The success of motorcycle brand ZXMOTO is inseparable from China's strong manufacturing industry, said its founder Zhang Xue, adding that the key to getting ahead lies in staying on your own path and making the best of your strengths.
On March 28-29, French rider Valentin Debise, racing on ZXMOTO's 820RR-RS, won both Race 1 and Race 2 in the World SSP category at the Portimao circuit in Portugal, which runs as a support class in the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) and features production-based bikes of 600cc or more.
This marks a historic breakthrough for high-end, Chinese auto manufacturing, as WSBK has long been dominated by established European and Japanese marques such as Ducati and Yamaha. ZXMOTO's triumph is a powerful symbol of China's growing prowess in producing high-performance motorcycles.
ZXMOTO was officially established in April 2024. Three months later, the company secured 20 million yuan (2.93 million US dollars) in angel round funding. In January 2026, it received a further 90 million yuan (nearly 13.2 million US dollars) in Series A funding. With this financial support, the research and development of high-performance, large-displacement engines proceeded smoothly.
Since its creation just two years ago, ZXMOTO has successfully developed and mass-produced two high-performance engines independently, completely breaking the long-term monopoly of Europe, America, and Japan in the field of medium and large displacement high-performance motorcycle engines.
"In the future, Chinese brands will capture 50 percent of the global high-end brand market. I'm talking about a not-too-distant future, maybe two or three years. But some people still don't believe it. They think those long-established top brands are truly divine. Actually, they're just like us, only they've been through more pitfalls," Zhang said.
Zhang said their advantage lies in lightweight and high-performance technologies, which are extremely important in the racing field.
"When it comes to motors, especially sports motors, my advantages are very obvious. For utility vehicles, there are not many requirements for reducing weight, but for super racing motorcycles for Formula 1 events, the weight requirements are extremely high. That's where our advantage comes in," he said.
Zhang said as newcomers to the scene, the attention from established top brands also added extra pressure.
"When our motorcycle was released, before the race even started, various people from other brands--whether they were heads of departments or research and development managers--were all taking a close look at our product. These were all super-large companies, absolute top brands in the industry," Zhang said.
Zhang attributed his success to China's strong manufacturing industry and the robust talent pool.
"China has the most complete range of manufacturing sectors. Actually, I've said this many times, not just after this victory, but many years ago: for any part of a vehicle, as long as the blueprints come to China, we can produce it 100 percent of the time, and no inferior to Europe, America, or Japan. Without this, I do not even dare to imagine our success today. This is the most important condition. Another crucial factor is talent. Without talent, even if I had three heads and six arms, it wouldn't be possible to do all the work, and neither could I master all this knowledge all by myself," he said.
Chinese motorcycle brands to grab half of global high-end market in 3 years: ZXMOTO founder
