"we don't fix this new energy car's triple power." li spits on the first financial journalist for fear of being “called” by a car company。
He runs a tesla specialty shop in shanghai, where he can also repair other branded new energy vehicles。
In recent years, the new energy post-market is at the tipping point with the gradual expansion of new energy vehicle holdings (43. 97 million by the end of 2025) and the concentration of the first new energy vehicles. It is accompanied, however, by a painful industry that “maintenance of new energy vehicles becomes a high-risk occupation” which may become a lingering shadow in the minds of third-party maintenance workers。
From the last two years of suspended sentences handed down by the “dai liu” brothers to the fact that the car owner, lung, was brought to court by three new energy vehicles in the country, to the fact that the owner of a maintenance shop like li chose “shotsla only” - these cases are highlighting a fact to the market: against the backdrop of rapid growth in the availability of new energy vehicles, the technology monopoly in servicing the market has become a pressing challenge。
Monopolies after the sale of new energy cars
In august 2024, a court decision shook the entire car repair industry. In the normal process, the car battery is subject to an official safety check before being unlocked. However, the “dai liu” and “lao xiao” brothers, who are involved in the maintenance of the motor circuits, have studied ways to modify battery management system data using tools such as chip readers, computers, etc., so that the battery “locks”. The court found that the two persons had committed a crime against the computer information system, which resulted in liu being sentenced to six months ' imprisonment, one year's probation and liu's six months ' detention and six months ' probation。
Similar cases of accused are not rare. In the early part of may 2025, the automaster, longgoshutera, stated to the media that he had been brought before the courts by three new energy vehicles in the country, as he had repaired the vehicles for the owners of those brands and had video-taped the process to a short video platform. In june 2025, the firm released a case in which the public security authorities found that sai had illegally unlocked the new energy electric vehicle bms (battery management system) in violation of the law during his work at a car repair company from january to april 2025. The public security organs detain him for the offence of sabotage of computer information systems and refer him to the public prosecution service for review and arrest。
“many new energy companies are required to match vehicle data with specialized inspection systems after repair, which amounts to a technological monopoly on post-market maintenance.” in recent days, duvey, the owner of a door shop in shanghai, a large post-car services platform, has indicated to the first financial journalist。
The technology monopoly referred to by duway is concentrated in the “triple power” area of the core parts of new energy vehicles, namely batteries, electric appliances and electrical controls. "we can't fix these core parts. But the most expensive is these three pieces. In the case of power batteries, for example, about $100,000 for cars, battery prices are almost half the cost. Other maintenance problems, such as tire exchange, chassis lift maintenance, air-conditioning filtration cores, brake oil, etc., can be done by third-party maintenance doors。
Senior after-sale drivers in the song industry have also indicated to first bank that small and medium-sized car repair plants have difficulty in getting involved in the core maintenance of new energy vehicles at the industry level. “no accessories can be found and related core maintenance techniques are lacking.” he stated that, compared to the mature after-sale system of conventional fuel vehicles, the sale of new energy vehicles had not yet led to an open market pattern, and that the mainframe was controlled by technical authority to isolate third-party institutions from core maintenance operations。
There is a certain “soft blockade” even in tesla, the old li’s “finished”. Li told journalists that tesla, during the quality assurance period, would have affected the quality assurance if the “three power” system had been repaired at a third-party maintenance shop。
An informed person close to tesla told journalists that tesla did not have a “locking” operation, which meant that the owner was free to go to an official/authorized door shop or third party maintenance. However, this person also emphasized that “the quality assurance may be affected if the original spare parts structure or route is damaged while the vehicle is being repaired by a third party”
At the moment, the maintenance of new energy vehicles is largely dominated by brand-owned or authorized stores, mainly because of the “authorized maintenance” model of core components (e. G. Batteries, smart systems). Enterprise control of spare parts, technology and data access, and even remote encryption of fault diagnosis, have made it difficult for external maintenance stores to access and have a high concentration of pricing powers。
Most cars explain this on the grounds of safety and quality. In their view, once an independent repair plant is involved in the maintenance of the three power systems, it may lead to abnormal and even serious safety incidents in the battery pack, and the attribution of responsibility is difficult to define。
The above-mentioned source also explains tesla's “soft blockade” as follows: “in the official after-sale channels, the owner of the car has access to more regular and secure after-sales services, since the official after-sale is better known about his car than third-party maintenance”
In addition, analysts pointed out that there were many concerns about deep-open core technology, including the possibility of touching intellectual property rights and business secrets, further weakening their core competitiveness in the market, and breaking down their maori independent after-sales price system。
According to the national vehicle dealer survival survey 2025, published by the chinese association for car circulation, although the profit structure of new energy distributors is not as strongly dependent on after-sale operations as that of traditional distributors, their contribution after-sale maori (37. 1 per cent) is still higher than that of new cars (26. 5 per cent). The industry considers that the profitability of the after-sale business is also one of the reasons why the mainframe plant maintains the post-sale monopoly. At a stage when the market is not yet fully mature, automobile companies will not easily give up control over high-profit segments such as trielectric maintenance and the sale of accessories。
The embargo on core accessories exacerbates industry imbalances
At present, our post-car market is in a critical transition period with the contraction of fuel vehicle protection operations, the release of new energy protection needs, the double pressure on the traditional car repair industry to restructure its operations and to develop its technological capabilities, while the technical blockade, the monopoly of spare parts and the regulation of channels in the area after the sale of new energy vehicles have further exacerbated the industrial imbalance。
The song industries told journalists that the product structure and maintenance logic of the new energy car and the traditional fuel truck were fundamentally different. New energy vehicles do not have vulnerable protection components such as engines, speedboxes, electricity, electrical controls, batteries, etc., and there is little need for major repairs in non-accident situations. This characteristic is a direct reversal of the traditional car repair industry's profit-making model, with engine maintenance at its core, while the monopoly of mainframe technology and accessories prevents third-party maintenance agencies from accessing high-value maintenance operations such as the three power systems。
On the other hand, at the level of spare parts supply, there is a general lack of external supply of three-power core spare parts for the functioning of new energy companies, while third-party spare parts producers are reluctant to deploy the associated spare parts production because of their small market size, high modelling costs and uncertain returns. The main reason for the lack of spare parts, the unopening market and the small volume of circulation is that the “affordable, unrepairable” reflected by the owner is not the very high price of repair technology. The lack of incentives for third-party spare parts manufacturers and the high maintenance costs associated with the scarcity of spare parts are objective market patterns in the early stages of the development of emerging industries。
For new energy companies that have withdrawn from the market, the market has become more difficult for owners. When the mainframe plant ceased to operate, the supply of the spare parts ceased simultaneously, leaving the owner in a situation of “nil” without official sales, non-compliant accessories and uniform maintenance standards. Zhong zheng stated that, as a result of bankruptcy, the system of post-sale authorizations for such enterprises had collapsed, that there was no longer a risk for the defendant at the car repair plant, that many of the car repair shops had taken up this part of the business, but that maintenance fees were not uniform, that the level of the car repair shop was uneven and that the owner had no bargaining power。
He also indicated that, following the collapse of the plant, the main sources of spare parts for the repair plant were three categories: first, circulation items for the original spare parts plant, such as the spare parts for the wilma plant, which had been purchased from the external spare parts plant, and the inventory of the spare parts plant that had not been sold would flow to the social repair plant and would be generally available as soon as it was found; secondly, scrap parts, which were from the dismantling of the scrap vehicle; and thirdly, circulation items for the 4s store that had been shut down, i. E. Spare parts that had not been in circulation in the 4s shop system of the original company. In addition, some of the sub-plants exist, but the sub-plants of the new energy companies are generally missing. By-products exist only in large market-owned vehicles, as by-products are produced at a “large” cost of coverage and profit; and by-products of new energy collapses are small, with virtually no by-products willing to produce, and even with low sales without profit。
It is noteworthy that the technological threshold for the maintenance of new energy vehicles is higher than that of conventional fuel vehicles, involving specialized skills such as high-voltage circuits, smart diagnostics and software matching, and that there are gaps in new energy maintenance technicians across the country. Zhong zheng indicated that traditional car repair shops are mostly run on a small- and medium-sized basis, with core costs being rent and labour, and that the distribution of the new energy vehicle core business has to bear the cost of procurement of high-pressure maintenance equipment, specialized technical training, and a lack of corresponding talent and technology reserves. As a result, new energy operations at the current independent auto repair plant are limited to low-value-added operations such as tyre replacement and basic maintenance. In addition, the required qualifications are required to obtain the authorization of the plant for the maintenance of the new energy sources, which typically invests more than $5 million, or even $10 million, making it difficult for a general repair plant to afford, with long return cycles and uncertain risks。
According to zhang hong, a member of the expert committee of the chinese association of automobile circulation, the government needs to speed up the development of a uniform system of standards for maintenance technology and certification of the quality of spare parts, to clarify maintenance processes, detection methods and rules for the circulation of spare parts, to break the corporate monopoly on core technologies and accessories, and to safeguard the legitimate rights of third-party maintenance agencies. At the same time, the relevant departments should strengthen the regulation of the maintenance market, strictly combat irregularities such as fissure failures and sub-charging, and require operators to announce the prices of maintenance projects, hours worked and accessories on their own initiative and to increase the transparency of services。
The new ice cell maintenance monopoly
The policy has clearly focused on the new energy vehicle repair difficulties。
A new regulation to regulate the full life cycle management of used and end-of-life power cells, the interim scheme for the recycling and integrated use of used and end-of-life power cells in new energy vehicles (hereinafter referred to as “the new regulations”), was put into effect on 1 april 2026. Wang qi, an expert (alias) involved in the development of the scheme, indicated to the first financial reporter that, compared to the previous version, the new regulation introduced “more detailed regulations” for the disclosure of technical information on maintenance, explicitly requiring battery dismantling information to be submitted to the national unified platform and giving compliance maintenance companies access, with the prospect of breaking the industry monopoly of “batteries back to 4s”。
The requirement for the disclosure of technical information on battery maintenance by car companies is not entirely new and has been mentioned in the interim management scheme for version 2018. Wang qi added that since the old version was general, did not restrict open channels and did not establish penalties, car companies tended to choose their own channels for disclosure and “feedback did not work well”。
The new regulations address these gaps by upgrading the public disclosure of maintenance information from “self-public” to a closed loop mechanism for “transmission + queries”。
Article 11 of the new regulation requires that power cell enterprises provide power cell codes and the necessary dismantling technology information to relevant new energy vehicle producers, motor vehicle repair facilities, etc. Article 13 further provides that enterprises producing new energy vehicles shall make available information on vehicle maintenance technologies in a timely and effective manner, in accordance with relevant national regulations。
In response to this information, the new regulations specify the reporting mechanism: new energy vehicle producers and importing companies should submit to the national information platform, the national information platform for retroactivity of new energy motor batteries, within six months of obtaining a product access announcement or mandatory product certification, such technical information as power cell dismantling and necessary dismantling。
At the same time, the new regulations establish a referral mechanism for motor vehicle repair, recycling and dismantling of end-of-life motor vehicles, and integrated use of the platform for technical information on power cell dismantling and dismantling。
This means that third-party maintenance agencies with compliance qualifications no longer need to rely on technical information from car operators for “bends”, but instead can legally obtain information on dismantling technologies on national platforms through battery codes. Wang qi said: “the back-end repair facility will be more open by encoded batteries for information on dismantling techniques.”
The key breakthrough is that the new regulations establish penalties for non-compliance. Among them, the new energy car production companies do not make available the required technical information for maintenance, which is corrected by an order of the competent transport and transport authorities, and are subject to penalties in accordance with relevant laws, administrative regulations and sectoral regulations, such as the law of the people's republic of china on the prevention and control of atmospheric pollution; and the industrial and informational authorities of local people's governments at the county level and above, which do not provide information on battery codes and dismantling technologies, are ordered to correct and refuse to do so by a warning or a fine of up to $50,000。
While the new regulations represent a critical step in the design of the system, the practical effects of their implementation remain to be seen. The landing of the policy will require the cooperation of all parties, and the ability of third-party maintenance enterprises to successfully obtain access, impose penalties and enforce them will have an impact on the final outcome. However, it is foreseeable that the general trend in the new energy vehicle maintenance market is shifting from a “closed post-sales system” to an “open competition pattern”。
The song industry indicated that traditional fuel cars had also experienced the development of a post-sale monopoly, and that the new energy automobile industry also had to rely on the expansion of time and market size to resolve existing difficulties. When the number of new energy vehicles is 100 million, or one third of the total, the supply of spare parts, the opening of technology and maintenance systems will be systematically reduced. The market-based scale effect will contribute to improved supply chains for spare parts, open technology information and gradually break the monopoly of the mainframe。
