The competition of intelligent electric vehicles has entered the "second half": cross-border integration has become an inevitable trend

21st Century Business Herald reporter Du Qiaomei Beijing reported that "China's new energy vehicle development has made breakthroughs, and China has begun to enter a critical period of transformation from functional vehicles to intelligent vehicles. A few days ago, An Qingheng, director of the China Automotive Industry Advisory Committee, said at the media communication meeting of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Forum that although China's new energy vehicle development has indeed made breakthrough progress in recent years, the development of intelligent vehicles still has a long way to go, and it is necessary to concentrate on overcoming difficulties.

On the one hand, the production and sales of new energy vehicles have grown rapidly. According to the data, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales exceeded 3.5 million, and the penetration rate reached 13.77%. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers expects to achieve production and sales of 5-6 million vehicles in 2022.

On the other hand, in the field of new energy vehicles, there have been world-class electric vehicle companies and power battery companies such as BYD and Ningde Times, and innovative enterprises such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, which are sought after by the international capital market.

In the field of intelligent networked vehicles, China has also formed its own unique "vehicle-road coordination" development system, and has also achieved positive results in terms of standards, policies, test specifications, closed test sites, etc., and the overall strength is basically in the stage of "running together" with the global advanced level.

However, in An Qingheng's view, although the mainland has market advantages, institutional advantages and policy advantages in the process of integration and innovation, it is still subject to people in core technologies such as chips and operating systems, and it is still very lacking in controlling composite high-end talents in multiple industries, and the management process and certification system in technology-intensive industries are still lacking in experience and standards.

"In the 'first half' of the new energy automobile industry and technological competition, China played well, but our real competition with the automobile power is in the 'second half'." An Qingheng pointed out, "On the basis of the major breakthroughs we have made in the electrification of functional vehicles, we are entering a critical period of 'transformation from functional vehicles to intelligent vehicles' and building an automobile power." This means that the innovation ability, technical level and industrialization speed of intelligent vehicles will become the core of our competition with automobile powers, and we will have to deal with more pressures and risks in the meantime. This requires a large number of cross-border enterprises and talents with intelligent technology and innovation capabilities to integrate into the automotive industry and help Chinese automobiles win in the competition. ”

It is worth noting that with the advent of the automotive revolution 2.0 era characterized by intelligence and networking, technology giants in the fields of the Internet and consumer electronics have entered the automotive industry in a big way and are becoming the main force to promote the in-depth transformation of the automotive industry.

A few days ago, the "Cross-border Integration and New Forces of the Automotive Industry" research report (hereinafter referred to as the report) released by the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association pointed out that the internet, ICT and other cross-border new forces are entering the automotive industry along the three paths of automobile brand owners, automobile suppliers and automobile manufacturers based on the advantages of existing thinking, technology, products and business, and promoting the technological transformation and upgrading of the mainland automobile industry.

The report points out that the mainland cross-border integration advantage industries are in the field of ICT. With the changes in the form and attributes of automotive products, AI, 5G, cloud computing, big data, etc. have become the key technologies of automotive intelligence, and these technologies happen to be the advantages of the mainland. First, the mainland has accumulated a number of world-leading ICT enterprises, and its years of technology and ecological accumulation are expected to enhance the competitiveness of intelligent networked vehicles. Second, the penetration of new applications and new services in the mainland is very fast, and domestic technology companies can better grasp and adapt to the active and changeable demands of local consumers. Third, the mainland's new infrastructure has ushered in a new round of rapid development, which can better support the landing of new technologies and new products for smart vehicles.

At the same time, similar technologies and ecological cultivation capabilities have become the "foothold" for new forces to cross borders. Just as the mobile phone follows the path of "interactive innovation - architecture upgrade - ecological development", it is upgraded from a single communication tool to a universal scenario tool. The car will reproduce the intelligent evolution path of mobile phones, starting from the human-computer interaction transformation in the cockpit, superimposed on the wave of automatic driving, which is transforming from a travel tool into a next-generation intelligent terminal. Similar architecture iteration and interaction technology, as well as ecological cultivation capabilities, have become the foothold of new forces in the field of cross-border automobiles.

In addition, the "multi-path" new cross-border force has entered the game, empowering a new round of development of the automobile industry.

New car brand owners accelerate the transformation of automotive product forms and travel modes. Based on the needs of users, new brands are creating customized products and services, relying on rich intelligent hardware ecology, service ecology and a large amount of data accumulation, which are promoting further changes in the form of automobile products and traffic travel modes, and accelerating the transformation of automobile attributes into the third space of mobile.

New automotive suppliers accelerate the iteration process of software and hardware for intelligent and connected vehicles. The new supplier has more advantages in the original software business ecosystem, the existing precision hardware process, and the software and hardware collaboration capabilities, driving the landing of in-vehicle software, incremental hardware, and service ecology, and driving the iteration and progress of intelligent vehicles.

New automakers promote changes in the way the automotive industry produces. New car manufacturers bring their original OEM production experience and innovative technologies into the field of car manufacturing, which will help promote the transformation of automobile production to a highly specialized division of labor and keep up with the rapid iteration rhythm of intelligent and connected vehicles. These enterprises have a better understanding of customer needs, more capital power, information technology accumulation and software talent reserves are more abundant, business models are more flexible, will become a new force in the car can not be ignored.

"Big-name companies such as Xiaomi, Baidu, and Huawei have not hesitated to come in and create a new wave of offensives for new car-making forces." Enterprises in the technology industry either build cars themselves or join hands with traditional car companies to build cars, and everyone is working together to create a new brand of smart cars. These technology companies cross-border into the automotive industry in different ways, which is a move to the future. An Qingheng finally said that in this context, the automobile industry should more clearly understand the situation, take practical actions, and actively embrace cross-border automobile companies. Only by giving full play to our advantages, learning from our own strengths and promoting integration can we build new advantages in the mainland automobile industry and truly get our own brand cars up to accelerate the realization of the mainland's goal of becoming an automobile power.