In the era of "everything can be intelligent", the market no longer pays attention to smart phones alone, but looks at various industries, so a variety of smart products began to appear on the market.
Then, with the accelerated development of the automotive industry, the entry of major technology giants, and the continuous collision of new energy forces and traditional car companies, smart cars have gradually become an important intelligent product, and the era of software-defined cars has arrived.
Automobile intelligence has become an industry trend, and the final point of car companies has arrived?
According to the report of the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, the global sales of generalized new energy passenger cars in 2021 will reach 9.37 million units, of which the world share of New Energy Passenger Vehicles in China will reach 53%. From the trend point of view, China's new energy vehicle market will continue to be strong in 2021, and the upward trend will continue to accelerate in the 3-4 quarters.
By this year, the penetration rate of the domestic new energy vehicle market is still significantly increasing. In January, the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles was 16.6%, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points from 6.8% in the same period of the year. And according to CITIC Securities, by 2025, the penetration rate is expected to increase to 32% and 42%.
This means that new energy vehicles have become the main focus of many enterprises. As an ideal carrier of intelligence, the accelerated development of electrification can effectively promote the development of intelligence to a certain extent, coupled with the efforts of major car companies, the development trend of the industry and the policy synergy, the trend of automobile intelligence has gradually become clear, which can be manifested in the following aspects.
Market tendency software products: The most important intelligent product of the previous generation, mobile phones, for example, with the increase in consumer demand, its market has shifted from "hardware products" to "software products". By analogy, when users' attention and demand for OTA services, automatic driving, etc. increases, how to better use software will become a key point for major car companies to compete for the market in the future, so intelligence is very important for car companies.
Software-defined vehicles are trending: According to a report by a future think tank, traditional automotive electronic and electrical architectures have been difficult to adapt to the development needs of software-defined vehicles due to drawbacks such as computing power constraints, communication efficiency defects, and uncontrolled wiring harness cost black holes. Therefore, under this trend, automotive electrical and electronic architecture will evolve from distributed to domain-centralized, central computing architecture, and software-defined vehicles will become a long-term inevitable trend.
The software field has become a track: As a typical representative of automotive intelligence, Tesla is recognized as the first car company to realize the OTA of the whole vehicle, and it is still constantly updating and iteration, and at the end of January this year, it carried out another OTA upgrade (2022.2.1).
Volkswagen CEO Diess has said that if you want to catch up with Tesla, the difficulty lies in the software field represented by automatic driving. According to the McKinsey report, the automotive software and electrical and electronic components market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7%, which will grow to $469 billion by 2030, ushering in the era of software-defined vehicles.
Tesla is leading the way, new forces are catching up, and giants are also increasing
While Tesla CEO Musk said on the 2021 earnings call that it would not launch new cars this year, the company turned its goal to expand production, expecting sales to exceed 1.4 million units in 2022, and said there was information to maintain an annual delivery growth rate of at least 50 percent and achieve annual sales of 20 million units by 2030. The company still occupies the top position in the industry.
Tesla is in front, and the new car-making forces behind are also following suit.
According to incomplete statistics, in January this year, in addition to Tesla, there are 9 brands that have also carried out the first OTA upgrade in the new year, including Xiaopeng and Weilai, as well as traditional brands such as Buick and Beijing Automobile.
Image source: Cheyun Network
According to user feedback, this OTA upgrade has played a major role, such as the new version of ASPEN3.1.0
Light mode interface. In fact, this is a feature that was officially cut in version 3.0, which caused users to complain at the time, and now it is back in the new version, making the entire cockpit "new" during the day, which has been well received by users.
In terms of data, Everbright Securities Research Report pointed out that the scale of new car-making forces is expected to reach 550,000-600,000 vehicles in 2022, and the market share is expected to climb to 11%-12%, and it is expected that the high-end pure electric market is expected to become one of the fastest growing market segments.
Judging from the first echelon of the new forces, "Wei Xiaoli", the total delivery volume of all three in 2021 will exceed 90,000 vehicles. And based on last year's strong performance, Xiaopeng Motors plans to deliver 250,000 new vehicles in 2022 and hit 300,000 vehicles.
Players of the second echelon are not to be outdone, among which Nezha Automobile is "overtaking in curves", and the delivery volume in January 2022 is overpowered by Weilai, reaching the top three with a year-on-year increase of 402%.
Image source: Future Automotive Daily
In addition, many new forces seek to go public to raise funds for R&D investment and expansion of production capacity, etc. Hong Kong stocks may usher in many high-quality auto stocks this year. For example, the media said that Huaren Express is working with UBS group and Morgan Stanley to arrange a potential listing, which may raise about $300 million to 500 million, and change the listing location from the United States to Hong Kong, China.
At present, not only car companies are actively promoting new energy and promoting the process of automobile intelligence, but even technology giants have entered the game.
If you want to talk about the most interesting technology companies in foreign countries, cross-line car building, it is of course Apple.
It is understood that as early as 2014, Apple's research and development projects for cars have begun. Although there were executive departures and Meta digging in the wall during the period, according to the latest news, Apple's first electric car, Apple Car, is expected to come out in September this year.
Domestic giants are also accelerating. Baidu's driverless car project started in 2013 and launched driverless cars in the second half of 2015, and CITIC Securities pointed out that the company is expected to launch new models in 2023-2024, and intelligence will be its core selling point.
At the same time, Huawei is also strongly entering the smart car business. According to the Huafu Securities Research Report, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU, set a target of selling 300,000 vehicles in 2022.
When the technology giants have increased the number of new energy vehicles, automotive intelligence may be further developed.
The development of the industry is encouraging, but several major risks can not be ignored
Car companies have made efforts and giants have entered the game, and the new energy automobile industry seems to have shown a prosperous scene, but the problems are also like shadows. For example, virus variants or further aggravation of the global epidemic, insufficient key supply of the industrial chain, and safety accidents caused by automatic driving are all risk factors that may occur in the process of automobile intelligence.
Under the impact of the epidemic, the production, sales and export of the global automotive industry have been hit. According to the data, the output growth rate in 2003 reached 50.4% year-on-year, the year-on-year growth rate of sales in 2006 reached 81.6%, and the production and sales volume in 2017 reached a peak, but then due to the epidemic, there was a decline, and the output in 19 years fell by 7.51% year-on-year, and the sales volume fell by 8.23% year-on-year.
Previously, Auto Forecast Solutions (AFS), a data forecasting company in the automotive industry, also released a report that last year's "lack of cores" led to a reduction in global car companies by more than 10 million vehicles, of which Chinese car companies cut production by about 2 million vehicles.
However, car companies generally believe that the "lack of core" is expected to improve in the second half of this year. Wang Weiming, director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, also said that as major global chip companies increase production and supply, it is expected that the shortage of automotive chip supply will gradually ease in 2022.
The safety issues and controversies surrounding autonomous driving affect the development of the automotive industry at the same time, but also affect the market's valuation of car companies.
Because the defrost effect of the vehicle windshield is not up to standard, there are safety hazards, so since February 18, Tesla launched a large-scale recall, a total of 26,047 electric vehicles, which led to Tesla's market value evaporated $68.6 billion in two days.
This is also not the first time Tesla has been affected by safety issues. On the 17th of the same month, NHTSA officially launched an investigation into Tesla's "ghost brakes", and subsequently, the company's stock price fell by 5.09%, and the market value evaporated by $48.6 billion in a single day.
epilogue
With the development of the times, intelligent cars have become the next important intelligent hardware AI platform, major car companies have accelerated, giants have also increased their size, and the entire industry has presented a scene of "a hundred schools of thought".
But at a time when software-defined cars are becoming a long-term inevitable trend, the risks involved cannot be ignored. If the automotive industry wants to enter the stage of "low total growth and increased market concentration" like smart phones, there is still a way to go.