It's not just megawatt-level flash charging. In the first half of the year, the automotive industry has witnessed five major innovative technologies, and price competition is just a superficial phenomenon.
According to the data released by the Passenger Car Association, in the first half of this year, a total of 5.468 million new energy vehicles were sold in the domestic automobile market, a year-on-year increase of 33.3%. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles has reached 50.16%, on par with traditional fuel vehicles.
Looking back at the new energy vehicle market in the first half of this year, new models such as the Tesla Model Y, Xiaomi YU7, Wenjie M8, and Zunjie S800 have brought enough surprises. Dianchetong noticed that these high-profile new energy vehicles no longer only focus on long-range and high intelligence but also start to address current technological pain points, especially with significant technological innovations in batteries.
Next, Dianchetong will review the top five new technologies in the new energy vehicle market in the first half of this year. Perhaps we can find the development trend of the new energy vehicle market from them.
Is megawatt-level flash charging here, and are refueling and battery swapping about to end?
Last year, BYD announced the application of assisted driving technology in products priced at around 70,000 yuan, achieving "equal rights for intelligent driving." This year, BYD directly launched the super e-platform and officially announced that its charging speed has reached the fastest mass-produced charging speed globally - 5 minutes of flash charging for a 400-kilometer drive.
Source: BYD
Before BYD's flash charging technology was released, the fast refueling speed was always the direct reason for "fuel enthusiasts" not to choose new energy vehicles. New energy vehicles have already outperformed traditional fuel vehicles in terms of environmental protection, intelligence, and cost. Now, they are even catching up in terms of refueling speed. The only objective reason left for "fuel enthusiasts" not to switch to the new energy camp may be the vehicle's resale value.
Of course, currently, the flash charging technology is just emerging, and its impact on fuel vehicles is not significant yet.
On the one hand, there are not many companies that can provide flash charging technology. After BYD launched its megawatt flash charging technology, Geely's ZEEKR launched a 1.2MW all-liquid-cooled charging pile, and Huawei Digital Energy launched a charging product with a maximum power of 1.5MW. It is far from forming a large-scale system like gas stations.
On the other hand, megawatt flash charging technology requires the upgrade of power grid support, energy storage systems, and charging equipment, which involves additional costs such as power grid transformation and patent licensing. It is not easy for other car manufacturers to replicate.
Source: Shot by Dianchetong
In this regard, the launch of megawatt flash charging technology may have a greater impact on battery swapping technology.
The refueling speed of NIO's battery swapping stations is 3 - 5 minutes, which is quite similar to the megawatt-level flash charging technology. However, as battery technology progresses, battery swapping stations need to support various specifications of battery packs, and new cars need to be designed to be compatible with more battery swapping stations. The LeDao L60, which can only use the third and fourth-generation battery swapping stations, has far less advantage in the battery swapping system than NIO's models.
Fortunately, NIO currently has a relatively large battery swapping system. As of July 8, 2025, NIO has 3,397 battery swapping stations, more than the number of supercharging stations of Li Auto and XPeng.
Screenshot: NIO's official website
Dianchetong believes that in the future, the refueling pattern is more likely to be a "tripartite division" among gas stations, supercharging stations, and battery swapping stations. Among them, the charging speed of supercharging stations will become faster and faster, which will be the technological development route for more new energy vehicle manufacturers. As for battery swapping stations, there may only be NIO left. Other car manufacturers that recognize battery swapping technology are unlikely to invest tens of billions like NIO to build a battery swapping system. Instead, they are more likely to join the battery swapping camp led by NIO.
Can the "modular" technology concept solve the battery's shortcomings?
Currently, most new energy vehicles use liquid lithium batteries. Although the technology is relatively mature, there are still obvious drawbacks such as significant performance degradation and slow refueling speed under extreme temperatures. As a giant in the battery industry, CATL proposed to develop the Xiaoyao Dual-Core Battery using the "combination" concept to address the current shortcomings of lithium batteries.
Simply put, it can intelligently adjust the distribution strategy of two energy areas. The main energy area can adapt to different chemical systems of battery cells according to the driver's habits and scenarios, while the extended-range energy area uses a high-specific-energy self-generating negative electrode technology to provide more power. Currently, there are three cross-chemical system dual-core solutions available: sodium-iron dual-core battery, iron-iron dual-core battery, and ternary iron/dual-ternary dual-core battery.
Source: Shot by Dianchetong
In the past, it was almost impossible for consumers to obtain a new energy vehicle with multiple characteristics such as high capacity, fast charging, long range, and low power consumption. However, the Xiaoyao Dual-Core Battery has broken the boundaries of the traditional standard battery industry and is the first step in breaking through the bottleneck of a single chemical system that struggles to meet all scenarios.
Currently, most new energy vehicle manufacturers mainly solve the problem of increasing the range of pure electric vehicles by increasing the battery capacity. For example, the entry-level version of the Xiaomi YU7 is equipped with a battery pack exceeding 90 kWh. Of course, there is also the XPeng P7+, which focuses on range reliability. Its long-range version is only equipped with a 74.9 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery. The XPeng P7+, with a curb weight of over 2 tons, only consumes about 12 kWh per 100 kilometers.
Regardless of the technical solution, what car manufacturers need to do most is to achieve a higher range with each kilowatt-hour of electricity. The future development direction of batteries will inevitably be to balance "high capacity" and "low energy consumption." Apart from solid-state batteries, which have been in the "promising" stage, batteries with the "combination" concept like the Xiaoyao Dual-Core Battery are the ones that can achieve this.
L3 technology is being launched in droves! Have car manufacturers finally stopped "making empty promises"?
Some car manufacturers stated long ago that they already have the technical qualifications for L3-level autonomous driving and are just waiting for the relevant policies to be relaxed for mass production and installation in vehicles.
It wasn't until the first half of this year that multiple car manufacturers announced their L3-level autonomous driving technologies, showing signs of imminent implementation.
Source: Hongmeng Zhixing
- In April, Huawei launched the new-generation ADS 4.0 intelligent driving assistance system, supporting high-level L3-level autonomous driving. It has become China's first high-speed L3 commercial solution. The already launched Zunjie S800 and the new Wenjie M9 are both designed based on the L3 intelligent driving architecture.
- Geely launched the Qianli Haohan safety high-level intelligent driving system, and the Qianli Haohan H9 will have L3-level capabilities.
- VOYAH launched the L3-level intelligent architecture - Tianyuan Architecture, which will be used in the L3-level autonomous driving model "Taishan" launched this year.
- GAC Group launched the intelligent technology brand "Xingling Zhixing" and announced that it will launch the first domestic L3-level autonomous driving passenger car in the fourth quarter of this year.
- The XPeng G7 was the first to launch the full-local VLA + VLM model, with a total computing power of over 2,200 TOPS, 3 - 28 times that of other industry flagships. The official directly stated that this is the world's first AI car to reach L3-level computing power.
It can be seen that higher-level autonomous driving will inevitably be an industry trend, and L3-level autonomous driving will soon become the next battleground.
However, in Dianchetong's view, L3-level autonomous driving needs to solve the problem of responsibility division, which cannot be solved simply by a car manufacturer saying "I'm ready." Long-term pilot projects in multiple regions are still needed in the early stage for verification to gain consumers' trust in L3-level autonomous driving.
Otherwise, the implementation of L3-level technology will only be an empty promise.
Will XPeng's "Chasing Light Panoramic" change the history of HUD?
HUD, Head-Up Display technology, allows drivers to quickly access key information without looking down at the dashboard, thereby making the driving process safer.
Although most models under most car manufacturers offer the HUD configuration, HUD is not a necessity for travel. Most car manufacturers directly adopt the solutions provided by suppliers, and some HUDs are not really user-friendly. Problems such as poor visibility, dizziness, and blocked vision have never been solved.
Source: Shot by Dianchetong
To address these pain points, XPeng collaborated with Huawei to create the "Chasing Light Panoramic" HUD. Huawei is responsible for providing the AR-HUD hardware platform to solve visual problems such as poor visibility and blocked vision, while XPeng is responsible for software design and perception capabilities to solve problems such as dizziness.
Of course, the most important aspect of this technology is the first application of the "light carpet" in the HUD field. Similar to how the Wenjie M9 projects a dynamic light carpet directly onto the road, XPeng's AR-HUD maps the "light carpet" onto the front windshield.
According to the official statement, the AR light carpet can fully conform to the road when the vehicle changes lanes, turns, or passes through complex intersections. It can also clearly mark routes not in the plan, construction sections, and even potential dangers. It can also be highly integrated with XPeng's own assisted driving system.
Before the launch of XPeng's "Chasing Light Panoramic" AR-HUD, the relatively good AR-HUDs on the market could use arrows to indicate the driving direction, but the direction did not fully conform to the road, and glitches would occur on complex roads. Although HUD is not a necessary configuration, consumers do have a relatively high demand for AR-HUD. A user-friendly HUD can bring more opportunities for car manufacturers.
Now that XPeng has launched the "Chasing Light Panoramic," other car manufacturers need to think twice if they still use AR-HUD as a selling point for new products.
Tesla's Robotaxi is launched: Can the new industry solution be profitable?
Robotaxi is not a new technology in the industry. The Robotaxi businesses of Luobo Kuaipao and Pony.ai have achieved certain success in China. However, Tesla's Robotaxi business is different. Tesla plans to adopt the C2C model, where the shared fleet will mainly be provided by individual car owners, allowing both car owners and Tesla to profit. In the early stage, Tesla will operate the fleet itself. The business model of companies like Luobo Kuaipao is C2B, where the company buys cars for operation. Consumers' experience is no different from that of ordinary ride-hailing services.
Source: Tesla's official website
It seems that Tesla's business model can indeed maximize profits. For future car owners joining Tesla's shared fleet, this model can even recoup the cost of buying a car.
According to a forecast by Goldman Sachs, the share of the shared market in the United States will increase to $336 billion in 2030, with the Robotaxi business accounting for $7 billion. The North American Robotaxi market is currently worth about $300 million.
This means that the Robotaxi industry in North America is still in a stage of rapid growth. With Tesla's popularity in the United States, it is expected to quickly enter the US Robotaxi market.
From a technical perspective, the success of Tesla's Robotaxi business mainly depends on the maturity of its FSD technology. The hardware cost of FSD is not high, and the main investment is in AI and algorithms, which is different from other Robotaxi companies. The cost of sensors such as lidar, the autonomous driving system, and the vehicle itself can even buy a BMW 3 Series.
Source: Shot by Dianchetong
The usage scenario of Robotaxi is closer to "L4 autonomous driving," with a greater emphasis on automation and unmanned operation. Currently, the essence of Tesla's FSD is still L2-level assisted driving technology. Its performance after entering the Chinese market this year has been less than satisfactory, indicating that Tesla's pure vision solution is