Over the past two years, manufacturers across the auto industry have cut prices and launched new models at a lightning faster rate, increasingly expanding into overlapping segments in an attempt to drive sales growth. Rapid technological advancement and intensifying competition are making cars increasingly similar in China’s new energy vehicle (NEV) industry, raising questions about profitability and the ability of car makers to differentiate their products in a crowded market. This shrinking product life cycle adds pressure on the industry’s profitability where its evolution can be likened to the smartphone market. Years of experimentation eventually gave way to hardware standardization where competition shifted toward price, software ecosystems and user experience. In many consumer electronics industries, products evolved from diversity to convergence and cars are moving in a similar direction.