the tariff advantage in Southeast Asia to stabilize EU supply, under trade barriers, European orders continue to concentrate on top-tier companies, and the dividend of overseas expansion continues to release.
Linglong Tire's overseas journey has gone through four stages: Initial foreign trade customer expansion, establishing a factory in Thailand to achieve capacity export, global R&D center layout to master self-research standards, and current stage deepening localized ecosystem operations. The Thailand factory radiates to Asia-Pacific and North America; the Serbia Europe factory has successfully started production, securing matching qualifications for European and American car companies such as Volkswagen, Renault, and Ford. Domestically matching BYD, Geely, and Hongqi, the new energy original equipment tire sales rank among the top domestic brands. Following OEM overseas CKD factories to supply nearby, effectively reducing logistics and tariff costs.
Sailun Tire, in response to EU anti-dumping and global trade barriers, proactively laid out overseas factories in multiple countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, Mexico, and Egypt. European orders are transferred to overseas bases for delivery, successfully avoiding tariffs . After European local supply was reduced, enterprise order volume continued to rise, and multiple price adjustments still resulted in supply falling short of demand.
Recently, Sailun reached a deep strategic cooperation with BYD, focusing on joint R&D, green manufacturing, and industrial chain synergy. Relying on BYD's global export channels to promote the Liquid Gold EV Tire, adapting to new energy vehicle usage scenarios in many places globally with low rolling resistance and high wear resistance characteristics.
Three Major Advanced Stages of OEM-Parts Collaboration
Breaking Away from Traditional European/American and Japanese/Korean Models
In the past, the global mainstream supply chain was divided into two categories: loose strategic cooperation in Europe and America, and Japanese/Korean car companies' shareholding deep binding mode, but hierarchical management and departmental barriers were obvious, difficult to adapt to the new energy rapid iteration, global variable market environment.
Xu Haodong proposed three levels of industry chain synergy path in the speech, which is exactly the development direction of domestic tires and complete vehicle factories:
Regulatory Cooperation: Completing basic supply only according to hard requirements, companies fight alone, low efficiency;
Tacit Cooperation: Upstream and downstream actively collaborate, prioritizing the overall revenue of the entire industry chain, significantly improving response speed to overseas markets;
Collaborative Innovation: Car companies and tire companies jointly develop R&D, co-develop adaptive products, jointly explore overseas markets, unifying the assessment of global regional road conditions, climate, and regulatory needs. This is also the core competitiveness of Chinese tires to stand in the global market for a long time.
Relying on the massive domestic market volume to share R&D costs, massive vehicle ownership to cultivate technical talents, and new energy technology leading advantages, domestic tires are no longer simply competing on low prices, but adopting a four-dimensional integrated model of vehicle development + tire matching + overseas after-sales + talent localization, building a Chinese characteristic automotive supply chain ecosystem.
Opportunities and Challenges Coexist
Ecological Globalization is the Way to Break the Pattern
Trade barriers and geopolitical conflicts remain industry problems that cannot be avoided. Top tire companies have already found solutions: Diversifying risk through multiple regional overseas production capacities, relying on vehicle exports to provide matching supply nearby to avoid tariffs; Deeply cultivating new energy differentiated technology, creating a gap using exclusive performance such as low rolling resistance, quietness, snow adaptation, and intelligent synergy; Cutting in from OE original equipment matching, in turn driving the overseas replacement tire market reputation and sales growth.
Once, Chinese tires were sold worldwide relying on good quality and low prices; now, riding the vast wave of China's automotive globalization, Zhongce, Linglong, Sailun and others are stepping into the mid-to-high end of the global tire value chain step by step, with technology as the core, OEM-parts collaboration as the link, and global capacity as support.
