Driven By Environmental Protection And Performance, China's Brake Pad Industry Enters A New Phase Of High-Quality Development - Shandong Huaruifeng Leads Regional Industrial Upgrade

At the start of 2026, China's brake pad industry is ushering in a strategic opportunity period driven by the resonance of policy guidance and market demand. With the in-depth advancement of the "dual carbon" strategy and the imminent implementation of Euro 7 and National VII emission standards, environmentally friendly and high-performance brake pads have become the core direction of industrial transformation, with the market scale continuing to expand. According to authoritative industry data, the market size of China's environmentally friendly asbestos-free brake pads exceeded 18.6 billion yuan in 2025, maintaining a stable compound annual growth rate of over 12%. It is expected to reach 32 billion yuan by 2030. As a core industrial cluster in East China, Shandong contributes more than 15% of the national production capacity. Shandong Huaruifeng Machinery Co., Ltd., a regional leading enterprise, is becoming an important driver of the industry's high-quality development by virtue of technological innovation and local advantages.

Rigid policy constraints have become the core driving force for industrial transformation. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has clearly required that 100% of newly declared passenger car supporting brake pads adopt asbestos-free environmentally friendly materials since 2024. The Euro 7 standard, which will be implemented in 2026, sets strict limits on brake particulate (PM10/PM2.5) emissions for the first time, while the National VII standard also focuses on PM2.5 control, promoting the accelerated elimination of asbestos-containing and high-copper formula products across the industry. Against this backdrop, ceramic-based and low-metal-based asbestos-free brake pads have become the mainstream of the market. In 2025, their combined market share reached 78.6%. Among them, ceramic-based products have rapidly increased their penetration rate in the new energy vehicle sector due to their low dust, low noise, and high temperature resistance characteristics, with the market size exceeding 9.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.1%. Keeping pace with policy orientation, Shandong Huaruifeng has realized large-scale production of ceramic fiber-reinforced composite brake pads. The stability of the product's friction coefficient is controlled within ±0.03, and the thermal fade rate is less than 5%, fully meeting the requirements of National VI and future National VII emission standards.

The popularization of new energy vehicles is reshaping the industry's technological demand pattern. In 2025, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China exceeded 40%. The special working conditions such as low-frequency braking and high thermal load brought by their energy recovery systems put forward higher requirements for the lightweight and thermal stability of brake pads. Data shows that the unit price of asbestos-free brake pads supporting new energy vehicles is 15%-20% higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles, but their long service life significantly reduces the total life cycle cost. In 2025, the relevant market size reached 5.23 billion yuan, accounting for 34.1% of the passenger car segment market. For the commercial vehicle sector, the penetration rate of new energy heavy trucks is expected to increase from 8% in 2025 to 25% in 2030. Although electric braking reduces friction frequency, the demand for high temperature resistance under high-load working conditions is more stringent. Relying on the advantages of Shandong's heavy truck industrial cluster, Shandong Huaruifeng has specially developed high-performance brake pads for commercial vehicles. Adopting nano-modified resin matrix and silicon carbide whisker reinforcement technology, the wear resistance is 40% higher than that of traditional products. It has successfully supported many mainstream commercial vehicle enterprises and become a core supplier of braking system supporting for regional new energy commercial vehicles.

The improvement of industry concentration and global layout have become new focuses of competition. It is expected that in the next five years, the CR5 of the brake pad industry will increase from the current 38% to 55%, and intelligent manufacturing and industrial chain integration will become the core competitiveness of enterprises. Shandong Huaruifeng has actively promoted production line upgrading, introduced the MES intelligent production system, and realized full-process digital control of the production process. The mass production yield of ceramic-based brake pads has reached more than 95%, and the unit energy consumption has decreased by 30%. At the same time, it has established a carbon footprint tracking system to respond to the requirements of green manufacturing policies. In the export market, benefiting from the advancement of the "Belt and Road" initiative, the export volume of China's asbestos-free brake pads increased by 28% year-on-year in 2024. Taking advantage of the logistics advantages of Shandong ports, Shandong Huaruifeng's products have been exported to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, focusing on expanding the supporting field of new energy commercial vehicles, helping Chinese brake pad brands enhance their position in the global value chain.

Looking forward to 2026 and beyond, with the continuous tightening of environmental regulations and the deepening of technological innovation, China's brake pad industry will fully enter a period of in-depth integration of "intelligentization + greenization". A relevant person in charge of Shandong Huaruifeng stated that the enterprise will continue to increase R&D investment, focus on cutting-edge directions such as graphene composite brake pads and bio-based friction materials, deepen cooperation with universities and scientific research institutions, and expand diversified application scenarios such as rail transit and industrial equipment. Driven by technological innovation, it will promote product upgrading, help Shandong's brake pad industrial cluster move towards high-endization and internationalization, and provide core braking support for the high-quality development of China's automobile industry.