in major battery factories in Europe are one example. And those direct investments,
, should extend beyond the car itself. They should consolidate Chinese automakers’ existing supply chain dominance and extend downstream to cover fields like EV repairs and servicing, second hand markets, recycling, financial services, car insurance, and automotive logistics.
It’s a compelling business case: Leverage your manufacturing capacity and pricing power in EVs and batteries, and create a vast downstream ecosystem within which to lock in customers. That downstream ecosystem and those customers also promise reams of data.
Another key node of the downstream ecosystem is the car operating system. And Chinese state media make clear that Chinese dominance of automotive operating systems is a matter of national security. As Economic Daily
: “The car operating system will decide our victory or defeat in car intelligence and networking…the vehicle operating system not only plays a top-down role, but also concerns national security and industrial security.”