"In the past year, there has been a significant increase in the number of self-driving test vehicles near Anting, and basically you can see self-driving cars with sensors when you go out." Gu Kang, an expert at an autonomous driving company in Jiading, told the first financial reporter.
Since entering the Automotive College of Tongji University in 2008, Gu Kang's life has been firmly bound to Jiading. From studying in Tongji to working in SAIC Volkswagen to switching from an automaker to an autonomous driving company, Jiading has witnessed Gu Kang's growth from a fledgling university student to an automotive industry expert, and Gu Kang has also experienced the tremendous changes in Jiading's auto industry in the past decade or so.
"It is said that the automotive industry is experiencing major changes that have not been seen in a hundred years, and as a practitioner of the automotive industry, it is a deep understanding." Gu Kang said.
New energy has become the main theme
In 2017, Gu Kang, who was still working as a development engineer at SAIC Volkswagen, did not expect that the wave of new energy vehicles would come so quickly, "At that time, we just knew that Volkswagen would start to introduce products from the MEB pure electric platform, and then we engineers would also be required to pass the exam of high-voltage electric operation, but fuel vehicles are still the focus of our work." ”
(SAIC Volkswagen MEB plant, image source: SAIC Volkswagen)
Just three years later, in October 2020, SAIC Volkswagen's MEB plant was inaugurated in Jiading, the world's first Volkswagen Group's new plant specifically for the production of MEB pure electric vehicle platform models, and one of the largest and most efficient pure electric vehicle plants in China.
In this new plant, SAIC Volkswagen has applied a number of world-first technologies and standards: the paint shop is the world's first paint shop of the Volkswagen Group with a new 120jph new environmental protection process; the stamping workshop, which uses the APS advanced scheduling technology for the first time in the Volkswagen Group to automate the layout of the stamping plan, optimize the stamping production inventory and improve production efficiency; the body workshop, the world's first application of the online absolute measurement system scheme, real-time and efficient monitoring of the body-in-white size quality status; the final assembly workshop, through the use of high-precision vision systems For the first time, the highly flexible instrument panel is fully automatically installed and the head road seal is fully automatically installed.
5 kilometers away from SAIC Volkswagen's MEB plant, there is a company recognized as a "small giant" by the industry - Jie Hydrogen Technology. In 2021, SAIC Motor issued an announcement that the company intends to spin off its subsidiary, Shanghai Jie Hydrogen Technology Co., Ltd., a hydrogen fuel cell enterprise, to be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
"The degree of autonomy and localization of the M4H fuel cell stack have reached 100%. The core technical indicators of the Jet Hydrogen Kaiyuan series fuel cell system equipped with M4H stacks will be benchmarked against the world's top level represented by Toyota. SAIC motor said.
"If the MEB factory represents the technical route of pure electric power, then the hydrogen energy port represents Jiading's bet on fuel cells." Gu Kang told reporters that there was a hydrogen filling station in Jiading 6-7 years ago, which was the earliest region in China to start laying out the hydrogen fuel cell industry. According to the data, in February 2018, Shanghai's first hydrogen energy and fuel cell industrial park settled in Anting, Jiading, becoming the prototype of Jiading Hydrogen Energy Port. In June 2019, Jiading Hydrogen Energy Port was officially established. At present, hydrogen energy port has gathered more than 20 industry head enterprises such as Great Wall Motors, Jet Hydrogen Technology, Faurea, Horiba Instruments, Chucui Intelligence, and National Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Testing Base. At present, Jiading Hydrogen Energy Port has initially possessed relatively complete supporting elements of the whole ecological industry.
In addition to pure electricity, Jiading is further accelerating its layout in the field of fuel cells. On December 29, 2021, the Jiading District Automobile "New Four Modernization" Industrial Policy and Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Industry Development Action Plan Conference was successfully held, at the press conference", "Jiading District on Continuously Promoting the Development of the Automobile "New Four Modernization" Industry" and "Jiading District To Accelerate the Development of Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Vehicle Industry Action Plan (2021-2025)" were officially released, reflecting Jiading's further construction of a world-class automobile industry cluster. The determination and confidence to build a highland for the development of the domestic hydrogen energy and fuel cell vehicle industry.
Turn to smart highlands
"In the past, many of our colleagues would work at Volkswagen for a lifetime, and I knew several 'old masters' who had been established by SAIC Volkswagen since their inception, and they worked here for 30 years before finally retiring from SAIC Volkswagen. But now the movement of people has increased significantly. Gu Kang did not have the same "one-day Volkswagen, lifelong Volkswagen" as his predecessors, and in 2021, he chose to leave the automaker and join an autonomous driving company.
In the distance of 3 kilometers from the hydrogen energy port featuring hydrogen fuel cells, Jiading Automobile Innovation Port has gathered more and more "new four modernization" related enterprises, and intelligent automobile-related enterprises such as Weilai Automobile, Ideal Automobile, Zhiji Automobile, R Automobile, and Horizon have successively settled in the Automobile Innovation Port. Baidu Apollo, Xiaoma Zhixing, Hesai Optoelectronics, Yishi Technology and other head autonomous driving related enterprises also landed in Jiading.
As of September 2021, there are 253 open test roads for autonomous driving in Shanghai, of which 162 are in Jiading, and the total mileage of autonomous driving development and test roads is 567.23 kilometers, of which Jiading District accounts for 315 kilometers. In 2021, Jiading users can already call Xiangdao Robotaxi, which is oriented to social operations, through the Xiangdao Travel APP.
Gu Kang told reporters that for a long time in the past, Jiading gathered a deep industrial base, but in the eyes of many people, these automakers and parts supporting enterprises are dominated by "machinery", but in the past one or two years, software and intelligence have gradually become the new mainstream.
It is understood that at present, Jiading District has gathered more than 340 enterprises related to the "new four modernizations" of automobiles such as Weilai Automobile, Ideal Automobile, Xiaoma Zhixing, Horizon, and Reshaping Technology, of which 88 are above designated size.
The reporter combed and found that in the field of traditional auto parts, related companies are also responding to changes. Located in Huayu Vision Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is the leading supplier of automotive lighting equipment in China, its DLP (digital projection headlights), ISC (Interactive System Control) intelligent lighting system is unique in the industry; Aptiv Electric Systems Co., Ltd., which has been working in Jiading for nearly 27 years, has also begun to launch an intelligent automotive electrical architecture to cope with the new era.
"Even Yonghui Supermarket in the community has begun to use unmanned delivery vehicles." Gu Kang said that the changes in the new four modernizations of automobiles not only appear in the industry, but also go deep into the lives of the masses.
According to the data, from January to November 2021, Jiading Automobile's "new four modernizations" achieved a total output of 111.7 billion yuan, and the industrial supporting facilities in the area were complete, with domestic leading advantages, including the establishment of the only international demonstration zone for electric vehicles in China, the first intelligent networked vehicle demonstration zone approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China, the first stationary hydrogen refueling station with the longest continuous safe operation time in China, and the first characteristic industrial park "Jiading Hydrogen Energy Port" with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as the theme in Shanghai.
(At the request of the interviewee, Gu Kang is a pseudonym)