The whole vehicle sector has dropped again, leaving everyone bewildered.
Intelligent driving soars, vehicle manufacturers suffer.
During the 19th week of 2026, automotive stocks displayed a divergence curve — the overall sector fell 1.75%, yet one sector surged 2.04% against the trend.
On one hand is the premature prosperity of technology, on the other is the realistic collapse of automotive consumption. This weekly review may reveal the core contradictions and opportunities of the automotive industry.
01
During the 19th week of 2026, "AutosKline" incorporated UniAuto (HK.01511), the "first stock for full-scenario L4 autonomous driving" listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on May 20, into the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector. At this point, there are 141 automotive stocks in the statistics, involving 117 listed automotive companies.
This week, automotive stocks overall closed down 1.75%. Although the decline was narrower than the 3.26% drop in the 18th week, it is still not optimistic. The number of declining stocks approached 100, those rising were still in the minority, and gains were generally low.
From the broader market perspective, last week's A-share market showed wide-range oscillation, with significant divergence among major indices. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.54% for the week, while the Shenzhen Component Index rose 0.23% to close slightly positive. The Hang Seng Index underperformed the A-share market, falling 1.37% for the week.
Automotive stocks started the week weak but recovered later, experiencing violent fluctuations from panic-driven plunges to phased rebounds. May 18 was dubbed "Black Monday," as the automotive sector suffered heavy losses, becoming the main leader in market declines.
Among them, Li Auto HK stocks plummeted 14.15% that day, Leapmotor fell 7.83%, and Great Wall Motor HK stocks fell 3.92%. However, rebounds occurred after mid-week, such as Seres A-shares rising 6.14% on the 21st, XPeng H-shares rising 4.57%, and Li Auto HK stocks rising 1.06%.
Latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the retail total for automotive consumer goods in April was 302.9 billion yuan, a sharp year-on-year decline of 15.3%. Faced with dual pressures of "weak demand" and "cost squeeze," the rebound in the second half of the week for automotive stocks may be more about valuation repair after being oversold.
02
In terms of sectors, the passenger car, dealer/retail/aftermarket, and commercial vehicle sectors led the declines in the 19th week, closing down 4.64%, 4.84%, and 3.86% for the week respectively. The new energy and parts sectors fell slightly by 1.32% and 0.59%, showing relative resilience, while the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector rose 2.04% against the trend, highlighting its resilience.
In the top 10 gainers list, six stocks from the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector occupied spots. Among them, CaoCao Mobility and YouJia Innovation ranked first and second with gains of 23.28% and 21.43% respectively. Hoan Automotive rose 10.5% to rank fifth. Meanwhile, Huaya Intelligent, Pony.ai H-shares, and US stocks locked the 7th to 9th positions.
No doubt, the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector was a bright spot among automotive stocks in the 19th week.
Specifically, the core drivers for CaoCao Mobility's surge mainly came from three aspects. First, the company launched a buyback plan of up to 200 million HKD, showing strong willingness for market value management. Second, Caitong Securities covered the stock for the first time in May and gave it a Buy rating, pointing out that the company's Robotaxi business is expected to be launched on a large scale in 2027, with cumulative deployment of 100,000 units by 2030, expected to achieve a revenue scale of about 15 billion yuan. The market began to revalue the company.
In addition, news of Tesla FSD entering China on May 22 became an "igniter," further boosting market enthusiasm for intelligent driving concept stocks. CaoCao Mobility ranked among the top gainers that day, closing up 18.38%.
YouJia Innovation was even more "outrageous," surging 23.64% on May 22, with a powerful breakout.
As a full-stack technology enterprise that has been deeply engaged in the intelligent driving and unmanned vehicle fields for over a decade, YouJia Innovation is moving from algorithm research and engineering implementation to commercialization on a large scale.
On May 19, the company announced it received a batch order of 200 units for the first batch of real map-free unmanned vehicle Xiaozhu T5Pro, landing in Danyang, Jiangsu, marking the entry of "map-free" L4 unmanned logistics vehicles from product launch to mass delivery stage.
Currently, the intelligent driving industry is making a deep transition from "rule-driven" to "physical AI." The core upgrade is cloud-based large model empowerment with physical interaction capabilities possessing general intelligence. As the optimal scenario for large-scale implementation of physical AI, L4 autonomous driving is approaching a commercial tipping point.
Meanwhile, YouJia Innovation, rooted in both L2 pre-installation and L4 unmanned vehicle tracks, has become a focus of market attention.
03
The support for Pony.ai's rise, the "first autonomous driving stock in China," comes from Toyota Motor becoming its largest external shareholder, providing industry endorsement, and accelerating global business. Pony.ai is expected to have nearly half of its deployed cities located overseas by the end of 2026, becoming another support point for valuation improvement.
The logic behind Hoan Automotive's rise is also relatively solid. The company recently received a design letter for intelligent driving visual perception (ADAS camera perception) products from a German high-end luxury automobile brand. The designation letter shows a project lifecycle of 7 years, with estimated total revenue of about 780 million yuan within the lifecycle, expected to start mass production in September 2027, entering a new harvest period.
In addition, the controlling shareholder voluntarily extended the lock-up period for restricted shares, and NVIDIA's visit also heated up market sentiment.
In summary, the overall surge of the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector was not accidental. The news that Tesla's Supervised FSD is about to be used in the Chinese market became a direct catalyst for the explosion of the intelligent driving sector. Institutions generally expect that Tesla's FSD entering China will accelerate the comprehensive maturity and domestic substitution process of China's intelligent driving industry chain through the "catfish effect."
Previously, the market focused more on the intelligent driving layouts of OEMs like NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto. Last week, a large number of upstream intelligent driving technology suppliers and parts companies were pushed to the top of the gainers list. Investors may have begun to realize: the maximum elasticity of intelligent driving may be in the upstream of the industry chain rather than at the whole vehicle end.
Six stocks from the Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector simultaneously ranking in the top 10 gainers may be a concentrated reflection of the industry stepping into a commercial tipping point; the large-scale deployment schedule, signed orders, and received designations are the most powerful footnotes.
04
In addition to the ignited Intelligent Driving/Smart Mobility sector, Domex Technology, Shentai Technology, and Farasis Energy from the new energy sector also entered the top 10 gainers.
Among them, Domex Technology hit the limit up on May 20. In its reply to investor inquiries on May 22, it stated: "Benefiting from market demand growth, the volume and price of the company's electronic chemicals business are both showing an upward trend, and the profit space is expected to open up further."
At the same time, the quotation of Lithium Hexafluorophosphate recently rose, mainly affected by the rise in upstream cost-end prices such as Lithium Carbonate and the good start rate of downstream electrolyte. It is expected that there is still room for Lithium Hexafluorophosphate price increases.
Domex Technology spans multiple tracks such as Lithium Hexafluorophosphate, electronic chemicals, lithium batteries, and fluorine-based new materials.
The core driver for Shentai Technology's rise, the anode industry leader, is the "volume increase, price stability" under the continuation of high prosperity in the anode material industry, combined with product structure upgrades.
Currently, the overall demand in the anode material market remains robust. Shentai Technology has achieved substantial breakthroughs in high-growth tracks such as fast charging and solid-state batteries. For example, its 500-ton class silicon-carbon anode capacity has landed and achieved batch supply.
In addition, the company is actively promoting the Shanxi Xiyang 200,000-ton anode material integrated project and the Malaysia 50,000-ton anode material construction project. It is expected that the anode shipment volume in 2026 can reach 460,000 tons.
Farasis Energy rose for 5 consecutive days last week, steadily improving. Farasis Energy recently stated in a research survey that more than half of its revenue comes from overseas customers, and it has formed cooperation with overseas automobile companies such as Mercedes-Benz, TOGG, and Mahindra Group. Its degree of internationalization is at the forefront of the industry.
In addition, on May 15, Farasis Energy officially announced that the SPS soft pack battery solution developed by the company won the Geely Radar EV pickup order, and the battery pack equipped with it will be mass-produced in the second half of this year.
Represented by these three listed companies, the new energy sector saw a significant rise in industry prosperity last week.
05
In the decline list, passenger car whole vehicles and dealers became the disaster zones. Among them, whole vehicle enterprises such as Li Auto, NIO, and Geely Auto; dealers such as Best Group Holdings, Changjiang Shares, and Meidong Auto all entered the list, occupying eight of the ten spots in the decline list.
The fact that "car makers" and "car sellers" appeared on the list together reveals the most direct pressure logic on the automotive industry chain.
Li Auto underwent "free fall" last week. Although the pricing of the flagship model new L9 Livits version was "open high and close low," it was not disruptive in the market. This car is considered the most important "catalyst" of the year internally, but the capital market responded with a plummet, possibly shaking confidence in Li Auto's premiumization and profit recovery.
For NIO, although a positive Q1 report was released — total revenue 25.53 billion yuan, up 112.2% year-on-year, operating profit 66.8 million yuan, achieving operating profitability for the second consecutive quarter; however, in the "black" market atmosphere of the automotive sector, it could not save itself.
Recently, when talking about the long-term positioning of NIO's three brands, Neta (Onvo) and Firefly, NIO founder William Li stated that from the final sales structure perspective, the three might be roughly "3:6:1", or about "35:55:10". He also stated that if Neta can achieve a monthly sales of 20,000 units, it will be an important scale level. Future growth for Neta will rely more on channel penetration.
The overall pressure on the passenger car sector reflects the deep contradictions faced by the entire automotive industry chain. Demand collapse, cost squeeze, and profit collapse are more like a concentrated release of industry systemic risks.
Echoing the whole vehicle enterprises is the fact that the three car dealers Meidong Auto, Changjiang Shares, and Best Group Holdings also fell into the top 10 of the decline list.
Behind the overall pressure on dealers is a situation that is even more dangerous than that of whole vehicle enterprises. "Price wars" have led to losses in new car sales, and gross margins for new car businesses have continued to deteriorate, causing dealers to enter a fragile period of continuous "bleeding."
The convergence of whole vehicles and dealers on the decline list reflects pressure transmission throughout the entire automotive circulation system, from whole vehicle manufacturing to terminal sales, from order-taking to inventory digestion.
In such a market environment, the ranking of declines on the list is essentially a direct mirror of the pressure borne by the industry chain.
Views of AutosKline:
When the panic of "Black Monday" and the euphoria of "intelligent driving counterattack" are written into the weekly行情 together, the most rational attitude might be — to remain optimistic about upstream technological breakthroughs, stay vigilant about downstream consumer realities, and in the structural changes of the industry chain, find targets that can both "look up at the stars" and "keep their feet on the ground."
Appendix: Weekly Trends of Six Major Automotive Stock Sectors (May 15-May 22)
The text is original from [AutosKline]. Content reference materials come from listed company announcements and public industry information (relevant companies and institutions should be obligated to verify the authenticity); some pictures come from the internet, copyright remains with the original owner.
Articles from this account cannot be reprinted without authorization; violators will be held accountable. At the same time, article content does not constitute investment advice for anyone! Stock market risks are high, invest cautiously!
