(Text/Yu Waijun Editor/Lou Bing) The automobile industry is a pillar industry of a country's economic manufacturing industry. During the two sessions, the bills submitted by representatives from the automobile industry were one of the focuses of attention.
In this year's proposal on the automobile industry, accelerating the development of the domestic chip industry and improving the laws, regulations and industry standards of intelligent and connected vehicles have once again become the focus and important topics of attention of the deputies and members of the two sessions of the automotive industry.
There are more and more unstable factors on the blue planet of the solar system, and the impact is getting bigger and bigger. Under the influence of increasingly stringent emission regulations, in recent years, it has encountered the impact of chips and related upstream and downstream industries. For the domestic auto industry, solving the "card neck" problem has never been more urgent than today.
Whether it is the chip problem or the intelligence of the car, the complicated constraints of the automation process, it exceeds the scope of the automotive industry's own ecology. Cross-industry issues require social multi-industry coordination and coordination, which will ultimately determine the cornering speed of the mainland automobile industry when it truly "overtakes" the world.
Accelerate autonomous control
Since the outbreak of the chip crisis at the end of 2020, the lack of cores has had a profound impact on the global automotive industry, severely limiting global automotive production capacity. The latest data released by AutoForecast Solutions, a well-known foreign market research agency, shows that due to the lack of supply of automotive chips, the global automobile production reduction in 2021 is about 11.31 million units, of which the Chinese automobile market is about 2.148 million units, accounting for about 18.9%.
The main reasons for the widespread shortage of zinc cores in the global automotive industry are as follows: First, the recovery speed of the automotive industry has exceeded expectations, and the rapid growth of demand for chips by car companies has led to an imbalance between supply and demand; secondly, some chip suppliers have been affected by the epidemic and other factors to limit chip production capacity; finally, the electrification, intelligence and networking of automobiles have continued to accelerate, further enhancing the demand for chips in the automotive field.
In fact, in order to meet the needs of car companies, chip manufacturers have begun to increase chip shipments last year. According to data released by research institute IC Insights, global shipments of automotive chips reached 52.4 billion units in 2021, an increase of 30% over the same period in 2020, and the growth rate set a new record.
Although chip manufacturers are constantly adjusting their capacity supply to meet the growing demand of the automotive industry, the supply of automotive chips is still extremely tight. AutoForecast Solutions estimates that the chip shortage will lead to a 643,100-unit cut in global vehicle production and a 51,100-unit cut in the Chinese market, accounting for about 8%. IHS Markit believes that global light vehicle production is expected to decrease by 3.5 million units in 2022.
Under this sudden chip shortage crisis, Chinese cars have been greatly affected. Behind this, in addition to the lack of chip supply worldwide, the low localization rate of vehicle-grade chips and the long-term high dependence of local car companies on chip imports are also one of the important factors that aggravate the impact of domestic car companies on the chip crisis. Data show that China's automotive semiconductor output value accounts for less than 5% of the global share, and some key parts and components imports account for more than 80% to 90%.
Based on the above considerations, many representatives of the two sessions in the automotive field contributed their opinions and suggestions on solving the insufficient supply of vehicle-grade chips, accelerating the localization of vehicle-grade chips, and realizing independent control. Among them, Chen Hong, deputy to the National People's Congress, secretary of the party committee and chairman of SAIC Motor, put forward the "Proposal on Promoting the Localization of Vehicle Regulation Grade and Large Computing Power Chips and Supporting the Coordinated Development of the Domestic Automotive Chip Industry Chain" from the perspective of supplementing the chain of the industrial chain.
Chen Hong believes that the development of smart cars will make the demand for automotive chips, especially large computing chips, grow rapidly. Therefore, it is hoped that through policy guidance and multi-party coordination, a unified technical specification and standard for vehicle-grade chips will be established, and a third-party testing and certification platform will be established; it is recommended 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 chip research and development, manufacturing and application capabilities.
Zhang Xinghai, a deputy to the National People's Congress and founder of Xiaokang Shares, also expressed similar views, saying that it is urgent to improve the localization rate of vehicle-grade chips and achieve import substitution. The competent departments for automotive chips under the national ministry level need to formulate top-level designs and supporting measures for the development of the automotive chip industry to promote the development of domestic automotive chips.
For the lack of core problems faced by the domestic automobile market, Wang Fengying, deputy to the National People's Congress and president of Great Wall Motors, suggested that the short-term priority should be given to solving the problem of "lack of cores"; improve the industrial layout in the medium term to achieve independent control; and build a long-term mechanism for the introduction and training of industrial talents to achieve long-term sustainable development.
In fact, alleviating the crisis of automotive chips and accelerating the localization of automotive-grade chips are also one of the key tasks of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2022. At the end of February this year, Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that in addition to building an online supply and demand docking platform for automotive chips, smoothing the information channels for chip production and supply, and improving the upstream and downstream cooperation mechanism of the industrial chain, it will further enhance the chip supply capacity, including supporting the collaborative innovation of vehicles, components and chip companies, steadily and orderly improving the domestic chip production and supply, and will also promote the localization production layout of multinational chip companies in China, thereby enhancing the stability and resilience of the automotive chip industry chain and supply chain.
During the same period this year, 11 ministries and commissions, including the National Development and Reform Commission, also clearly proposed in the intelligent vehicle innovation development strategy jointly issued, clearly proposing to build an industrial cluster of key components of intelligent vehicles, including vehicle-grade chips, intelligent operating systems and intelligent computing platforms.
In addition to providing policy assistance at the national level, domestic local enterprises are also actively laying out the chip field and strengthening cooperation with chip companies. Among them, BYD began to lay out in the chip field as early as 2005 and established BYD Semiconductor Company, which has built a relatively complete industrial chain.
After more than ten years of development, BYD has achieved self-sufficiency in IGBT vehicle specification chips, and even supplied to other car companies. The data shows that in the field of IGBT, BYD Semiconductor ranked second in the world among new energy passenger car motor driver manufacturers in 2019 and 2020 for two consecutive years, and ranked first among domestic manufacturers, with a market share of 19%, second only to Infineon.
As one of the leading car companies in China, SAIC Motor has also laid out in the field of automotive chips and realized the localization of a variety of chips. According to the official disclosure of SAIC Group, as of now, SAIC Motor has launched 75 chips in the field of automotive chips for localization and assembly into mass production vehicles.
In addition to choosing car companies to develop themselves, investing in or cooperating with local chip companies is also one of the important ways for car companies to enter the chip field, including GAC Group's investment in Guangdong Core Semiconductor, Horizon and other enterprises, WEILAI's strategic investment in Cambrian Xingge and Black Sesame two chip companies, Great Wall Motor's cooperation with Horizon and Tongguang Semiconductor Company, etc.
Although domestic car companies have laid out the chip industry through self-research or cooperation with chip companies, it is still necessary for enterprises to continuously complete technology accumulation, breakthroughs and time precipitation to achieve the independent and controllable supply of automotive chips.
Improve regulations and accelerate the development of intelligent driving
With the rapid development of intelligent technology, the penetration rate of intelligent networked vehicles is rising rapidly, of which the Chinese market is at the forefront of the world. The data shows that in 2020, the penetration rate of intelligent and connected vehicles in the global automotive market will be 45%, and the penetration rate of the Chinese market will be 48.8%. According to IHS Markit, by 2025, the global penetration rate of intelligent and connected vehicles will increase to 59.4%, while the penetration rate of the Chinese market will exceed 75%, higher than the global penetration rate of intelligent and connected vehicles.
Obviously, the gradual application of higher-level autonomous driving technology to cars has become an inevitable trend in the future development of intelligent networked vehicles. However, due to factors such as the core technology related to automatic driving is not yet fully mature, the industry standards are not unified, and the relevant laws and regulations are not perfect, the development of smart cars in the Chinese market is restricted to a certain extent.
In order to further promote the commercialization of intelligent driving technology in the Chinese market to accelerate the landing, Zhu Huarong, secretary of the party committee and chairman of Changan Automobile, suggested in terms of policy and safety that we should continuously improve the legal and regulatory system of intelligent and connected vehicles, accelerate industry cooperation, break down data barriers, and reasonably formulate automotive data security and privacy protection requirements and establish credible automotive data circulation channels.
Li Yanhong, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman and CEO of Baidu, suggested that local governments should introduce policies to create a pilot zone for the operation of fully unmanned autonomous vehicles, support autonomous vehicles without safety officers on the road, clarify the access rules for L4 autonomous vehicles, formulate automatic driving operation management measures, insurance facilities, accident handling mechanisms and other policies, and issue official number plates for vehicles that meet the requirements.
In addition, Chen Hong also proposed in the proposal on intelligent networked vehicles, suggesting 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 the "automatic driving system" (car companies, parts suppliers, etc.) should be formulated; at the same time, in the "Road Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access Management Measures", the "Automatic Driving System" level evaluation and certification system and access mechanism should be established.
If the laws and regulations on intelligent connected vehicles, quasi-human standards and intelligent driving responsibility division standards are continuously clarified and improved at the national level, it will undoubtedly further accelerate the development of intelligent connected vehicles in China, and also point out the way forward for car companies and their parts suppliers.
However, industry insiders believe that before the relevant technologies such as automatic driving are fully mature, car companies cannot over-promote higher-level automatic driving (L3 level and above automatic driving) functions to consumers. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, believes that some car companies have previously over-marketed autonomous driving technology, making consumers over-trust in the automatic driving technology that is still at the L2 level and insufficient understanding of the risks of automatic driving technology. This is very dangerous when autonomous driving technology is not yet mature.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.