[PGz Technology]In the technology industry, competition has always been the mainstream plot. In the past, mobile phone manufacturers would sneer at each other’s 0.1 mm body thickness, and automobile companies would also play verbal battles for public opinion and sales. High technical barriers are also built between smart devices of different brands. Once users choose a certain brand, they are often locked in a specific ecosystem. However, this year, Passionategeekz noticed that there seemed to be subtle changes in the industry structure.
In early June, Xiaopeng Motors and Huawei, which were originally rivals in the field of intelligent driving, suddenly announced the joint development of AR-HUD augmented reality head-up display technology; in the middle of the month, GAC Toyota announced at the Science and Technology Day event that they will conduct in-depth cooperation with Xiaomi to allow devices such as Xiaomi tablets to seamlessly connect to Toyota’s in-vehicle systems; and in the field of consumer electronics, the interconnection of vivo X Fold5 folding screen phones and Apple also attracted attention. This is the first time that Android phones have achieved in-depth collaboration with Apple’s smartwatches.
These seemingly breaking through the conventional business cooperation makes people wonder: At the moment of rapid technology iteration, why did the once tit-for-tat competitors let go of their grudges and choose to join hands? When “the opponent becomes a teammate” becomes a new trend, what kind of pattern will the entire technology industry face? We may be able to see the quiet change in business logic in the digital economy era from these cooperation cases. In this article, we will discuss the cooperation between Xiaomi and Toyota in depth.
In this recent wave of cooperation, Xiaomi and Toyota’s strategic hand-in-hand is a landmark event. On June 12, 2025, at GAC Toyota Technology Day, GAC Toyota announced a major strategic cooperation with Xiaomi Automobile, and its new car Bozhi 7 officially connected to Xiaomi’s “people, car and home” ecosystem. Traditional automobile giants and emerging technology companies have once again broken the dimensional wall and carried out deep ecological integration in the field of automotive intelligence.
The market forces
As Japan’s number one auto company and the world’s number one auto company, Toyota has suffered repeated setbacks in the Chinese market in recent years. In 2024, Toyota’s sales in the Chinese market were 1.776 million units, a year-on-year decline of 6.9%. The reason is, on the one hand, the rapid rise of new energy vehicles and independent brands in the Chinese market. But on the other hand, it is undeniable that Toyota’s products are indeed out of touch with the development speed of the entire Chinese market. Against this background, Toyota Motor finally gave up its local priority strategy.
From the R&D perspective, Toyota has handed over the development rights of Chinese models to the local engineer team for the first time, and built a new “China ONE R&D” R&D system with Toyota China R&D Center as the core. According to the brand’s later planning, the research and development responsibilities of the new generation of Highlander and Sainna will be borne by Chinese engineers, which completely changed the past model of “the Japanese headquarters defines products and the Chinese team performs local adaptation”.
The core reason why Toyota chose to cooperate with Chinese technology companies is that Toyota itself lacks sufficient intelligent advantages, so it wants to rely on the power of Chinese companies. Xiaomi’s advantage lies in its hardware ecological interface. Through cooperation, GAC Toyota can not only realize the interconnection between car and machine and Mijia ecosystem, but also further expand the human-car-home scenarios to meet the needs of modern consumers for smart travel.
Reconstruction of technology ecology
At the technological implementation level, the cooperation between GAC Toyota and Xiaomi has shown the three-dimensional characteristics of “hardware openness + software integration”. As the first strategic model to cooperate with both parties, the Platinum Intelligence 7 not only becomes the mobile carrier of Xiaomi ecosystem, but also builds a cross-device collaboration intelligent base through the full opening of hardware interfaces.
According to the information disclosed at the press conference, the central control system of this model has achieved seamless switching with Xiaomi tablets. Users can directly call tablet applications through the on-board screen in the car, and realize “dual-screen linkage” in the scenes such as navigation information and music playback. This hardware-level opening breaks the ecological barriers of traditional car computer systems and enables in-vehicle entertainment systems to gain expansion capabilities similar to consumer electronic products.
It is worth noting that GAC Toyota has demonstrated unprecedented technological openness in its cooperation. Bozhi 7 not only supports Xiaomi’s ecological equipment, but also reserves the adaptive interface of Apple iPad. This “multi-ecology compatibility” strategy is extremely rare among joint venture car companies. Through customized development, the technical team enables the on-board system to identify smart devices of different brands at the same time, and realizes cross-platform operations of navigation, audio and video, communication and other functions. This open architecture allows in-vehicle entertainment systems to gain consumer electronics-level expansion capabilities, and users can freely combine smart hardware according to their needs to create a truly personalized mobile space.
This technological fusion is reshaping the value attributes of automotive products. Traditional car companies are transforming to “scenario-based services” with mechanical performance as the core competitive dimension. And this is what Chinese auto consumers currently value, and Toyota itself is temporarily lacking.
Strategic synergy
From a strategic perspective, this cooperation is essentially a gene recombination of “manufacturing genes” and “ecological genes”. GAC Toyota exchanges the acceleration of intelligent transformation by replacing some product definition rights. The BMX 3X, led by its R&D team in China, won 15,000 orders in the first month of its launch, verifying the effectiveness of the local development model. This transformation breaks the traditional rhythm of Japanese auto companies’ “slow work and meticulous work”, effectively shortens the development cycle of new cars, and more accurately captures Chinese consumers’ preferences for smart cockpits and assisted driving.
Xiaomi Auto has opened up a key channel for its ecological territory expansion through its strategy with GAC Toyota. As a leading player in the field of technology, Xiaomi has built an Internet of Things matrix spanning mobile terminals, wearable devices and smart homes with its deep scientific research and innovation capabilities and a user base of over one billion.
However, in the automotive intelligent track, to achieve the ultimate goal of ecological closed loop, Xiaomi still needs the manufacturing background of traditional automobile manufacturers. This cooperation allows Xiaomi to graft Toyota’s strict industrial manufacturing system and large-scale production experience, deeply implant its independently developed intelligent interaction systems and AIoT connection protocols into vehicle-based scenarios, and promote the natural extension of Xiaomi’s ecological territory from consumer electronics to mobile travel.
It is worth noting that Xiaomi’s automobile business has achieved delivery volume of more than 130,000 vehicles in 2024, creating a revenue increase of tens of billions of yuan for Xiaomi, confirming the commercial value of smart terminals as ecological entrances, and laying a solid foundation for subsequent ecological feeding and data monetization.
Ecological wall breaking and industry paradigm revolution
The most far-reaching industry impact of this cooperation lies in the reconstruction of the smart car ecological standards. Lei Jun has repeatedly called for the “eco-interface unification” vision to take substantial steps in GAC Toyota’s practice. The hardware interface agreement jointly formulated by the two parties has achieved seamless connection with Xiaomi and Huawei equipment, and this openness sets a new benchmark for the industry. If this standard can be promoted in more car companies, it will completely change the current “one brand, one ecosystem” fragmentation situation in the automotive industry.
At the industrial structure level, the cooperation between GAC Toyota and Xiaomi has created a new division of labor model of “technology empowerment + manufacturing of OEMs”. This model breaks the traditional Tier1 supplier system, allowing technology companies to move from behind the scenes to the front and directly participate in product definition. This paradigm revolution is rewriting the rules of industry competition. The technical barriers built by traditional car companies rely on engines and gearboxes are being replaced by software capabilities such as smart cockpits and autonomous driving.
Standing at the intersection of industrial transformation, the cooperation between GAC Toyota and Xiaomi is like a stone invested in the lake, and the ripples caused are reshaping the ecological map of the entire automobile industry. This “marriage” that crosses national boundaries and industries not only concerns the fate of the two companies, but also indicates a new competitive law in the era of smart travel – creating value in open symbiosis and defining the future in cross-border integration.
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