Foreign car companies bet on technology to hang onto once-lucrative China auto market

foreign automakers are rushing new tech into china to stop a sales slide. cadillac, hyundai, volkswagen and nissan all announced new models around the beijing auto show that started friday. cadillac launched its first china car with driver-assist — the vistiq, a three-row electric suv priced at 468,000 yuan ($68,000) and 508,800 yuan. the tech was co-developed with chinese startup momenta. cadillac's vp will stacy said sourcing locally cuts production time to 18 months. hyundai officially launched its all-electric ioniq brand in china on friday. ceo josé muñoz said china had fallen from 17% to 4% of hyundai's total sales, so the company had to "reimagine the strategy." hyundai's march china sales were about a third of march 2019. nissan's march china sales were down 47% on march 2019, and cadillac fell 39%. hyundai's new ioniq v uses driver-assist from momenta and a qualcomm snapdragon 8295 chipset for voice control. muñoz said hyundai could export the brand to asia-pacific, australia and the middle east if china sales do well. volkswagen announced it will roll out ai-powered voice commands in china starting in the second half of the year, drawing on tech from tencent, alibaba and baidu. it revealed four cars in beijing, including the id. unyx 09 co-developed with xpeng in two years. hyundai and its partner baic committed 8 billion yuan to a joint venture as of december 2024, planning 20 new models in china over five years with a goal of 500,000 sales annually. alixpartners' stephen dyer said foreign brands are "humble enough" to use chinese tech, but he's less optimistic they'll win back significant market share.