China’s 40-Year Quest to Build a Car to Call its Own: Where is the Innovation?

ABSTRACT Over the last several decades, China has developed itself to a large manufacturer and started its way to be an innovator. In this article, we are interested in whether China is on the right track of making true innovation in automobile industry. Through a micro view, we looked at the history of the automobile industry and went through specific firm cases like NIO and BYD. As software and electronic vehicle (EV) become more essential to automotive business, technology firms enter automobile industry; China has an opportunity to compete with other global automakers if it can catch this important industry change. Nevertheless, in the future we can explore more questions like how strong China can be in doing original innovation compared to other countries.