Nio (NYSE: NIO) founder, chairman and CEO William Li disclosed at a Friday media briefing — a day after Nio launched the five-seat ES8 on July 9, 2026 — that the ES8 SUV's per-vehicle cost has risen by nearly 20,000 yuan ($2,950) due to surging raw material prices, according to Sina Tech.
Li said Nio is working with supply chain partners to find ways to offset some of the added costs and is striving to keep vehicle prices stable, as rising raw material costs create sustained pressure for China's EV makers.
Li also noted that in May 2026, Nio's sales surpassed Germany's three major luxury brands across 48 cities and regions in China.
Nio officially launched the 5-seat ES8 SUV on July 9, 2026, offering two trims — Executive Luxury and Executive Signature — with deliveries starting July 10.
Executive Luxury starts at 382,800 yuan ($56,340) with battery included or 274,800 yuan under the BaaS battery-rental scheme, while Executive Signature starts at 422,800 yuan or 314,800 yuan under BaaS, each trim 108,000 yuan cheaper with rental.
The 5-seat starting price is 24,000 yuan (5.9%) below the 406,800-yuan starting price of the 3-row ES8, responding to eased 3-row deliveries last month as buyers held out for the cheaper 5-seat version of Nio's best-selling SUV.
Mercedes-Benz Group announced on July 8, 2026 that it sold 511,900 Cars and Vans in Q2, with sales outside China up 3% year-over-year.
Battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales rose 50% in the quarter, significantly outpacing the group's overall sales growth.
Among the BEV lineup, the Mercedes-Benz VLE 300 electric posts a combined energy consumption of 20.7-18.4 kWh/100 km, zero CO2 emissions, and CO2 class A*, underscoring the efficiency profile behind Mercedes' accelerating electric push.
Weichai Power (HKG:2338) announced on July 10, 2026 that its self-developed WP15 hydrogen direct-injection heavy-duty engine passed full China VI vehicle emission certification on July 3, 2026 at the CATARC Automotive Test Center in Tianjin.
The certification is the first time a heavy-duty hydrogen internal combustion engine, in China or globally, has met the country's stringent China VI emission standard.
Testing covered the complete national heavy-duty engine emission test cycle — cold start, low-speed idling, high-speed full-load, and transient variable-load conditions — verifying the engine's emission performance, reliability and stability under real-world operating scenarios.
NHTSA warned that driverless vehicles fail to recognize traffic cones, smoke, and fire, and cannot safely interact with first responders during emergencies.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk calls driverless vehicles a key engine of the company's future, meaning regulatory setbacks pose a direct threat to Tesla's share price.
Goldman Sachs' autonomous-vehicle growth forecast starts from a base of roughly 1,500 robotaxis operating across 5 U.S. cities today, underscoring how much the industry's expansion still depends on regulatory clearance.
On July 7, 2026 local time, Gasgoo CEO Zhou Xiaoying spoke at the 2026 Europe-China Automotive Industry Cooperation Salon held in Stuttgart, Germany, joining Chinese and European automotive supply-chain representatives and experts to discuss new trends in China's auto sector.
The salon centered on Chinese automakers' accelerating push into the European market and European OEMs' growing interest in deeper cooperation with Chinese partners on new energy vehicles, intelligent technology, and supply chains, providing a face-to-face platform for resource matching and win-win outcomes.
Zhou's keynote, titled "The Next Chapter for China's Auto Industry — From Market Scale Advantage to System-Level Innovation," drew on Gasgoo's industry perspective to frame China's auto sector shift from scale-driven growth toward system-level innovation.
Bentley Motors confirmed the Torcal will be its first battery-electric vehicle and fourth model line, joining the Continental GT, Flying Spur, and Bentayga SUV.
The automaker teased the Torcal with an interior detail image in a July 6, 2026 release and set the full reveal for September 23, 2026.
WardsAuto's July 10, 2026 report (Paul Myles) noted the release dropped several hints confirming the model's electric powertrain, though further technical details were not disclosed in the excerpt available.
On July 9, 2026, Xiaomi (HKEX: 1810) released the first interior images and a high-definition side profile of the debut model in its Sky Nomad series, revealing rotating front-row seats and a settable in-car "bar counter," while opening the vehicle for reservation inquiries the same day.
Sky Nomad is Xiaomi's second product series after the SU7/YU7 lineup, and this SUV is its first model, which Xiaomi positions as an "intelligent, transformable large-space SUV."
On July 8, 2026, Autoliv and XPENG Group formally signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement in Guangzhou, deepening collaboration across technical synergy, digitalization, low-carbon sustainability, new technology development, and global support.
Autoliv EVP and CTO Fabien Dumont said the tie-up moves beyond a traditional supplier relationship toward co-creation and joint development, with Autoliv's China team committed to supporting every new XPENG product with agile response and engineering resilience.
Autoliv, the world's largest automotive safety supplier with roughly 44-45% of the global passive safety market, 25 countries of operations, 65 production bases and 13 R&D centers, deepens this partnership as XPENG accelerates its 'Physical AI + Globalization' strategy.
New Jersey has proposed a bill to launch a three-year pilot program for testing and deploying fully autonomous vehicles statewide, with a vote expected later this year; it would require such vehicles to be equipped with cameras plus two additional types of sensors, a mandate that conflicts with Tesla's camera-only autonomy hardware strategy.
Before companies can remove human safety monitors, the bill requires at least 50,000 miles of supervised testing on New Jersey roads without a major incident, plus mandatory reporting of certain crashes and state approval before any commercial robotaxi service can launch.
Because Tesla CEO Elon Musk has insisted on a camera-only sensor suite for the company's robotaxi ambitions, this multi-sensor mandate could effectively keep Tesla's robotaxis out of New Jersey unless it changes its hardware approach, highlighting a widening gap between Tesla's vision-only bet and regulators' growing preference for multi-sensor redundancy in autonomous driving.
Waymo's Ojai, the company's first vehicle purpose-built as a robotaxi, launched on California streets last month (June 2026), and each ride is currently free because Waymo still lacks California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approval to charge passengers.
Waymo, an Alphabet subsidiary, filed with the CPUC in January 2026 to expand paid service, but the review has been delayed by unresolved questions such as how the vehicles respond in emergencies and how to prevent unaccompanied minors from riding; the CPUC has extended its review deadline to September 25, 2026, though it says a decision could come sooner.
The episode shows how a single state regulator's safety sign-off — not vehicle readiness — currently gates when and where a robotaxi fleet can start generating fare revenue, a bottleneck any autonomous-vehicle operator scaling commercial service must clear.
NHTSA has issued a warning to robotaxi companies requiring them to ensure their vehicles do not obstruct first responders, with compliance changes mandated by the end of this month.
The warning lands as Waymo, owned by Alphabet, prepares to expand its robotaxi service to San Diego, Las Vegas, Tampa, and Denver in the coming weeks.
Waymo has recently faced a voluntary recall of nearly 3,900 robotaxis after software issues caused vehicles to enter freeway construction zones, according to a CNBC report.
Tanzania's richest businessman Mohammed Dewji's MeTL Group will invest about $275 million in graphite mining, with commercial production targeted within 18 months.
The graphite output is aimed at supplying the growing EV battery market, alongside a parallel push into luxury tourism, as part of MeTL's plan to grow annual revenue to $10 billion by 2035.
The bet reflects a broader wave of African investment aimed at capturing supply-chain value as automakers worldwide race to lock in critical battery minerals for electrification.
