In the first installment of "China Solution to the World: In-Depth Research on the Rise of China's Automotive Supply Chain," titled "Top 100 List | Global Automotive Tier 1s Are Undergoing a Massive Power Shift," we started with the changes in the Global Top 100 Automotive Parts Suppliers list to observe the upward movement of Chinese suppliers in the global industrial chain.
But rankings are merely the result. What is truly worth questioning is: what exactly has happened to the capabilities underpinning this shift?
The intelligent chassis provides an excellent window for observation.
On one hand, Chinese suppliers are beginning to enter core areas such as braking, steering, and suspension, which previously had extremely high barriers to entry. On the other hand, international Tier 1s like Robert Bosch GmbH and ZF Friedrichshafen AG are relocating more R&D, engineering, and first-launch validations to China, and then taking the results global.
This transformation is far from reaching a "game over" stage. But the old landscape has already begun to shift.
A Supplier with Annual Revenue of About 20 Million RMB Has Brought EMB to Mass-Production Vehicles
If we turn back the clock five years, it would be hard to imagine that a crucial mass-production breakthrough in next-generation braking systems would come from a Chinese company with an annual revenue of only about 20 million RMB—Zuobiaoji.
In April 2026, the Chery Exeed EX7, equipped with Zuobiaoji's intelligent EMB (Electromechanical Brake), entered mass production.
EMB (brake-by-wire) is not a technical term that easily resonates with ordinary consumers. Simply put, after stepping on the brake in a traditional car, the braking force needs to be transmitted to the wheels via a hydraulic system; EMB goes a step further by eliminating structures such as brake fluid and hydraulic pipelines, directly generating braking force through wheel-end motors.
After more than a century of automotive development, braking is truly moving towards "pure electronic control."
This is also the next-generation technology that global parts giants like Robert Bosch GmbH, Continental AG, and ZF Friedrichshafen AG are all competing for. But this time, a Chinese company whose scale is far from comparable to traditional global Tier 1s has taken the lead in bringing it to mass-produced passenger vehicles.
This is not the only counter-intuitive event in 2026.
NIO ET9 has integrated steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, and fully active suspension into its SkyRide chassis, with the steer-by-wire system provided by ZF Friedrichshafen AG eliminating the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels. ZF officially calls the ET9 the first mass-production vehicle in China equipped with a true steer-by-wire system.
Subsequently, around the Beijing Auto Show, another wave of intensive technology rollouts occurred: the Denza Z convertible version is equipped with BYD's full-stack self-developed steer-by-wire system; the all-new generation Li Auto L9 Livis integrates steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, EMB, and active suspension into a single chassis system; and XPeng GX is also advancing the integration of steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, brake-by-wire, and air suspension.
The technical routes chosen by different companies are not entirely identical, but the directions are highly similar: braking, steering, and suspension are shifting from mechanical control to electronic control, and then from independent actuators to the integration of longitudinal, lateral, and vertical dynamics.
Moreover, Chinese automakers are not the only protagonists.
ZF's steer-by-wire was first mass-produced with the ET9; Robert Bosch GmbH explicitly forecasts that by 2032, its cumulative sales of brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire will exceed 7 billion euros.
For the chassis industry, this shift is particularly worth noting.
Cockpits can swap chips, and autonomous driving can iterate algorithms, but braking and steering allow no room for casual trial and error. A car can crash and reboot, but brakes cannot. This is why, over the past few decades, the core chassis market has always been one of the deepest "heartlands" for traditional global Tier 1s.
But the shift to x-by-wire has reopened a door.
As mechanical connections begin to be replaced by electronic signals, chassis competition, in addition to mechanics, materials, and tuning, now adds actuators, software, functional safety, and motion control algorithms.
A company with 20 million RMB in revenue taking the lead in mass-producing EMB does not mean it already has the strength to challenge Bosch.
But at least, the door to enter the poker table has been reopened.
Why Are Brake Manufacturers Suddenly Starting to Make Steering and Suspension?
If you look at the product catalogs of today's Chinese intelligent chassis companies, you will find an interesting phenomenon: everyone is starting to "step out of their lane."
Bethel originally had braking as its most core business. Now, in addition to basic braking, WCBS (Wire-Controlled Brake System), and EMB, it has also entered electric power steering, steer-by-wire, air suspension, and even ADAS.
Baolong initially built its market advantage through TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System), later entered the sensor field, and has now become a major domestic supplier of air suspension.
Gleeb has progressed from One-box to EMB, air suspension, and chassis domain controllers; Chenzhi Technology has also covered brake-by-wire, steer-by-wire, and suspension-by-wire.
Why is everyone crossing boundaries?
The answer lies in the three most basic directions of vehicle motion: braking controls longitudinal movement, steering controls lateral movement, and suspension controls vertical movement.
In the traditional automotive era, the three systems were relatively independent; automakers could procure them separately and then complete vehicle matching. But with the shift to x-by-wire, these three walls are beginning to fall.
Take a high-speed emergency obstacle avoidance, for example.
Future intelligent vehicles can simultaneously change the steering angles of the front and rear wheels, independently control the braking force of the four wheels, and then suppress body roll through active suspension. The car only completes one task—dodging the obstacle—but behind it, steering, braking, and suspension may be invoked simultaneously.
At this point, if a supplier only understands braking, it will be difficult to determine how the car should ultimately "move."
Therefore, Bethel moving from braking to steering and suspension, and Gleeb bundling actuators with chassis domain controllers, are not simply about adding a few products.
What they want to seize is the system entry point for the next-generation chassis.
New companies like Zuobiaoji Intelligent provide another path: since it is difficult to compete head-on with century-old Tier 1s in the already mature hydraulic braking market, they bet directly on EMB to fight for a position when the technology restarts.
As a result, several types of companies are beginning to converge in the same direction: segment leaders are extending from advantageous single products to systems, traditional chassis companies are spanning multiple fields from one domain, and new companies are entering the next-generation architecture by leveraging technology upgrades.
Ultimately, an increasingly clear upgrade path is formed: components → actuators → systems → domain control → whole-vehicle motion control.
This is also the biggest difference between this round of competition and past "domestic substitution."
The question in the past was: if a foreign product sells for 1,000 RMB, can a Chinese company make it for 700 RMB while achieving similar performance and quality?
Now the question is beginning to become:
What kind of chassis does the next-generation vehicle need?
After the autonomous driving system provides the trajectory, who is responsible for making a two- or three-ton car execute it precisely?
The perception system is responsible for seeing the world, and the autonomous driving algorithm is responsible for deciding "how to go," but it is still the chassis that ultimately completes acceleration, braking, steering, and attitude adjustment.
Competition is shifting from "who can make good parts" to "who can control the car well."
This is where Chinese suppliers can truly change the rankings of global Tier 1s.
Because the rules for the next-generation chassis have not yet been fully written.
Chinese Suppliers Have Captured 91.4% of the Business That Once Belonged to Million-RMB Luxury Cars
But there is another question: why has this round of technological changes occurred so intensively in China?
Air suspension might be the most realistic answer.
Ten years ago, when air suspension was mentioned, people most easily thought of luxury models like the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, BMW 7 Series, and Audi A8. It was expensive, had limited installation volumes, and the core supply system was long dominated by international companies.
But in China's NEV (New Energy Vehicle) market, this technology has rapidly trickled down.
According to the ADAS configuration database of Gasgoo Research Institute, in the first half of 2026, in China's passenger car air suspension standard equipment market, three local suppliers—Konghui Technology, Tuopu, and Baolong—collectively accounted for 91.4% of the market share.
China did not invent air suspension, but in just a few years, the Chinese market has re-industrialized this technology.
The initial driving force came from automakers.
In the NEV era, things that traditional luxury cars were best at using to establish differentiation, such as engines and transmissions, have been significantly weakened. New brands need new reasons to prove why a car is worth 300,000 or 400,000 RMB. Beyond intelligent cockpits and advanced driver-assistance systems, chassis configurations like air suspension and rear-wheel steering have become new competitive focal points.
Adoption by more models means local suppliers get more orders; as scale expands, manufacturing costs drop; after costs drop, automakers dare to put air suspension on lower-priced models; and installation volumes continue to increase accordingly.
Demand—installation—scale—cost reduction—more installation. Once the flywheel starts spinning, what local suppliers get is not just market share.
Different models have different weights, wheelbases, and suspension structures, and different automakers have different requirements for comfort and sportiness. What a large number of mass-production projects bring is the rapid accumulation of engineering experience in matching, calibration, reliability, and manufacturing consistency.
When overseas customers start looking for more cost-competitive air suspension solutions, Chinese suppliers hold not just a cheaper quote, but also data and experience derived from a massive number of mass-production projects.
This is why 91.4% is more worthy of attention than a simple "increase in localization rate."
It demonstrates the Chinese market's ability to rapidly turn cutting-edge or high-end configurations into scaled industrial products.
In 2025, the total export volume of China's auto parts reached 59.051 billion USD, of which the export volume of braking systems alone reached 8.119 billion USD, second only to body parts. It needs to be emphasized that this 8.119 billion USD includes a large amount of traditional braking components and does not equal the export scale of intelligent chassis, but it shows that China's chassis industry going global already has a quite massive manufacturing and trade foundation.
What is truly worth observing next is: will the path already taken by air suspension be replicated in One-box, rear-wheel steering, active suspension, or even EMB?
Especially EMB.
Today, it is still in the early stage of industrialization, and issues such as reliability, cost, and scaled manufacturing are far from being completely resolved. Precisely because of this, whoever can take the lead in securing more mass-production models will have the opportunity to discover problems earlier, modify products, and amortize costs.
This is also where the Chinese market is unique.
The massive NEV market, fierce configuration competition, increasingly short vehicle development cycles, and a group of automakers willing to try new technologies all converge. Here, new technologies not only need to be "made," but also must quickly answer three questions:
Can it be put into the car?
Can it be stably delivered in hundreds of thousands of sets?
Can the price continue to drop?
In the past, what the Chinese supply chain was best at was making mature technologies cheaper.
The increasingly important capability today is to turn technologies that are not yet fully mature into scaled products faster.
And this set of capabilities is attracting not just Chinese suppliers.
When Foreign Tier 1s Start Selling "R&D in China" Back to the World
In the past, multinational Tier 1s had a very mature model in China.
Germany, the US, and Japan were responsible for forward-looking R&D and product definition, while China was responsible for manufacturing; later, as the Chinese market became increasingly important, multinational companies began to build local R&D teams, but a large amount of work still revolved around adapting global products to better suit Chinese customers.
Now, this division of labor is beginning to change.
In August 2025, ZF Friedrichshafen AG announced that its first active rear-wheel steering project, led in design and development by its Chinese team, has commenced production in Zhangjiagang.
What is truly worth noting is not just another production line.
ZF itself specifically emphasized that this is the first mass-production project in its rear-wheel steering business led by the Chinese team, breaking through the traditional model of adopting mature global design solutions and then conducting industrial validation in China.
Chinese engineers are beginning to move from "localization" to "building products from scratch."
Steer-by-wire is even more typical.
ZF's steer-by-wire commenced production in Zhangjiagang in the first quarter of 2025 and was first equipped on the NIO ET9; since then, the company has continued to expand related capacity in Zhangjiagang, not only to meet Chinese customers but also explicitly targeting domestic and international markets. Meanwhile, ZF has already secured orders from Mercedes-Benz, planning to bring this technology into the European market.
Thus, a very interesting question arises: If a German company, with deep R&D participation from a Chinese team, first mass-produces and validates in China, and then moves to Europe, is it considered German technology or a "China Solution"?
Robert Bosch GmbH is also undergoing similar changes.
X-by-wire technology has become its core future growth direction. Bosch forecasts that by 2032, cumulative sales of brake-by-wire and steer-by-wire will exceed 7 billion euros. At the same time, China is no longer just a sales market for these new technologies, but also a crucial site for R&D, engineering, and co-defining products with local automakers.
On the other side, Chinese suppliers are also going global.
Bethel has established R&D centers in the US and Germany, built production bases in Mexico, and continues to advance new overseas manufacturing layouts; Baolong's business and manufacturing networks have entered markets such as the US, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Thailand.
This is not the same as the simple "parts export" of the past.
The threshold to truly become a global Tier 1 has never been about loading a batch of parts onto a ship and sending them to Germany, but rather whether one can enter the platform development system of global automakers, complete R&D, validation, manufacturing, and delivery locally, and bear the responsibilities that a system supplier should bear.
Therefore, the so-called "the old landscape of intelligent chassis is being rewritten" does not mean that Chinese companies have already taken the majority share of the global market.
The change is happening at a deeper level.
On one hand, Chinese suppliers are beginning to enter the core heartlands of traditional global Tier 1s such as braking, steering, and suspension; on the other hand, international Tier 1s are beginning to incorporate China into their global R&D and technology output systems.
The unidirectional industrial division of labor in the past—"R&D in Europe and the US, manufacturing in China, global sales"—is turning into an increasingly complex two-way flow.
This is perhaps what is truly worth noting about the "China Solution to the World."
In the first installment of this series, what we saw from the Global Top 100 Tier 1 list was the result—an increase in the number of Chinese suppliers, rising rankings, and the shifting seats of traditional giants.
What is seen in this article on intelligent chassis is a deeper layer of reasons behind the list.
The real changes happening in the Chinese supply chain are not just about companies getting larger and larger, nor just about the domestic substitution rate getting higher and higher.
It is that while the next-generation technical routes are not yet fully determined, some Chinese companies have already taken their seats at the table in advance; at the same time, global giants are also beginning to use the Chinese market, Chinese engineers, and the Chinese supply chain to define next-generation products.
The watershed of the so-called "China Solution to the World" is perhaps also here: it is not about Chinese companies making things that have already been done abroad a bit cheaper, but rather when what the next-generation car should look like is not yet fully determined, Chinese companies, Chinese engineers, and the Chinese market have already begun to participate in answering this question.
From entering the global supply chain to participating in defining the global supply chain—this may be the old landscape that is truly being rewritten in the global race for intelligent chassis.