Behind US$85.45 billion, China’s transportation is heading towards “infinite possibilities”

On the afternoon of November 10, it was the last few hours before the closing of the 9th China International Import Expo (hereinafter referred to as the "CIIE"). In the automobile and smart travel exhibition area of ​​the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), people are still there.

Parked at Yufeng Future's booth was a silver-gray aircraft, two tons, manned, with the hatch open. The queue stretched from the booth to the corner of the aisle. Some people leaned in while holding on to the hatch, while others held up their mobile phones to take pictures of the sloping skylight in the cockpit. It's called M1, and it's the only manned eVTOL unveiled as a real machine at this year's CIIE—audiences prefer to call it an "air taxi." "From here, it takes at least 15 minutes to reach Zhangjiang, Lingang, Jinshan, or downtown Suzhou." The staff said this sentence again and again. Some people in the queue exclaimed after hearing this, while others raised their phones a little higher.

In this "Automobile and Smart Travel Exhibition Area" with an area of ​​25,000 square meters, there are several answers to future travel.

One is the more "green" answer. At the Michelin booth, sustainable material tires made of plastic bottles, rice husks, cashew nut shells, etc. attracted onlookers. Ye Fei, president and CEO of Michelin Greater China and Mongolia, said that the proportion of renewable and recycled materials in the tires they displayed in 2021 will be 46%, and this year it will reach 75%. "The CIIE has witnessed our continued breakthroughs in green innovation of materials."

Not far away, carbon fiber recovered from retired car parts is "recycled" and turned into inner door panels and interior parts; white carbon black converted from burned rice husks becomes a reinforcing material for green tires. Audi brought a pure electric SUV, Beijing Hyundai’s C-class pure electric coupe made its debut, Toyota pushed the hydrogen fuel cell combined heat and power system from concept to practical demonstration, and Hyundai Motor exhibited a new generation of hydrogen fuel cell system... Carbon reduction is extending from a complete vehicle to a tire and a gram of carbon black.

One is the more "smart" answer. The AI ​​smart cockpit can remember the preferences of multiple occupants. As soon as a person gets in the car, the seats, air conditioning, and audio and video are automatically adapted. Intelligent sensing technology analyzes the tire's grip, load, tire pressure, and wear status in real time to predict potential risks such as air leakage, providing a basis for chassis control and predictive maintenance. An embodied robot that can accurately assemble auto parts stands in the center of the booth, and its robotic arm is more stable than human hands when it rises and falls.

BMW exhibited its sixth-generation large cylindrical battery cell technology, and LG New Energy participated in the exhibition for the first time, bringing its latest battery products and forward-looking technologies. The number of technical routes is also increasing, with pure electric, plug-in hybrid, extended range, and hydrogen energy advancing simultaneously. Multinational car companies have moved their latest electrification solutions and local research and development results to Shanghai.

"Chinese consumers, especially the younger generation, have a lot of requirements for new technologies, so the market is first in China." This sentence of Xu Daquan, President of Bosch China, is recognized by many peers. The market is here, and so is the research and development: Volkswagen's Hefei R&D center has more than 3,000 R&D personnel, and the new generation vehicle platform, electronic and electrical architecture, and intelligent driving technology are all developed in China; Tesla has signed more than 400 local first-tier suppliers in China, more than 60 of which have entered its global supply chain system. Above the booth are the exhibits, and below the booth are the chains—this is perhaps the most easily overlooked and most solid value of the CIIE.

The highlight of transportation is not only in the exhibition hall. Stepping out of the "four-leaf clover", an integrated transportation support system is in operation with rail transit as the backbone, chartered passenger transport as the main force, ground buses as the support, taxis as the auxiliary, and parking management as the basis. The entire rail transit network has completed the transformation of bank card quick pass, supporting UnionPay, VISA and other foreign card quick pass and digital renminbi payment; "Sui Shen Bank" has launched a Chinese and English bilingual smart travel assistant "Xiaojiao", which can guide, make reservations, and connect, and specializes in exhibition halls. "The Last 100 Meters" path-finding problem; the newly built integrated traffic command platform has added 21 temporary intelligent sensing points, integrating taxis, buses, ground passenger flow and road traffic into "one screen", allowing dispatching to shift from experience-driven to data-driven.

People come and orders come. A total of 162 countries, regions and international organizations participated in this CIIE, and 4,142 companies participated in the exhibition. The overall exhibition area exceeded 440,000 square meters for the first time, of which the enterprise exhibition area reached 370,000 square meters for the first time. There were more than 300 Fortune 500 and industry leading companies. There were 485 representative debut, first show, and first exhibition exhibits. The intended transaction amount in one year was US$85.45 billion, an increase of 2.3% over the previous session. Five core data hit a record high.

It is worth noting that the Shanghai Trading Group organized nearly 15,000 companies and 122,000 buyers to participate in the conference, with an intended transaction volume of US$11.2 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.47%, ranking first among local trading groups for nine consecutive years. At the same time, there are 155 kinds of commodities that are intended to be purchased for the first time, with an amount of US$2.9 billion. Why do these numbers relate to “traffic”? Because behind a car, an airplane, or a battery are investments, production lines, R&D centers, and the attraction of a very large-scale market to global industries.

This year is the first year of the "15th Five-Year Plan", and "continuously hosting the International Import Expo" has been written into the outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan"; this CIIE is also an important economic and diplomatic event held after the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Against the background of rising uncertainty in the world economy and the rise of unilateralism, China has set up this "open long table" for nine consecutive years. What it provides is not slogans, but predictable orders, connectable rules, and implementable cooperation. On the closing day, preparations for the 10th CIIE have been started simultaneously. 143 companies and institutions have signed contracts, with an exhibition area of ​​more than 100,000 square meters.

The scene at Toyota's booth may better illustrate the development process of China's transportation: on the left is a second-generation Crown that was first imported to China in 1964, and on the right is the plan of the Lexus Jinshan factory - to be put into production in 2027. From the definition stage, pure electric models have been based on the needs of the Chinese market.

More than 60 years ago, a car was shipped from overseas; now, a factory is built from scratch in Shanghai. From "selling to China" to "defining for China", the consensus of global transportation giants has changed. Behind the US$85.45 billion in intended transaction volume at the CIIE, China is no longer just the largest sales destination in the global transportation industry, but is also becoming a key node in technology definition and ecological construction.

China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter Zhang Zhenqi

Source: China Youth Daily

November 13, 2026 Version 03