Linyi's new-energy commercial vehicle chain: from no local base to vehicles shipped abroad

Linyi's new-energy commercial vehicle industry has moved, in about three years, from having no local assembly base to shipping complete vehicles to overseas markets, a shift local officials attribute less to any single investment than to the way the supply chain itself was assembled.

The sector now counts 73 enterprises above designated size, with output value reaching 17.4 billion yuan ($2.45 billion) in 2025, up 27.9 percent year-on-year, and 16.8 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2026.

The turning point was the arrival of a complete-vehicle manufacturer. Chery Commercial Vehicle signed with Linyi to build a production base, which gave component suppliers a customer within trucking distance and made it viable for them to relocate or expand locally. Leichi New Energy has since rolled more than 30,000 vehicles off its lines, and Luoxiang Vehicle has become a base for semi-trailers with annual capacity of 30,000 units.

The chain that formed around these anchor firms is what local planners call a "chain-chief" system, in which a designated official is responsible for identifying missing links and recruiting the firms that fill them, rather than waiting for the market to produce them.

Wang Xinchao, an official with the city's industry and information technology bureau, said the approach has shortened the time between identifying a gap and closing it.

Guo Feiyue, a researcher at a Linyi-based industry institute, said the next stage is harder. "Assembling a chain is a matter of investment and land," Guo said. "Making it competitive is a matter of technology, and that is not something a local government can buy."

The city said it will focus on core components — battery packs, electric drive systems, electronic controls — where local firms still depend on suppliers outside Shandong, and on testing and certification capacity that would let local products meet export standards without going through laboratories in other provinces.

Editor：韩蒙蒙