The representatives of the two sessions suggested: how to solve the problem of lack of core and the bottleneck of automatic driving development

After a year, "new energy vehicles" have once again been written into the government work report.

The government work report of the Fifth Session of the 13th National People's Congress mentioned that "continue to support the consumption of new energy vehicles, encourage local governments to carry out green smart home appliances to the countryside and replace old with new".

In 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales have reached 3.3 million, an increase of more than 160% year-on-year. Some industry insiders have analyzed that the double watershed of automobile electrification and intelligence has emerged. However, new energy vehicles and smart cars are also facing problems such as lack of cores and less electricity, and the definition of responsibility for automatic driving. During the two sessions, among the suggestions and suggestions of representatives of the automobile industry, automobile chips and automatic driving legislation became the focus of attention.

Autonomous car chips have become the focus of attention

According to the latest data from AutoForecast Solutions, a company that forecasts automotive industry, as of February 27, the global automotive market has reduced production by about 643,100 units this year due to chip shortages. Among them, the cumulative production reduction in china's automobile market is about 51,100 units. The agency predicts that due to the shortage of chips, the global automotive market will reduce production by 1 million to 1.0885 million units this year.

At present, affected by the supply of chips and power batteries, many new energy vehicle companies still have a situation where a car is difficult to find or the car pick-up cycle is extremely long. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the automotive industry has continued to be affected by the "lack of core". Insufficient independent research and development of domestic automotive chips, high dependence on foreign supply, and lagging development of the industrial chain are the core problems facing the development of mainland chips.

Taking the high-computing chip required by smart cars as an example, the autonomous driving chips equipped by many domestic car companies are mainly from NVIDIA and Moblileye; in terms of smart cockpits, the chips are mainly from Qualcomm and Intel. The installed capacity of high-computing chips of domestic manufacturers such as Horizon and Black Sesame Intelligence is relatively small.

Chen Hong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of SAIC Motor, suggested that policy guarantees should be strengthened to promote the development of domestic large computing chip. With the accelerated development of intelligent networked vehicles in the future, the demand for automotive chips, especially large computing chips, will continue to grow rapidly. To this end, he suggested that through policy guidance and multi-party coordination, a unified technical specification and standard for vehicle-grade chips should be established, and a third-party testing and certification platform should be established; it is suggested that the state take the lead in setting up special funds to encourage chip companies and automobile companies to participate together and accelerate the formation of domestic large-scale computing chip research and development, manufacturing and application capabilities.

Wang Fengying, deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Great Wall Motors, believes that in accordance with the priority of time, the short-term priority should be given to solving the problem of "lack of core"; in the medium term, the industrial layout should be improved to achieve independent control; and the introduction and training mechanism of industrial talents should be built in the long run to achieve sustainable development. In order to improve the overall layout, promote China's auto industry to seize strategic opportunities, orderly solve development obstacles, create a healthy and sustainable industrial ecology, and continue to enhance the global competitiveness of China's automobiles.

Earlier, the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Development Strategy" issued by 11 ministries and commissions such as the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed the construction of an industrial cluster of key components of intelligent vehicles, including vehicle-level chips, intelligent operating systems and intelligent computing platforms, and the "New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan (2021-2035)" also clearly "focus on promoting breakthroughs in key technologies and products such as vehicle-grade chips and vehicle operating systems" as an important part of the implementation of the basic technology upgrading project of new energy vehicles.

Autonomous driving is subject to clear regulations

Autonomous driving has also received the attention of representatives of industries such as automobiles and technology.

The "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Digital Economy" issued by the State Council clearly proposes to "encourage the development of an intelligent economy and steadily promote autonomous driving". Li Yanhong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman and CEO of Baidu, believes that China's autonomous driving has entered a critical period of landing, and technology has run and even led the world, and it is necessary to further break through the policy bottlenecks that are incompatible with the development of technology and industry, and stimulate innovation in the field of automatic driving.

IT research and consultancy Gartner, which previously released the top five technology trends in the automotive industry in 2022, believes that issues such as the division of liability in the event of an accident in a self-driving vehicle and related legal and social concerns (such as how human-driven vehicles will interact with AI vehicles) make it difficult for this technology to move towards commercialization. At present, there is no clear division of relevant responsible entities in China under the state of automatic driving. At the two sessions, a number of people's congress deputies made suggestions on the definition of laws and regulations related to automatic driving.

Zhu Huarong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Changan Automobile, believes that the current legal provisions are missing in the identification of intelligent vehicle responsibility, the identification of automatic driving responsibility subjects, and the ethics of automatic driving, and the legal and regulatory system of intelligent networked vehicles should be improved.

Chen Hong suggested that in the Road Traffic Safety Law, the legal status of the automatic driving system should be clarified, and the standard rules and disposal mechanisms for the division of responsibilities between human drivers and "automatic driving systems" (car companies, parts suppliers, etc.) should be formulated. He believes that in order to promote the faster development of intelligent and connected vehicles, especially to achieve the landing of autonomous driving technology, it is also necessary to achieve breakthroughs in laws and regulations.

Zeng Qinghong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of the GUANGZHOU Automobile Group, put forward a motion on amending articles 2 and 76 of the Road Traffic Law, proposing to add and clarify the definition of "robot driver", which will help clarify the responsible subjects of traffic accidents and pave the way for forward-looking legislation for the legality of intelligent driving cars on the road in the mainland in the future.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in February this year that it is accelerating the construction of standards related to autonomous vehicles, studying and formulating safety audit and management measures for self-driving vehicle-related products, as of August 2021, it has carried out more than 50 national and industry standards, at the same time, strengthened the formulation and coordination of international standards and regulations, and has jointly proposed the framework of autonomous driving regulations in Europe, the United States and Japan, and supported the United Nations to issue technical regulations such as automatic lane keeping systems (ALKS), information security, and software upgrades.