Who Does the Car Belong To? New Boundaries in the AIV Era | This Week's CHINA CASE Deep Dive
Weekly China Automotive Industry News Commentary
August 10, 2026 – August 16, 2026
This is a report based on a slightly edited version of the video content.
You are driving on a beautiful road in Europe in your brand-new EV. Suddenly, a strong warning appears on the in-car screen, and some smart features become unavailable.
It is not a malfunction.
The manufacturer's system detected a long-term stay abroad and suspected the possibility of theft or illegal export.
It sounds like a scene from a sci-fi movie, but this is an incident actually experienced by a legitimate owner of a ZEEKR vehicle in China.
In this CHINA CASE Deep Dive, using this "overseas lock" incident as a starting point, we will look at how the traditional boundaries of ownership, development, sales, and branding are beginning to waver in the Chinese market, where AI has begun to redefine the automobile itself.
An era where manufacturers intervene in the cars of legitimate owners
The ZEEKR case was not a simple system failure.
When an owner who purchased the vehicle legitimately in China was traveling in Europe with their own car, the system detected that the vehicle had been outside of China for an extended period. A safety protection function designed to prevent theft, smuggling, and unauthorized export was activated.
According to ZEEKR, core driving functions such as propulsion and braking were not stopped, and the "vehicle itself was not locked."
However, a strong warning was displayed on the in-car screen, and some smart features were restricted. The warning was lifted after identity verification.
The issue here is not just whether it could be driven or not.
The owner took their legitimately purchased car abroad within a legally permissible range. Even so, the manufacturer can track the vehicle's current location, judge its usage status, and remotely intervene in vehicle functions.
With connected cars, just because the owner has the key does not necessarily mean they have complete control over the vehicle.
Manufacturers have rational reasons to prevent theft, smuggling, and parallel exports, and to protect regulations and authorized sales networks in each country. On the other hand, users have the natural feeling that "I want to decide for myself where to use the car I purchased."
What does it mean to own a car?
Due to advanced connectivity, boundaries that were previously unnoticed are beginning to surface.
Another boundary highlighted by the "vanished Li Auto L9"
In the same week, cross-border vehicle management also became a topic of discussion regarding Li Auto's Li L9.
This was an incident where a Chinese owner claimed that their L9 had disappeared from Hangzhou, and upon tracking it via the vehicle app, they found it had crossed western China and traveled from Horgos in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into Kazakhstan.
Initially, it spread as a shocking video about a "10-million-yen-class luxury car being taken out of the country."
However, the perspective on the incident changed after Li Auto released documentation.
According to the company, this L9 had multiple collateral arrangements through local financial institutions and private finance companies, in addition to a standard auto loan. With vehicle transfer-related documents and materials bearing the owner's signature reportedly existing, Li Auto maintained the position that this was not a vehicle system issue, but a civil dispute between the owner and creditors.
A conclusion has not yet been reached.
However, what makes the "disappeared L9" interesting is that China's private finance, used car exports, vehicle location tracking, digital management by manufacturers, and public opinion formation via social media all intersected through a single automobile.
An automobile is no longer just a machine that drives on the road.
It is a financial asset, a communication terminal, and a digital device that is constantly connected to a network.
If you are going to build an AI-native car, make the company AI-native as well.
In parallel with these changes on the vehicle side, automobile manufacturers themselves are also trying to change.
AIVA, a new brand under Seres, promotes the philosophy that "AI defines the car" and "AI comes first, then the car."
This does not mean retrofitting AI functions onto a completed car.
First, they consider "what AI provides to the user."
Working backward from there, they design everything from the necessary sensors, computing power, air conditioning, seats, lighting, windows, navigation, parking, and charging, to the interior space.
In other words, it is the idea of "growing" the body of a car from the AI experience.
Furthermore, what makes AIVA unusual is that it does not apply this philosophy only to its products.
President and Product Manager Li Bo uses over a dozen AI agents as if they were his "subordinates."
He also provides every employee with AI agents, places no restrictions on token usage in principle, and even holds AI utilization contests.
The company calls this "Yangxia" (shrimp farming). "Shrimp" is a colloquial term derived from the logo of "OpenClaw," an AI agent that became widespread in China in 2026, and setting up and nurturing AI agents has come to be described as "shrimp farming."
We are no longer at the stage of simply asking questions to an AI like ChatGPT.
Multiple AI agents with specific roles and memories are being deployed just like in an actual corporate organization. They are even moving forward with initiatives to assign an AI agent to every single employee and turn the work itself into an agent-based process.
The companies building AI-native cars are themselves trying to become AI-native enterprises.
Even VW has started talking about "Physical AI".
Even more symbolic is the change at SAIC Volkswagen.
The company is promoting its new "ID. ERA 9X" as a "Physical AI" car, equipped with Momenta's "R7 World Model".
The important point is not simply that VW has adopted a Chinese company's driver assistance technology.
Until now, SDV (Software Defined Vehicle) was a concept where vehicle functions were defined by software.
If we move from there to an AI Defined Vehicle, AI will define vehicle functions and user experiences.
And with Physical AI, AI perceives the real world, predicts the future, makes decisions, and acts upon the physical world using the body of the car.
At the core of this is the world model.
If conventional recognition systems recognize the current state, such as "there is a car ahead," "there is a pedestrian," or "the traffic light has turned red," the world model attempts to determine actions while internally predicting how that environment will change next.
From the driving demo released this time alone, it cannot be definitively stated that the R7 world model has made previously impossible driving maneuvers possible.
Rather, what is important is that VW itself has partnered with China's Momenta and started calling vehicles using Chinese world models "Physical AI".
AI is no longer a unique competitive axis limited to Chinese EV startups.
Li Auto's L9 also shifts from "luxury equipment" to AI architecture.
The same change is evident in the three-generation comparison of Li Auto's L9.
What the first-generation L9 promoted was "bringing 1-million-yuan-class equipment to the 500,000-yuan class," such as a refrigerator, large displays, massage seats, and air suspension.
In the second generation, they improved the perfection of those features.
And in the new L9, the focus has shifted to the vehicle architecture itself, such as the in-house developed M100 AI chip, the Mahe VLA, steer-by-wire, rear-wheel steering, and EMB.
In the first generation, the value lay in "being equipped with a high-performance AI chip."
In the new model, the value is beginning to shift toward how the entire vehicle is controlled by AI.
From a competition of stacking hardware to a competition of integrating the entire vehicle centered on AI.
In just a few years, even the definition of "luxury" for flagship SUVs has begun to change.
Even so, humans still "want to negotiate."
Looking at this so far, it might seem like everything is being replaced by AI.
However, looking at the automotive sales floor in China, a phenomenon in the exact opposite direction is also occurring.
Chery's small EV, the "QQ3," adopted a fixed-price policy and has not offered discounts since its launch.
It is a transparent and fair pricing structure.
However, at the point of sale, this did not necessarily lead to consumer satisfaction.
One female customer, despite liking the product itself, continued to negotiate upon learning that "no discounts are possible." After visiting the store three times and negotiating for about half a month, the deal was closed when the dealership provided charging equipment.
What is important is that the customer was not simply looking for the lowest price.
She was seeking the experience of "extracting something from the dealership" as a result of her own negotiation.
Being discounted by 3,000 yuan from the start versus winning a 3,000 yuan discount through one's own negotiation—the economic value is the same, but the psychological value is different.
In the Chinese market, it is not just what you bought and for how much, but how you won the terms that becomes part of the product experience.
Even if product design becomes more sophisticated through AI, human desires for approval and a sense of achievement do not disappear.
Brand Risks in the AI Era as Shown by Huawei's "Zhuzhiliao"
The same can be said for brand communication. A major internet meme that emerged in China surrounding Huawei HIMA was the "Zhuzhiliao" (Bamboo Cicada) incident.
"Zhuzhiliao" is originally a Chinese bamboo toy, but its sound was combined with famous phrases from presentations by Huawei Executive Director Richard Yu, leading to the creation of a massive number of parody videos.
Eventually, content including AI-generated voice forgery, video manipulation, and insults toward the individual also increased.
According to HIMA, there were approximately 56,000 related posts, but they only reported 171 as actual copyright infringements, and the platform removed 144 of them. They state that there was no intention to ban the toy itself or the fact of its sale.
Even so, the perception that "Huawei is trying to silence Zhuzhiliao" spread, and as a result, the meme itself spread even further.
This is the so-called Streisand effect.
Companies have the right to protect themselves from AI-forged voices, portraits, and defamation.
However, even if a response is legally justified, if the sense of distance from internet culture is misjudged, the response itself can become a brand risk.
No matter how advanced AI becomes, it cannot completely control human society's humor, backlash, desire for approval, and herd mentality.
When AI becomes the "core" of a car, what does ownership become?
Connecting the dots of this week's Chinese automotive industry reveals one major shift.
AI is no longer just a feature added to a car. AIVA is trying to build the body of a car by working backward from the AI experience.
SAIC VW has begun calling cars equipped with Momenta's world model "Physical AI."
Li is shifting from a stage of competing on luxury equipment to a vehicle architecture with AI at its core.
Meanwhile, the ZEEKR overseas locking controversy has raised the issue of how much control manufacturers can have over connected cars.
And in sales venues and on social media, in contrast to cutting-edge AI, extremely human behaviors—such as the desire to "win" a discount or the enjoyment of internet memes—are driving the market.
The era in which AI defines the car is not an era in which humans become unnecessary.
Rather, the deeper AI penetrates into the automobile, the more important questions become: "Who is controlling this car?" "Who holds my data?" "What makes it my car?" and "What are the experiences that only humans can create?"
If, in the future, the car itself becomes a personal AI that grows while understanding your preferences, actions, and lifestyle—.
The act of "owning a car" may change from buying a machine made of iron and batteries to signing a long-term contract with your own personal AI.
At that point, what is it that humans are truly "owning"?
This week's Chinese automotive market is posing exactly that question.
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