On June 26, the 2026 Automobile-Tire Cross-border Development Summit Forum was officially held in Beijing. This forum brought together practitioners and expert representatives from automobile manufacturing, tire production, chemical materials, circulation services and other fields to discuss new paths for the coordinated development of upstream and downstream industries and find feasible directions for industrial upgrading in the post-market era.
Dr. Zhang Mingsen, former chief expert of Sinopec Beijing Research Institute of Chemical Industry, said in his speech at the forum that the automobile industry, as an important pillar industry of the national economy, has achieved remarkable development results in recent years, and has therefore received great attention and policy support at the national level.
The core goal of the “Notice on Several Measures to Cultivate and Expand Consumption in the Automotive Aftermarket” jointly issued by nine major ministries and commissions recently is to remove long-standing unreasonable restrictions in the automotive aftermarket and fully stimulate the development vitality of the automotive aftermarket. This policy is a major long-term benefit for the tire industry and will paint a broader and healthier development prospect for the entire industry.
As the number of domestic automobiles continues to rise and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles continues to increase, the demand for replacement tires in the automotive aftermarket has entered a rapid growth channel. The implementation of the new policy will further open up the blocking points in tire circulation, maintenance, recycling and other links, effectively reduce the channel costs of tire companies, and also drive consumers’ willingness to consume replacement tires, opening up a new incremental market for tire companies.
However, experts at the meeting also reminded that while seeing development opportunities, automobile and tire practitioners must also face up to the challenges that exist in the current industry.
At present, the reshuffle of the traditional automobile manufacturing industry has not yet been completed. The rise of new energy vehicles has attracted a large amount of capital to the track. In the future, the automobile and tire industries will inevitably usher in a new round of industry reshuffle: the global market demand for automobiles and tires is still rising steadily, but excess small and medium-sized production capacity will be gradually eliminated, and industry concentration will continue to increase.
Experts suggest that at the key node of industry reshuffle, upstream and downstream industries need to strengthen cross-border exchanges and collide development ideas. For example, car companies and tire companies can jointly develop low rolling resistance and high wear-resistant special tires suitable for new energy vehicles. Tire manufacturers can also join forces with R&D institutions on the material side to upgrade product performance, jointly contribute wisdom to the high-quality development of the industry, and seize this policy bonus period to achieve leapfrog development of enterprises.
