At the beginning of the new year in 2022, the world's largest international consumer electronics exhibition (CES) has come to an end, and although the entire exhibition has been shortened to three days due to the impact of the epidemic, the automotive industry is still in full swing to release a large number of new technologies, new products and new strategies.
Especially for the attempt of "new species" of mobile intelligent terminals in the future, more and more companies have begun to shine into reality from the imagination of the imagination, and brought real cutting-edge technology products: BMW iX Flow discoloration car, Cadillac InnerSpace concept car, Sony Vision-S 02 electric SUV concept car, Chrysler Airflow concept car... Among the dazzling smart cars, the "AutoMotive Observer" reporter noticed that the two concept cars brought by the global auto parts giant Mobis are particularly different.
At CES, Mobis exhibited for the first time in the world two future urban shared mobility concept cars, M.Vision POP and M.Vision 2GO. Both concept cars are equipped with the e-Corner module developed by Mobis that integrates braking, steering, driving and suspension, which enables the vehicle to achieve parallel parking and in-situ rotation.
In addition to the two concept cars, Mobis also exhibited high-tech products such as integrated modules, IVI, HUDs, electrification, and headlights. Through these exhibits, we can fully understand the R&D strength and production capacity of Mobis in automotive parts technology.
In fact, as early as last year's Shanghai Expo, the reporter of "AutoMotive Observation" had already witnessed the true appearance of the Mobis M.Vision series concept car. At that time, the M.Vision X concept car ushered in the first exhibition in Asia, "the car has three characteristics: completely driverless, shared mobility, and contactless interaction." Yang Jian, chief researcher of the Mobis Institute of China Studies, said. In addition, he also introduced that the conceptual direction of the M.Vison POP concept car is electrification, lightweight, socialization and fun, and the technical characteristics of the vehicle include two-occupancy, shared travel, and smart phone control.
In fact, it is a car-making "veteran"
In the current era of "everyone wants to build a car, anyone can build a car", the parts giants entering the field of vehicle manufacturing seem to be more reliable than the new forces, after all, they have a strong industrial foundation, once they have a car-making platform, they can enjoy the dividends of the transformation of traditional OEMs. Especially for Mobis, which has its own engineering development capabilities, accelerating the sinking of the industrial chain and expanding the profit space is an inevitable move to not be "marginalized" in the field of intelligent vehicles in the future.
As we all know, Mobis is a traditional auto parts giant, which ranked seventh in the "Global Top 100 Auto Parts" list with sales of 24.984 billion US dollars in 2018, and has now set up manufacturing personnel in more than 30 regions in 10 countries around the world, and set up exclusive research and development bases in South Korea, China, the United States, Germany, india, including modules (chassis, cockpit, front end), steering, brakes, suspension, air bags, lights, electronic equipment, etc.
But in fact, Mobis is not the first time to build a car, but a "veteran" of car manufacturing. Its predecessor is Hyundai Seiko Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hyundai Seiko), founded in 1977 and headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. In 1980, hyundai Seiko's main product container total output exceeded 100,000 units, becoming the world's largest container manufacturer in one fell swoop, and then participated in the development of South Korea's national key projects - Jingbu high-speed railway and maglev train, laying its giant position in precision manufacturing in one fell swoop.
Since 1991, Hyundai Seiko has officially entered the automobile manufacturing industry, and the cumulative production of gorep off-road vehicles it manufactures exceeded 100,000 units in 1994 and 300,000 units in 1999, becoming the largest manufacturer of RV vehicles in South Korea; in 1995, Hyundai Seiko began to enter the field of multi-purpose station wagons, which was the first time in South Korea.
At the turn of the century, in 2000, Hyundai Seiko officially changed its name to Mobis and transformed into a professional enterprise that can produce cutting-edge automotive parts; the following year, Mobis integrated the aftermarket parts business of Hyundai Motor and Kia Automobile; at the same time, in order to develop increasing electrical components, the CATRONICS Research Institute came into being, which opened the prelude to Mobis's research in the field of electronic information.
The connection between Mobis and the Chinese market begins in 1994, this year, the golep off-road vehicles manufactured by it were exported to China for the first time, which opened up positive contact with the Chinese market; in 1995, the container factory set up by Mobis in Qingdao, China was officially completed, and in the same year, a container joint venture company was set up in Shanghai; in 2002, Mobis established wholly-owned parts and components co., LTD. in Beijing and Jiangsu respectively.
In 2007, with the hot sales of Kia Yuanjian, Jiahua, Ruiou, Cerato and other models, in order to continuously meet the market demand, the second plant of Jiangsu Mobis was officially put into operation. In 2014, the Heihe Winter Experimental Field, which Mobis built in Heilongjiang, was officially completed, mainly to strengthen the research and development of cutting-edge brake steering technologies such as MEB and SPAS.
Increase autonomous driving and hydrogen energy
Mobis really entered the new energy automobile industry began in 2010, when it co-built a new energy vehicle battery cooperation company with LG Chem; in 2011, it took the lead in developing an AVM system that can observe 360 degrees of rotation outside the driver's seat, and the first supply model was Hyundai Junjue 3.3 GDI; in 2015, Mobis became the second company in the world to successfully develop a "green integrated electronic braking system"; in 2016, Mobis became the first auto parts company to obtain a temporary operating license for autonomous vehicles in South Korea.
In December last year, Mobis successfully developed the world's first advanced driver assistance system to improve urban traffic safety, the Mobis Parking System MPS. As we all know, cars generally use lidar technology, which is more effective for high-speed driving and long-distance object detection, but in narrow driving environments such as alleys and underground parking lots, ultrasonic sensors are more suitable and more accurate for slow object detection.
According to Yang Jian, the development vision of Mobis in the future has two main aspects: one is to master the world's top research and development technology by 2025; the other is to ensure the competitiveness of future innovation. To this end, Mobis will start from the following four aspects: one is to focus on the development of future automotive technology; the second is to implement a software-centric enterprise transformation strategy; the third is to accelerate open innovation, cooperate with more innovative enterprises to form an open win-win ecosystem; fourth, strengthen the layout of the global R & D network, making it more reasonable and more suitable for localization.
"Among them, Mobis will cooperate with more innovative companies in the two directions of autonomous driving and in-vehicle entertainment, as a parts giant in the automotive industry, our main goal is to serve the main engine factory well, help the main engine factory to achieve higher automatic driving, better vehicle networking and electrification." Yang Jian added.
In addition, in the "carbon neutral" strategic deployment, Mobis's overall global goal is to achieve 65% renewable energy utilization by 2030 and 100% renewable energy utilization by 2040. During this period, Mobis will gradually increase the development of new energy and renewable energy products, especially in the development of core components for electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells.
As early as 2018, Mobis has established the world's first hydrogen fuel cell factory; in early 2021, it also invested in a new hydrogen fuel cell plant in Guangzhou together with Hyundai Motor, which is expected to be put into production in the second half of 2022. In order to accelerate the realization of the "carbon neutrality" goal, Mobis also developed a hydrogen fuel cell power system for hydrogen fuel forklifts in 2020; and then developed a power system for hydrogen fuel excavators, which is likely to enter special vehicles, small air traffic and other fields in the future.
It is not difficult to see that Mobis has expanded the application scope of hydrogen fuel cells to construction equipment and logistics equipment. Compared with traditional internal combustion engines, the hydrogen fuel cells developed by Mobis not only have less noise and lower vibration frequency, but also provide more power in a shorter fuel replenishment time.
In 2013, the epoch-making core components of Mobis hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were the first in the world to achieve mass production; in 2017, Mobis built the world's first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle integrated mass production system; in 2018, Mobis established the world's first hydrogen fuel cell factory in Chungju, South Korea. It can produce about 23,000 hydrogen fuel cell systems per year; in October 2021, Mobis will build two more hydrogen fuel cell plants, the Incheon plant is responsible for the production of fuel cell stacks, and the Ulsan plant will produce fuel cell systems, and the annual production capacity is expected to reach 100,000 sets.
"I thought the dawn of the end of the new crown epidemic was coming, but due to the emergence of mutated strains, it is expected that the global economy will face multiple uncertainties in 2022, raw material prices and logistics costs will continue to rise, and global supply chains will continue to be impacted." In this context, the global automotive industry is accelerating towards the future era of mobility, and in this context, Mobis will aim to develop into a mobility innovator that provides an integrated platform that combines software and hardware. Entering 2020, Mobis President Cao Chenghuan put forward a new vision for the company's development in his New Year's message, that is, to continue to promote innovation and change, focus on the development of unique technologies, accelerate the improvement of product value conversion, and lead the development of the global automotive industry.