Finding
China dependence sits in magnets, cells and robot actuators, while compute and software come from the US, Korea and Taiwan
Almost every magnet row traces to China, against almost none of the compute rows. Across all rings 39% of rows are China-supplied and 40% are in-house; the shared suppliers are the chip fabs and Tesla's Chinese Tier 1s.
The rings split by maker. BYD's Han L is in-house almost to the material layer and Chinese almost throughout; Tesla's Cybercab and Semi are in-house and US-built down to cells, cathode and lithium hydroxide, with Giga Texas (see AustinIO's Tesla Giga Texas) and the Robstown refinery (Tesla lithium refinery) carrying most of it. Waymo's Ojai is the reverse: a Chinese vehicle from Zeekr with American sensors, compute and software. Megapack 3 is Tesla-made above the cell at the Brookshire Megafactory (AustinIO: Tesla Megapack Brookshire) and Chinese at the cell.
The suppliers that cross makers are chip fabs and Tesla's car supply base. Samsung Foundry fabs AI4 for the Model Y, Cybercab and Semi, AI5 for Optimus, and the NVIDIA Orin chips in the Han L and Unitree G1; TSMC fabs AI5, Waymo's custom chip and the NVIDIA Thor module in the Joby S4. STMicroelectronics and onsemi supply SiC to the Model Y, Semi and Ojai. Sanhua and Tuopu, thermal and chassis suppliers to the Model Y and Semi, are now the actuator suppliers Tesla audited for Optimus: the car supply base is becoming the robot supply base, and it sits in Zhejiang.
These rings are the machine-level counterpart of the SemiconductorX chip supplier rings (Tesla AI5 appears in both) and the DatacentersX rack supplier rings. Rows are labeled confirmed, reported or inferred; an inferred row is a deduction from the maker's other products or its supply base, never a disclosed contract.
Machines
The 11 flagship machines
One ring per machine: who supplies each layer from cells to final assembly, with country, plant, relationship and how well each link is sourced. Select a machine for its full ring.
| Machine | Maker | Class | What the ring shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla Model Y (Juniper) | Tesla | Battery-electric crossover | Tesla builds the pack, drive units, software and the car itself, but buys its cells, magnets and AI chip. |
| BYD Han L (Super e-Platform) | BYD | Battery-electric sedan on the megawatt-charging Super e-Platform | BYD units make nearly every layer of the Han L, and the one foreign part found is the NVIDIA ADAS chip. |
| Tesla Cybercab | Tesla | Two-seat robotaxi with no steering wheel or pedals | Cells, cathode, lithium hydroxide and assembly are all Tesla-made in Texas; the launch AI chip still comes from Korea. |
| Waymo Ojai | Waymo | Purpose-built robotaxi van | Zeekr builds the whole drivable vehicle in Ningbo as sole source, and Waymo adds sensors, compute and software in Arizona. |
| Tesla Semi | Tesla | Battery-electric Class 8 truck | Nearly all of the Semi is Tesla work in the US; the China exposure sits in graphite, magnets and thermal valves. |
| Tesla Optimus V3 | Tesla | General-purpose humanoid robot | Tesla designs Optimus and its AI chip, but the actuator layer is almost entirely Chinese suppliers around Ningbo and Hangzhou. |
| Unitree G1 | Unitree Robotics | Compact humanoid robot | The G1 is made almost entirely in China, and its only US parts are export-controlled chips and cameras. |
| Tesla Megapack 3 / Megablock | Tesla | Grid battery (LFP) with the Megablock medium-voltage block | Everything above the cell is Tesla-made; the cells come from CATL, BYD and EVE until LG Energy Solution Lansing ships. |
| Tesla V4 Supercharger cabinet | Tesla | DC fast-charging power cabinet feeding several posts | The V4 cabinet is nearly all Tesla work from one US plant, and its device-level suppliers are not disclosed. |
| Joby S4 | Joby Aviation | Piloted electric air taxi (eVTOL) | Joby builds its own motors, inverters, packs and autonomy, with Toyota and Toray as partners and an undisclosed cell maker. |
| Fleet depot microgrid (Brookville Smart Energy bus depot) | AlphaStruxure (Schneider Electric) for Montgomery County, Maryland | Bus depot microgrid: solar canopies, battery, gas generation and chargers | The depot is a multi-vendor build around Schneider Electric, and its failures came from vendor bankruptcies, not China. |
Convergence
Convergence matrix: suppliers that appear in more than one ring
13 parent companies supply two or more of the machines. Cells list the layers each one supplies; a red border marks a Chinese parent, gold Japan, Korea or Taiwan, blue the US and Europe. Undisclosed suppliers are left out.
| Supplier | Rings | Model Y | Han L | Cybercab | Ojai | Semi | Optimus V3 | Unitree G1 | Megapack 3 | V4 cabinet | Joby S4 | Depot microgrid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla (US) | 6 | Cells, Pack, Motor, Software, Assembly | Cells, Pack, Motor, Software, Body, Charging, Assembly | Cells, Pack, Motor, Power/SiC, Thermal, Software, Body, Charging, Assembly | Pack, Software, Assembly | Cells, Pack, Power/SiC, Thermal, Software, Assembly | Assembly, Power/SiC, Compute, Software, Charging, Body | |||||
| Samsung (South Korea) | 4 | Compute, Sensors | Compute | Compute | Compute | |||||||
| BYD (China) | 3 | Cells | Cells, Pack, Motor, Power/SiC, Software, Charging, Assembly | Cells | ||||||||
| NVIDIA (US) | 3 | Compute | Compute | Compute | ||||||||
| onsemi (US) | 3 | Power/SiC | Power/SiC | Power/SiC | ||||||||
| Sanhua Intelligent Controls (China) | 3 | Thermal | Thermal | Motor | ||||||||
| STMicroelectronics (Switzerland) | 3 | Power/SiC | Power/SiC | Power/SiC | ||||||||
| TSMC (Taiwan) | 3 | Compute | Compute | Compute | ||||||||
| Tuopu Group (China) | 3 | Body | Thermal | Motor | ||||||||
| CATL (China) | 2 | Cells | Cells | |||||||||
| JL Mag Rare-Earth (China) | 2 | Magnets | Magnets | |||||||||
| LG (South Korea) | 2 | Cells, Sensors | Cells | |||||||||
| Syrah Resources (Australia) | 2 | Cells | Cells |
By layer
China dependence by layer
A row counts as China-supplied when the supplier is Chinese or a listed plant is in China. Layers where half or more of the rows are China-supplied are marked red, the rest gray.
| Layer | Rows | China-supplied | In-house | Sole source | Supplier not disclosed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cells | 37 | 17 (46%) | 9 | 3 | 11 |
| Pack and BMS | 10 | 3 (30%) | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| Thermal | 9 | 5 (56%) | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Motor and drive | 26 | 17 (65%) | 8 | 1 | 4 |
| Magnets and rare earths | 9 | 8 (89%) | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Power electronics and SiC | 20 | 4 (20%) | 7 | 0 | 6 |
| Compute and AI chips | 15 | 1 (7%) | 1 | 6 | 1 |
| Sensors | 16 | 6 (38%) | 3 | 2 | 5 |
| Software and autonomy | 13 | 3 (23%) | 10 | 3 | 0 |
| Structure and body | 11 | 5 (45%) | 4 | 1 | 0 |
| Charging interface | 17 | 5 (29%) | 11 | 0 | 2 |
| Final assembly | 23 | 6 (26%) | 18 | 1 | 0 |
Chokepoints
Sole-source chokepoints, machine by machine
Named single points in each ring, from the ring rows and their sources.
| Machine | Part | Supplier | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model Y, Cybercab, Semi | AI4 self-driving chip | Samsung Foundry, South Korea | Only fab for AI4; AI5 adds Samsung Taylor and TSMC Arizona from 2027 |
| Model Y | Giga Press casting machines | IDRA, Italy (owned by LK Technology, China) | Casting is in-house; the presses are not |
| Waymo Ojai | Whole base vehicle | Zeekr (Geely), Ningbo | US connected-vehicle rule bars Chinese software from model year 2027 and hardware from 2030 |
| Optimus V3 | NdFeB actuator magnets | Chinese makers (unnamed) | Musk said Optimus needed a Chinese export license for magnets |
| Unitree G1 | Jetson Orin NX, RealSense camera, Livox lidar | NVIDIA, RealSense (US); Livox (China) | Sole-source parts; the US ones sit under export controls |
| Megapack 3 | LFP storage cells | CATL, BYD, EVE (China); LG Energy Solution Lansing from 2027 | Even the Nevada LFP line runs on CATL equipment |
| V4 Supercharger cabinet | Cabinet assembly | Tesla Giga New York, Buffalo | One plant builds every US cabinet |
| Joby S4 | Battery cells; flight deck | Not disclosed; Garmin G3000 | Cell maker never named; Garmin is the sole avionics source |
| Depot microgrid | Solar, chargers, battery | SunPower, Proterra (bankrupt); Dynapower | Vendor failure, not China, is the risk |
Sources
Sources and scope
- Scope
- Flagship Machine Supplier Rings
- Sources
- ElectronsX flagship machine ring dataset: teardowns, company releases and filings, supplier disclosures and trade press, Nov 2026
- Updated
- October 2026