Every minute, one MEGA, Li Auto’s flagship multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) priced at over RMB 500,000, rolls off its production line.

New-energy vehicles (NEVs) epitomize China’s upgrade towards premium, intelligent, and green manufacturing. To date, China’s automotive industry boasts one of the highest numbers of smart factories listed in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s roster of exceptional-level intelligent manufacturing sites. Li Auto’s Beijing factory is one of them. By taking a close look at it, we can better understand the secret behind the rise of China’s NEVs.

A technician is working on the production line.

Sharp-Eyed and Clear-Headed

Located on Tongshun Road in Shunyi District, Beijing, this Li Auto factory is strikingly quiet and tidy, quite a contrast from the typical perception of automotive plants. Numerous unmanned delivery vehicles shuttle between workshops “singing their own tune” (alerting passersby). It is evident that everything in this smart factory operates with high precision, being meticulously orchestrated by a “super brain.”

According to factory head Wang Lei, Li-Mos is the company’s fully self-developed intelligent manufacturing operating system, which was launched in July 2023.

By utilizing Li-Mos to create a full-cycle management system which dictates the manufacturing process for every vehicle from production scheduling to vehicle rollout, Li Auto has become the world’s second automaker (after Tesla) and first in China to develop its own intelligent

manufacturing operating system. The system forms an end-to-end closed-loop management across six major areas: planning, logistics, stamping, welding, painting, and final assembly.

“Li-Mos provides unified management for all kinds of tasks, offering reasonable planning and recommendations at critical stages. It’s much like a 24-hour assistant that never rests,” said Wang. The comprehensive integration which Li-Mos provides connects each element of the manufacturing domain from managing the production and personnel to warehousing and transportation. This enables high-value intelligent applications such as a quality tracking and early warning platform, intelligent quality checks, and unmanned vehicle transferring.

Besides the “super brain,” the factory is also equipped with countless “eyes.”

“The visual system is another highlight of our smart factory. Sensors record and retain every piece of data for each vehicle at every production stage, automatically flagging any quality anomaly on the production line. A single factory generates two terabytes of data daily,” revealed Wang.

Visitors to the plant can watch the installation process of the sunroof for the MEGA series in the final assembly workshop.

The 2.9 square meter sunroof is installed automatically with a visual scanning system, which inspects the adhesive application and ensures quality through the dual visual confirmation. The entire process achieves full automation and is completed in a very short time. The same technique is also applied to the front and rear windshield installation.

The most critical process in the final assembly workshop is the chassis assembly. Employees consider this such a highly ceremonial stage, because it involves the complete integration of the chassis with the vehicle body, that they call it the marriage of the two parts.

Before the assembly begins, the front and rear suspension and battery pack are placed in precise order on a high-precision pallet (0.2 mm precision). The entire assembly process employs a static mechanical integration method with automated tightening installation, to ensure high component alignment.

Guided by Li-Mos, driverless vehicles move effortlessly between workstations in Li Auto’s Beijing factory.

Intelligent Manufacturing

In the welding workshop, there are no flying sparks, fumes, or waves of unbearable heat found in a traditional welding environment. Instead, it is filled with mechanical arms of various sizes moving up and down, cooperating seamlessly with automatically guided vehicles.

The cold-joining technology of aluminum laser seam welding and laser brazing are employed. These two new welding techniques not only reduce the weight of doors and the roof panel by 60 percent and 10 percent respectively, but also achieve ultra-high weld seam precision at the 0.1 mm level.

The welding workshop is equipped with 21 fully automated production lines and 663 robots, enabling the flexible production of four vehicle models simultaneously, with an automation connection rate of 100 percent.

Take the laser welding process as an example, the robotic arms can weld from half a meter away at speeds of up to 200 mm/s, and have a positioning accuracy of up to 0.01 mm (equivalent to one-sixth the diameter of a human hair). Compared with traditional spot welding, the efficiency of laser flying welding can be 4-10 times higher.

According to Wang, the factory in Beijing is a highly advanced, intelligent, and eco-friendly facility, dedicated to producing the most premium models of Li Auto vehicles.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Li Auto. With an annual revenue exceeding RMB 140 billion, it is the first emerging Chinese NEV company to have over RMB 100 billion in annual revenue and achieve profitability. Its cumulative sales has exceeded 1.3 million units, ranking first among Chinese NEV startups.

Targeting the high-end market has always been Li Auto’s aspiration.

For example, the MEGA (produced at the Beijing plant) competes in the price range of RMB 500,000+, long dominated by imported luxury brands. To win over consumers, Li Auto relies on hardcore capabilities in technology, product, and services, all of which are backed by manufacturing prowess.

Besides, Li Auto vehicles are equipped with a “Magic Carpet Air Suspension,” a cutting-edge chassis suspension system comprised of a car body control system made up of multiple sensors, actuators, and an air suspension. It allows the vehicle to ride as comfortably and smoothly as the “magic carpet” in the Aladdin legend.

Before 2022, such features were optional configurations only available on luxury cars from Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.

Leading global suppliers initially doubted Li Auto’s capacity to meet high-end requirements, such as supply volume and rapid iteration. In response, Li Auto collaborated with domestic air spring suppliers to overcome technical hurdles and even assisted in production line design and setup.

Within just two years, Li Auto achieved the highest air spring adoption rate in the industry, catalyzing the scale-up of domestic supply chains and making air spring adoption a popular configuration in high-end domestic NEVs. From a global market perspective, the previous dominance of foreign suppliers has become a thing of the past.

According to Wang, this high-end, intelligent, and eco-friendly factory has now become a popular destination for tourist groups, among which students exhibit the most enthusiasm and are the most attentive listeners when learning about the factory.

“The children are very curious about the factory and find it very intriguing. They’ve probably never seen traditional factories before, so to them, this is what factories look like. Through them, we can glimpse the future of Chinese manufacturing,” said Wang.  

SUN BING is a reporter at China Economic Weekly.