Exeed Raises ET5 Premium Trim Price Amid Soaring Automotive Chip Costs Squeezing Margins

In early 2026, Exeed announced a price increase for the high-end variant of its ET5 model, becoming the first automaker to publicly adjust prices amid soaring automotive-grade chip costs. Since the second half of 2025, driven by an AI industry boom that disrupted global production capacity, prices of automotive-grade memory chips have surged by 150% to 300%, severely squeezing automakers’ profit margins. Vehicles with higher levels of intelligence face greater cost pressures. The industry expects this chip supply-demand imbalance to persist through 2027. Faced with this challenging situation, automakers must stabilize supply and control costs in the short term—through strategies such as diversified sourcing, building safety stock, and optimizing technology. In the long term, they need to accelerate domestic substitution, enhance in-house R&D capabilities, and strengthen collaboration across the supply chain. This crisis is reshaping the competitive landscape of the automotive industry, with future success hinging on supply chain resilience and technological self-reliance.