Move signals the official start of Li Auto’s globalisation strategy, though European sales remain off the table for now
Li Auto has taken its first step towards a planned global R&D strategy by opening its first overseas R&D centre in Munich.
The centre, their third in total after Beijing and Shanghai, aims to enable the brand to better tailor their future products to local markets and leverage the international talent pool to further their drive towards full electrification.
Ma Donghui, President and Chief Engineer of Li Auto, said at the launch: “The establishment of the German R&D centre marks the official launch of Li Auto’s globalisation strategy, and also represents Li Auto’s commitment to innovation, collaboration and exploration of technological boundaries.
“It will also implement the concept of win-win, become an innovative bridge integrating global wisdom, and contribute our strength to the prosperity and development of the Sino-German economy,” he added.
In a statement on WeChat, the company said the R&D centre will focus on four major fields of research, including forward-looking design, power semiconductors, intelligent chassis, and electric drive.
Li Auto already operates a design centre in Munich, which was opened in July 2024, and it’s anticipated that it will work closely with the R&D centre to develop future models for European consumption that are developed to local standards and regulations.
In the field of semiconductors, Li Auto has already developed and manufactured the first generation of SiC silicon carbide power modules that offer higher energy conversion efficiency, paving the way for outstanding performance figures on their first fully electric model, the Li MEGA.
Li Auto is also working on the next-generation of intelligent wire-controlled chassis, which could feature technologies such as steer-by-wire, brake-by-wire, and full active suspension.
Currently, the majority of Li Auto sales are extended-range EVs, all SUVs, but this year it’s expected that more fully electric models will join the MEGA in the line-up. These should adopt Li’s self-developed XCU vehicle central domain controller, high-voltage three-in-one electric drive, and the 5C Kirin battery from CATL that Li helped to develop and launched on the MEGA in 2024.
Li Auto claims that nearly half of their current R&D investment goes into the area of artificial intelligence, something we demonstrated in our Li OTA 5.0 video here.
That system has since advanced to OTA 7.0, encompassing Li Intelligent Driving AD Max V13.0, for end-to-end full scenario autonomous driving capability, and MindGPT-3o, the latest version of Li’s in-car artificial intelligence.
Last year the company became the first of China’s start-up NEV (new energy vehicle) brands to reach one million total sales and 500,000 sales in a single year.
