The ongoing 2025 Shanghai Auto Show has set a strong focus on electric and smart vehicles, with more than 100 new cars making their global debuts as the industry powers its way towards a greener and more intelligent future.
The 10-day auto show began in the east China metropolis on Wednesday and has attracted nearly 1,000 enterprises and supply chain enterprises from 26 countries and regions, making it the largest edition in the event's history.
China's auto sector is continuing its rapid growth with production and sales on the rise, while the country's leading carmakers are also incorporating cutting-edge technologies into their vehicles.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, last year, over 57 percent of all new cars were equipped with combined driving assistance functions in China.
This year's auto show has also provided a platform for more companies to showcase their latest innovations and component parts in the auto sector. Many of these firms, specializing in automotive-grade chips, in-car AI models, and power batteries, are debuting their products, positioning them as key players in launching these intelligent technologies to the international market.
Amid this exciting new tech-driven era, automakers attending the Shanghai event have been setting out their vision clearly, highlighting the adoption of advanced technologies while reaffirming their commitment to the safety of both drivers and passengers.
"Safety is the cornerstone of car manufacturing. As the integration of cars and artificial intelligence advances, users' demands for both safety and cost-effectiveness continue to rise. For instance, our vehicles are equipped with built-in roll cages and feature designs like our original armor. These innovative technologies not only enhance the driving experience by making it more enjoyable and user-friendly but also ensure the safety of passengers while maintaining an appealing aesthetic," said Zhang Jianyong, CEO of the BAIC Group, a Beijing-based automobile firm.
Smart cars take center stage as Shanghai Auto Show demonstrates future of driving
Honor's humanoid robot, Lightning, which swept the 2026 Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon on Sunday, is a natural extension of years of accumulation in consumer electronics technology, said its developers.
A leading smart device provider in China, Honor independently developed the model, which dominated the podium at the event as it was used by all three teams whose autonomous navigating robots ran the fastest times.
At the Honor factory in Pingshan District in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province, where robotics engineers developed Lightning. They said the robot's body design incorporates a simulation system that, through artificial intelligence algorithms, can iterate nearly 30,000 design schemes of varying sizes over three months. Complete and mature systems are also in place for battery, communication, and reliability verification.
"We built a simulation lab from scratch. For the robots, we digitize the entire design and put it into a computer. We have our own material library, which can meet the force, thermal, and chemical property demands for each component, under different environments and speeds. We've accumulated about 1000 kinds of materials. For example, if there's a risk with the robot's neck, we just need to change the material code from 001 to 002. Now, through our simulations, we only need one day to perform parallel calculations on 10 different designs, before creating a mold and verifying it in the lab," said Li Zheng, a senior engineer at Honor.
An autonomous robot capable of completing a half-marathon involves a complete industry chain, with core components including high-precision sensors, LiDAR, motors, operating systems, and control algorithms. The development of robotic marathoners have driven an increasing number of component enterprises to get involved.
Manifold, a tech firm established by newly-graduated PhDs, has developed a 3D spatial memory module, which can model an environment in real time and transform it into images that robots can understand. They said several robots running the half-marathon this year adopted their solution.
"Our device can operate within a one-kilometer tunnel with an error margin of only tens of centimeters. For robots, especially in the absence of GPS, this allows them to accurately determine their location. The underlying technology is a multi-sensor fusion technology that we developed in-house," said Qin Youming, CEO and founder of Manifold.
The Beijing Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center set up a training camp for the marathon event. Many university students came a month ahead of the event to develop and debug their technologies and algorithms based on open-source robot bodies, databases, and training platforms.
"These high-quality databases and highly open-source control algorithms are actually very helpful to us. We no longer need to build the house from the ground up, but can skip the most basic part," said Sun Jingyu, a student from Shandong University.
"Through this racing event, I believe we can make our robots more reliable and stable, while also supporting high-dynamic, high-load movements. This is crucial for robots' future application in both industrial, commercial and domestic scenarios," said Guo Yijie, head of the innovative humanoid department and the Marathon project of Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center.
Engineers share development story behind Beijing humanoid half-marathon champion model
