Alex Huang, Teague’s Director of Mobility, has attended dozens of auto shows around the world— but this year, he brought a specific lens to the 2026 Beijing Auto Show: software-defined vehicles and what China’s mobility ecosystem means for the rest of the world. Alongside him was Elise Valoe, Teague’s Director of Research and Strategy, attending for the first time and focused on understanding how Chinese OEMs are designing around real human behavior, not just engineering specs.

The show did not disappoint. The scale is staggering — hundreds of vehicles, packed crowds, and an energy that is hard to describe without standing on the floor. But beyond the spectacle, the team came away with a clearer picture of where the automotive industry is heading, and what that means for design.

The scale alone is impressive, but what makes it truly compelling is the energy on the floor — packed crowds, high consumer engagement, and excitement around what’s next.

Here’s what stood out most, according to Alex and Elise.

1. Chinese OEMs are redefining what luxury means.

We noticed immediately that the premium SUV segment has fundamentally shifted. Vehicles like the NIO ES9, Li Auto L9, and Aito M9 don’t compete on brand heritage — they compete on experience. These are massive, technology-loaded, beautifully appointed vehicles that undercut European luxury pricing by 50% or more.

What struck us most was the focus on every passenger, not just the driver. We saw true three-row parity — third-row seats that recline up to 135 degrees, lounge-like configurations, and comfort features that would feel at home in a business-class cabin. This is not a feature checklist. It reflects a genuine understanding that Chinese consumers have low tolerance for trade-offs. If you buy a premium vehicle, every seat should feel premium.

The takeaway for us: luxury is no longer about who made it. It’s about how completely it delivers an experience. That’s a challenge to every legacy automaker.

2. AI in the cabin has moved from novelty to co-pilot.

Across the show, we saw AI shift from a feature demo into something that felt genuinely embedded in the vehicle experience. NIO’s NOMI assistant has grown noticeably more conversational and contextually aware — less a parlor trick, more a presence. Li Auto showed multi-agent intelligence where different zones of the cabin respond to different passengers simultaneously. Volkswagen, in partnership with Chinese chipmaker Horizon Robotics, demonstrated AI agents that can execute real-world tasks like ordering coffee or managing routines. Huawei showed collision-reduction systems that operate with minimal driver input.

The best implementations we saw felt transparent and predictable. The weaker ones felt like they were doing things without telling you why. 

What we came away thinking about is trust. These systems only work if people believe in them. The best implementations we saw felt transparent and predictable. The weaker ones felt like they were doing things without telling you why. That gap — between a system that feels like a co-pilot and one that feels like an intrusion — is a design problem, not a technology problem.

We also heard a candid reality check on global expansion: many of these SDV platforms lose significant functionality outside of China. ADAS features degrade, OTA updates break, remote control capabilities disappear. The software is deeply entangled with China’s local digital ecosystem in ways that don’t transfer. Designing for regional ecosystems isn’t optional — it’s the work.

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3. The car is becoming a room.

The cabin experience section of the show was where we felt the most genuine design ambition. These vehicles aren’t just comfortable — they are being designed as multi-mode living spaces. The Li Auto Mega had lounge-style seating, large-format screens, and immersive audio clearly intended for family movie nights, not just commutes. The Aito M9’s Zero Gravity seats use a 121-degree recline angle engineered to minimize body pressure, with massage, leg rests, and near-flat sleep positioning.

NIO showed camping integrations — in-car sleep configurations and vehicle-to-load power for off-grid use. At first glance it sounds like a niche feature. But it points to something real: people are spending more time in their vehicles, and they want those environments to adapt to them.

The insight isn’t that these vehicles have more features. It’s that the best ones have fewer friction points between modes. The transition from ‘driving’ to ‘resting’ to ‘watching something together’ feels designed, not bolted on. That is a harder problem than it looks.

4. The best battery is one you stop thinking about.

Battery specs were everywhere, and the numbers are genuinely impressive — most flagship EVs now advertise 800–1,000 km of range. CATL’s Shenxing battery pushes past 1,000 km and claims a near-full charge in under seven minutes. BYD showed fast charging that works at -20°C, going from 20% to 97% in roughly 12 minutes.

But what we found more interesting was NIO’s battery swap demonstration. Three minutes. Full swap. More than 3,500 stations across China, many positioned directly off highways. It reframes the entire energy access problem — not as charging infrastructure, but as a service layer. You don’t wait. You swap and go.

The observation we kept returning to: the most meaningful battery innovation isn’t the one with the longest range. It’s the one that removes energy from the driver’s mental load entirely. That’s the design goal worth pursuing.

5. Mobility is leaving the road.

You might not expect eVTOLs to be such a visible presence at an auto show, but there were plenty. XPeng AeroHT’s “Land Aircraft Carrier” — a ground vehicle that deploys a personal eVTOL — drew consistent crowds. EHang showed autonomous passenger drones aimed at short urban hops.

What stood out wasn’t any single vehicle — it was the range of use cases being explored. Some are personal and recreational. Others are urban and shared. The category is still early and somewhat undefined, but the direction is clear: the people building the future of ground transportation are also building the future of air transportation, and they see those as the same problem.

What we took home.

The through line across everything we saw is that the most compelling vehicles at this show were the ones that felt genuinely designed for the people using them — not adapted from a global platform, but built around how mobility is actually lived in this market.

Chinese OEMs are delivering feature-rich, technology-forward, human-centered vehicles at jaw-droppingly low price points. That combination is hard to compete with. And as these companies push toward global markets, the design and research questions they’ll have to answer — how do you translate a deeply local experience for a different culture? — are exactly the ones we spend our time on.
It's a good reminder that the best design research doesn't predict the future — it helps you understand the present clearly enough to act on it. There's no shortage of that work right now.