Nio's founder, chairman, and chief executive, William Li, said on April 24 that the company is accelerating efforts to develop its own automotive chips, part of a broader strategy to sharpen its technological edge, improve margins, and reduce reliance on suppliers such as Nvidia.
The 2026 Beijing International Automotive Exhibition opened on April 24 with a new focal point: the rapid ascent of large language models (LLMs) into the smart cockpit.
For more than a decade, lithium-ion batteries have defined the global power battery market, concentrating technology, capital and supply chains along a single trajectory. That model is now under pressure. Sharp swings in lithium carbonate prices have exposed structural vulnerabilities, forcing the industry to confront a long-ignored question: what happens when the core input cost is no longer predictable?
