Gasgoo Munich-The 2026 TEDA Forum kicked off on Sept. 19 in Tianjin’s Binhai New Area. In her opening address, Zhang Guihua, deputy district head of the Binhai New Area People’s Government, highlighted the region’s status as a cornerstone of China’s auto industry. Binhai is accelerating its shift toward new energy and intelligent connected vehicles, aiming to establish itself as a national powerhouse in the sector.Image Credit: 2026 TEDA ForumZhang noted that Binhai serves as a strategic functional zone for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei collaboration. Anchored by manufacturing, the district’s industrial output from enterprises above designated size exceeded 1.1 trillion yuan, ranking second among national-level new areas. On the automotive front, Binhai has attracted over 1,200 key enterprises, including FAW-Volkswagen, FAW Toyota, Great Wall Motor, and Geely. Total vehicle capacity stands at 1.35 million units, while the auto supply chain generates more than 180 billion yuan in output value.In terms of industrial upgrading, Binhai is driving progress through both innovation and market demand. On the innovation front, the region is leveraging the automotive-grade laboratory at the National Xinhuo Innovation and Entrepreneurship Platform. Partnering with organizations like NXP and CATARC, it is building a national-level specialized cluster for small and medium enterprises focused on automotive-grade chips. This initiative supports a full-chain digital upgrade spanning R&D to manufacturing.On the application side, Binhai is capitalizing on the computing power of the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin and its advantage of fully open intelligent connected vehicle testing roads. The district continues to refine the collaborative architecture of vehicle, road, cloud, network, and map. It is also perfecting the "people-vehicle-home" ecosystem and exploring compatibility paths for smart terminal products and automotive application systems.Zhang revealed the latest data: Empowered by this dual focus on innovation and application, new energy vehicle production in Binhai climbed 38.2% year-on-year in the first half of this year. That growth rate outpaced the national average by 30 percentage points.Looking ahead to the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Zhang pledged that Binhai will continue to optimize its "expert-plus-butler" service model. She welcomed domestic and foreign automakers to invest and expand in the region. Together with industry partners, the aim is to mold Binhai into a nationally influential hub for intelligent connected new energy vehicles — contributing to the broader goal of building China into an automotive powerhouse.
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