China pushing for more homemade chips in EVs, WSJ reports

China is making a push to use domestically made semiconductor chips in its electric vehicles, Liza Lin and Raffaele Huang of Wall Street Journal report. Not long ago, almost all the chips in Chinese cars relied on manufacturing by companies like Texas Instruments (TXN) and Infineon (IFNNY), but today, the use of homemade chips has risen to around 15%, say people involved in the industry, and it is poised to rise further, according to the Journal. The paper says foreign companies in the car-chip business, which has annual revenue of more than $80B, face a choice of producing more in China or losing sales. The Journal points out that in addition to longstanding U.S., European and Japanese makers, Qualcomm (QCOM) and Nvidia (NVDA) have entered the market with an eye on autonomous driving systems. It points out STMicroelectronics (STM) formed a joint venture to produce chips for cars with a China-linked company in 2023, while NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) said in November it wanted to localize production of processors for Chinese automakers.