On October 24, Zhao Fuquan, as the Vice President of China SAE, Director of Tsinghua Automotive Strategy Research Institute (TASRI), Lifetime Honorary President of FISITA, released the Consensus of the China Automotive CTO Closed-Door Summit 2025 at the New Energy Vehicles Plenary Session of SAECCE 2025.

The full text of the consensus is as follows:

In October 2025, Chief Technology Officers (CTO) from leading domestic and international automotive enterprises gathered in Chongqing, China, to collectively envision a new era of innovation-driven development for the automotive industry amid global transformation.

Participants reached the following consensus:

I. The automotive industry has entered a new phase of comprehensive transformation and upgrading, characterized by the mutual empowerment and integrated development of electrification, intelligentization, and low-carbon transformation. The industrial ecosystem is rapidly evolving from traditional OEM-component supplier models to cross-industry collaboration and convergence.

II. The automotive technology system is undergoing a systemic transformation, with profound shifts in innovation paradigms. Breakthroughs in fundamental scientific research and applied technology development are progressing in parallel, with disruptive innovations emerging frequently. This marks an unprecedented period of concentrated technological dynamism.

III. As China’s automotive industry advances toward global integration and comprehensive internationalization, leveraging technology-driven brand leadership to forge a new identity of innovation excellence and premium quality is pivotal to achieving world-class competitiveness.

Participants pledge to embrace industrial transformation with strategic foresight, strengthen collaborative responsibility, and pursue pragmatic partnerships to drive visionary, demand-driven innovation; cultivate a credible, technology-leading brand portfolio; and build a synergistic, mutually beneficial innovation ecosystem. To this end, participants will jointly advance the following action priorities:

1. Elevate automotive technological innovation capabilities. All participants will collaboratively conduct forecasting innovation trends and technology roadmap studies, jointly advance the deployment of forward-looking, pioneering, and original technologies in next-generation power batteries, intelligent chassis systems, and automotive-grade artificial intelligence, and collectively build an innovation ecosystem conducive to the commercialization and application of cutting-edge technological achievements. Collaborative efforts will be made to drive the interdisciplinary development of intelligent electric vehicle technologies, lead the cultivation of versatile innovative talents, and continuously infuse robust momentum into the industry’s innovative development.

2. Promote demand-driven technology supply. All participants will adhere to market demand as the guiding principle for technological innovation and application of outcomes, integrate user needs throughout the entire lifecycle of technology and product R&D iterations. In this way can they ensure technical functionalities and configurations precisely serving to enhance user experience and address pain points, and avoid indiscriminate parameter inflation and homogenized competition.

3. Establish safety baselines for technology R&D and application. All participants will strengthen collaborative research on standards and regulations in areas such as electric vehicle safety requirements, intelligent driving functionality standards, and intelligent connected testing/evaluation frameworks, jointly construct enterprise R&D quality management systems that adapts to industrial technological transformations, ensuring the safety and reliability of new technologies, features, and business models are thoroughly validated prior to market deployment.

4. Foster a responsible technology communication environment. All participants will engage in objective, pragmatic, and accountable technical communication, eschew exaggerated claims and ambiguous terminology, and leverage collaborative standardization efforts as a cornerstone to establish industry-wide consensus on technical disclosure norms. All participants will jointly drive public-facing technology education programs, elevate public understanding of technological capabilities and operational boundaries, and enhance the transparency and credibility of technology dissemination.

5. Deepening automotive technology exchanges and collaboration. All participants will fully harness the bridging role and coordinating functions of automotive industry associations and scientific societies, deepen cross-enterprise exchanges and partnerships in academic dialogue, collaborative innovation, standards development, and platform building. Join hands to pioneer a new paradigm of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation for China’s automotive industry in its innovation-driven development.

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Country: China
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