Li Auto starts selling its core tech, from Mach chips to silicon carbide and range extenders

Li Auto has officially opened its core in-house technologies to outside customers, with its Mach driver-assist chips, Sike Semiconductor's silicon carbide power modules and complete range-extender systems all available for external cooperation, and some units have already been spun off into independent entities, according to a 36Kr Auto report.

On the chip side, Li Auto has registered a wholly owned subsidiary called Xinchuangzhihe Shanghai Technology to run the Mach chip business independently, and the Mach M100 chip already in production delivers up to 1,280 TOPS of computing power, with the company already in commercial talks with several humanoid robotics firms to explore uses beyond vehicles.

The silicon carbide modules sit under Sike Semiconductor, which already operates independently and plans to bring in outside capital, and backed by 8-inch silicon carbide wafer capacity its power modules supply not only Li Auto's 800V platforms but also other automakers' electric drive and thermal management systems.

Not everything is for sale, though, since Li Auto's own battery packs and cells are off the table for now, with the company saying battery customization is so specific and vehicle architectures differ so much that external supply is hard to land, so it will prioritize its own models first.

Moving from selling cars to selling technology, Li Auto is putting its chips, silicon carbide and range extenders on the shelf, a bet driven by the pressure on EV startups to find a second growth curve as margins tighten.

The company still held 87.5 billion yuan (about $13 billion) in cash at the end of the second quarter, the largest among China's new EV makers, so this looks more like a deliberate business extension, and with Huawei and BYD having already proven the technology supply route, Li Auto's move is both a way to monetize its R&D and a way to push its technical standards onto more of the industry.