Washington has moved to keep tungsten waste and recycled battery material inside its own borders, a step that underscores how deeply critical-minerals policy has become entangled with the broader US-China strategic rivalry.
China's automakers are still betting on a strategy of in-house batteries to complement their complete vehicle lineups, but the push remains hard to execute as profit margins slide and the supply chain stays structurally unbalanced. The challenge comes as upstream miners, refiners, and lithium battery makers capture most of the gains while carmakers face intensifying competition.
Auto parts maker Tung Yang reported July consolidated revenue of NT$2.036 billion, up 23% from a year earlier and a record for the same month. The Taiwanese supplier said cumulative revenue for the first seven months reached NT$13.33 billion as tariff pressure on exports to the US eased and customer orders began to recover.
South Korean cathode materials maker L&F said its subsidiary L&F Plus has shipped the first trial-production samples from South Korea’s first lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials mass-production line. The shipment marked a step toward formal production as the company works to build a non-China supply chain for batteries used in energy storage systems (ESS) and electric vehicles.
As Chinese automakers accelerate in-house chip development, the strategy is increasingly about more than smart vehicles. It is also tied to supply chain self-reliance, overseas expansion, and the longer-term push into artificial intelligence robots, even as advanced chips still rely on external foundries.
RichWave Technology said at a recent earnings call that Wi-Fi 7 adoption continues to rise rapidly, with strong demand from telecom operators and retailers. The radio frequency (RF) front-end supplier said that the second half of 2026 should be slightly better than the first half of the year overall, but warned that tight supply of memory and passive components could affect shipment timing.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has abolished all clauses related to cascade utilization in its rules governing used power batteries dismantled from new-energy vehicles in a major regulatory shift aimed at curbing unsafe repurposing practices. The move ends the policy label for battery second-life use and ushers in a full overhaul of used power battery management.
DIGITIMES Intelligence observed at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) that AI is rapidly reshaping the direction of the automotive industry. Competition in vehicle intelligence is shifting from software-defined vehicle (SDV) function integration towards the development of AI-defined vehicle (AIDV) capabilities, extending automakers' competitive focus from software architecture to AI models, computing platforms, and ecosystem integration.
SK On, the South Korean battery maker, reported the second quarter of 2026 being its highest quarterly profit since its 2021 spinoff from SK Innovation. The company posted revenue of about KRW2.95 trillion (US$1.995 billion) and operating profit of KRW821.8 billion, while The Elec and Bizwatch said LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI also returned to profit in the same period.
According to Automotive News' newly released 2026 Top 100 Suppliers ranking, China's CATL climbed from No. 5 to No. 3 as power batteries gained more weight in the global Tier 1 supplier landscape. The annual list showed that electrification and smart vehicle technologies continued to shift value toward batteries, intelligent electronics, and systems integration, while established suppliers such as Bosch and Denso still held leading positions.
DIGITIMES Intelligence said its observations from the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) show that AI is rapidly reshaping the automotive industry, with smart-car competition shifting from software-defined vehicles (SDV) toward AI-defined vehicles (AIDVs), as the sector moves beyond software upgrades into a new stage driven by AI.
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