Analysis explores value creation in navigation systems for Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers in Europe, suggesting regulatory reliance on US services.
With the automotive industry shifting towards connectivity and data-driven business models, Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers are emerging as competitors to European brands, driving the development of new value chains across various automotive sub-sectors. Amid these transformations, the article at hand explores the organization and spatiality of value creation for vehicle navigation systems from the perspective of new-generation Chinese EV manufacturers (BYD, NIO, XPeng, and Aiways) expanding into European markets. Drawing on 43 interviews and grounded in global value chain (GVC) and global production network (GPN) theory, the study analyses company strategy, localization, inter-firm relationships, regulations, and power structures in digital GPNs. The findings reveal how value creation is organized in digital automotive GPNs and, more specifically, how regulatory frameworks and the growing significance of data render Chinese automakers reliant on European and US service providers when operating in Europe.
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Stefanov et al. (2025) studied this question.
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