Everyone should buy a car earlier, "Li Bin, the founder of NIO, reminded," behind the increasingly apparent cost anxiety in the automotive industry. As early as the end of December 2025, Zhao Fei, the president of Changan Automobile, revealed more specific concerns in an interview with reporters: "The risk of battery price increases is controllable, but various types of chips such as storage and intelligent computing may encounter a 'black swan'." At the beginning of 2026, the automotive industry is facing a 'price increase encirclement' from the upstream industry chain - record shortages of memory chips, intense competition for metal raw materials such as copper and silver, coupled with continued uncertainty in chip supply, cost pressure is being transmitted layer by layer along the supply chain. This storm not only tests the profit resilience of car companies, but also profoundly affects the supply chain layout and competition rules of the automotive industry in the future. The price increase of multiple categories led by memory has resonated with the current cost pressure in the automotive industry, which has upgraded from a single link to a systemic impact on the entire chain. Among them, the shortage and price increase of memory chips have become the most prominent new pain points. Recently, Samsung Electronics Co CEO Louis Koo publicly stated that the global shortage of memory chips is unprecedented, and no industry can be alone. The crisis has spread from the mobile phone industry to the television, home appliance, and automotive industries. The reporter observed that the above judgment has been cross validated by multiple authoritative institutions. According to the monitoring of Jibang Consulting, starting from the second half of 2025, the cumulative price increase of automotive grade DDR4 and DDR5 memory has exceeded 150% and 300% respectively, which is consistent with the tracking results of Counterpoint Research. Both institutions predict that global storage prices will increase by another 40% to 50% in the first quarter of 2026. According to UBS calculations, the supply gap of general-purpose DRAM (dynamic random access memory) remained at 15% to 20% during the same period, indicating a clear supply-demand imbalance. Morgan Stanley further warns that DRAM prices are expected to rise by 62% for the whole year, and the automotive grade DDR4 category will continue to rise throughout the first half of the year, with increasing cost pressure. What's even more serious is that the automotive industry is in a weak position in the competition for memory resources. In fact, top manufacturers such as Samsung and SK Hynix prioritize supplying AI accelerators and ultra large scale cloud providers. The unit profit in the data center field is significantly higher than that in the automotive industry, naturally becoming the core direction of capacity tilt. Li Bin spoke frankly: "The automotive industry wants to compete with artificial intelligence computing power centers, mobile phones and other consumer electronics for memory. The other party has an investment scale of hundreds of billions of dollars, and we have no advantage in the competition for production capacity." In addition to memory, the pressure of rising prices for metal raw materials such as copper and silver continues to spread. Copper, as the core raw material for automotive electrical systems and power batteries, has seen a significant price increase since the second half of 2025; During the same period, silver, widely used in car sensors and chip packaging, also saw a significant increase in price. Li Bin revealed that the competition between the automotive and artificial intelligence industries for such raw materials has entered a white hot stage. Although the current price increase has not yet been transmitted to the terminal price, and car companies still have room for gross profit margin, the long-term pressure should not be underestimated. In terms of power batteries, although the cost pressure has eased to some extent, the risks in the chip field have not dissipated yet. Zhao Fei stated in an interview with reporters that the economies of scale and technological advantages of battery leaders such as CATL and BYD make the risk of battery price increases controllable, but the supply of multi category chips such as storage chips, intelligent computing chips, and power chips is highly uncertain. Meng Qingpeng, Vice President of Ideal Automotive Supply Chain, has made it clear that "by 2026, the automotive industry may face a crisis in the supply of storage chips, and the satisfaction rate may be less than 50%." In the future, car companies may face a dual dilemma of "neither being able to afford nor being able to buy". Faced with unprecedented cost pressures, mainstream car companies are launching a comprehensive response strategy, from technological innovation, supply chain binding to capacity coordination, to building a cost defense system from multiple points. Various practical measures are being implemented intensively, forming a coordinated defense pattern with the upstream and downstream of the industry chain. Technological cost reduction and resource optimization have become the core breakthrough points. In the field of batteries, CATL relies on the large-scale iteration of lithium iron phosphate technology to cope with cost pressure. By gradually reducing the nickel cobalt content, it effectively absorbs the pressure of metal price increases and drives downstream car companies to achieve stable and controllable battery costs. In terms of memory usage, car companies such as Xiaopeng and GAC are promoting value engineering optimization by upgrading software algorithms to improve memory efficiency and avoid configuration redundancy. NIO, on the other hand, has reduced its dependence on external high-end storage chips by developing its own "Shenji" chip, which to some extent offsets the risk of price increases. These measures taken by car companies have also received cooperation from supply chain enterprises, such as domestic storage module manufacturer Baiwei Storage launching targeted vehicle level storage solutions to meet the needs of car companies' self-developed chips. Deep binding and price locking in the supply chain have become key actions. Changan Automobile signed a five-year deepening strategic cooperation agreement with CATL in January, focusing on cutting-edge fields such as battery swapping and intelligent automotive robots to hedge the pressure of lithium carbonate price increases through long-term binding; Zero Run Motors and Huaruijie Technology have finalized a 2026 parts procurement agreement, investing no more than 1.1 billion yuan to purchase camera and radar assemblies, and locking in the supply of core components for intelligent driving. Xiaopeng Motors Chairman He Xiaopeng recently revealed that he has personally communicated with the responsible persons of all cooperating battery manufacturers to ensure the stability of the supply chain and establish a high-level emergency coordination mechanism. In addition, car companies such as BYD also use hedging to lock in the purchase prices of bulk commodities such as copper and silver, avoiding price volatility risks. By locking in the purchase volume and price range in advance, the increase in raw material prices can be controlled within an acceptable range. The coordinated expansion of industrial production is also being promoted synchronously, and supporting enterprises on the chain are actively filling in to alleviate supply pressure. Recently, Tongfu Microelectronics disclosed that its 888 million yuan storage packaging and testing capacity project is accelerating, with a storage packaging and testing capacity utilization rate of 85%. After completion, the annual new production capacity can reach 849600 pieces, which can fully match the packaging and testing needs of AI storage modules and vehicle storage; Dike Corporation revealed in an institutional research that it plans to increase its storage chip shipment target to 30 million to 50 million units by 2026, in order to expand its market share. The cost forcing industry differentiation and reshuffling, or exacerbating the memory crisis, is penetrating the supply chain, forcing competition differentiation and restructuring in the automotive industry. The first and foremost pressure is on the profits of car companies. In order to stabilize sales and competitiveness, most car companies choose to internally digest costs. Li Bin stated that "currently it is still within the range of tolerance", and NIO will rely on its existing gross profit margin to bear the pressure. But there is a clear limit to this endurance, especially for car companies that focus on intelligence as their core selling point. The rigid requirement for memory makes it difficult for them to relieve pressure by reducing configurations. And supply chain management capability has become the core watershed. A senior executive of a certain independent brand car company revealed to reporters that "the increase in memory prices has limited impact on us, and the mature and complete supply chain system of the central enterprise group provides guarantee behind it." On the other hand, small and medium-sized car companies and new force brands generally admit that they have been significantly affected by the price increase and are passively responding by "prioritizing production resources and strengthening coordination with partners. In fact, this difference will inevitably translate into a gap in delivery stability, further affecting brand reputation and market position, accelerating industry elimination. The crisis will also spread to the product side, and some car companies may reduce non core storage configurations and delay the popularization of advanced intelligent driving, which may slow down the "internalization" of intelligence. When it comes to breaking through the situation, Gao Chao, a researcher from the China Autonomous Driving Industry Innovation Alliance, told reporters that car companies need to shift from passive response to building independent systems. Short term can sign long-term supply agreements to lock in supply, while accelerating the verification and import of domestic automotive grade storage chips. In the long run, the resonance between price increases and the transformation of electric intelligence will drive the concentration of resources towards enterprises with core capabilities. Industry competition will shift from hardware competition to software and hardware integration optimization. More and more car companies may lean towards vertical integration strategies, deepen their capital and technology ties with chip companies, and build an independent and controllable industrial ecosystem. This is the profound inspiration that this crisis brings to the industry