2022 Hundred People Will 丨 Volkswagen Subahong: Achieve carbon neutrality of the whole industry chain in 2050

On March 25-27, 2022, the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2022) was officially held. With the theme of "Meeting the New Stage of Market-oriented Development of New Energy Vehicles", the conference conducted in-depth discussions on many challenges and opportunities such as the development of the new energy automobile industry, double carbon targets, climate change, supply chain adjustment, in-depth application of information technology and intelligent technology, change of human travel mode, competition and cooperation among major countries, etc.

At the Dual Intelligence Forum with the theme of "Promoting the Coordinated Development of Smart Cars and Smart Cities" held on the morning of the 25th, Su Bahong, Senior Director of Public Affairs and Joint Venture Affairs of Volkswagen Group (China), delivered a speech around the following:

1. The Internet of Everything is not only an important direction for China's future scientific and technological development, but also an important trend in the development of science and technology in the world;

2. Volkswagen proposes to achieve carbon neutrality in the whole industry chain by 2050;

3. OEMs have high requirements for the efficiency of logistics.

The following is a transcript of the speech:

Dear leaders, colleagues in the industry, hello!

My name is Su Bahong and I am from the Volkswagen Group (China). He has been with Volkswagen for nearly two decades.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany, and Volkswagen has been in China for almost 40 years. If you count from 1978, when Minister Zhou Zijian led a delegation from the Ministry of Machinery Industry to visit the headquarters of the Volkswagen Group, 44 years have passed. If you count from the signing of Shanghai Volkswagen in 1983, then next year will be the 40th anniversary. In these 40 years, as one of the first international car companies to enter China, Volkswagen has indeed helped China lay the foundation for the modern automobile industry. At the same time, Volkswagen has also gained huge benefits from the Chinese market. Therefore, the public can be regarded as a typical example of reform and opening up and win-win situation between China and foreign countries. Standing in the new historical period, as a member of China's auto industry, Volkswagen consciously still has new work to do. This is the theme of this morning's forum: "Promoting the Coordinated Development of Intelligent Connected Vehicles and Smart Cities". Next, I will communicate and discuss with all of you on the topic of smart logistics, and hope that leaders and experts will not hesitate to teach.

The reason why the public chose the topic of smart logistics is based on the following three understandings:

Obviously, the Internet of Everything is not only an important direction for China's future scientific and technological development, but also an important trend in the development of science and technology in the world;

Volkswagen is the first international automotive company to propose to achieve carbon neutrality in the whole industry chain by 2050, and regards low-carbon development as an important part of the group's strategy. The whole group has a strong sense of mission and is actively implementing the goal of low-carbon development through practical actions.

OEMs place high demands on the efficiency of logistics.

So it makes sense to choose this topic.

Time is limited, so I will not repeat it. I would like to quote President Xi Jinping's speech at the opening ceremony of the Second Global Conference on Sustainable Transport in 2021, when he stressed: "We must vigorously develop smart transportation and smart logistics, and strengthen the construction of green infrastructure." ”

I just talked about why I chose the topic of smart logistics, and now I will talk about why I chose Hefei as a city.

Everyone knows that Volkswagen has a huge investment in Hefei, and the core is our Volkswagen Anhui factory. Here I think it is necessary to talk about the advantages of Hefei and Hefei Economic Development Zone: Hefei is the national "14th Five-Year" Yangtze River Delta integration key development city, but also the Ministry of Science and Technology announced the national top ten innovative cities; our project starting point chose in Hefei Economic Development Zone, and according to the 2021 Ministry of Commerce selection results, Hefei Economic Development Zone ranked in the top ten in the country, the central and western regions, the use of foreign investment single national fifth. In the process of our contact with the local area, the Hefei Municipal Government has embodied the spirit of daring to take responsibility, enterprising, cooperation and innovation, and practiced the concept of service-oriented government. All of this deeply touched us, so we think it makes sense to try some innovation with the local government.

I would like to take this opportunity to report to you on the relevant progress of Volkswagen Anhui. The project began with the care of the Chinese and German prime ministers. Later, with the strong support of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Anhui Provincial Government, the project continued to develop steadily. At the end of 2020, the main building of the first phase of the R&D center was put into use. In April 2021, the CONSTRUCTION OF THE MEB plant started, and in December of the same year, Volkswagen Anhui was officially inaugurated, and the R&D center was completed. In 2022, the body shop building will be delivered. Just this past March 9, the R&D test site of the Comprehensive Experimental Center began. In this regard, the CEO of Volkswagen Anhui said that the progress of Volkswagen's Anhui factory and R&D center is the embodiment of "Hefei Speed".

We are based on the present, investing in the future, and planning related supporting projects: such as power batteries, parts, digital marketing, and smart logistics.

We believe that in Hefei, a city full of vitality and technology to promote development, it is very meaningful to explore the use of dual wisdom construction to serve a pure electric vehicle manufacturing base.

Well, in fact, our exploration of hefei's double wisdom construction began with the Robotaxi pilot project in 2020. This project has helped us to accumulate relevant experience and data. With the gradual completion of Volkswagen's Anhui factory, we believe that smart logistics is a more suitable topic for the next stage of smart city, and we can analyze it from several aspects:

From the perspective of technical general directions, the previous project focused on bicycle intelligence, and the integration with smart infrastructure was not close enough;

From the perspective of scenarios, smart logistics is based on fixed lines and serves real scenarios, which is of greater practical significance in comparison;

From the perspective of business models, both are currently exploring business models. But for us, the combination of smart logistics projects and the actual logistics needs of our factories is more conducive to the study of business models;

From the perspective of industry participation: at present, there are few smart logistics projects in OEMs, so the exploration of this aspect is more meaningful.

Overall, we feel that smart logistics can theoretically bring the following six benefits, such as carbon reduction and improved safety. But we emphasize that this is only theoretical, so a demonstration project is needed to verify the benefits that exist in these theories to some extent.

So let's introduce the overall concept of the project, which is divided into three stages as shown in Figure 3.

Next, I will give a detailed report on the content of each stage.

In the first phase, we plan to implement three items as shown in the figure, namely the networked electric truck fleet, the self-driving bus, and the data platform construction. In the process of selecting relevant routes, we will work with local science and technology, housing construction, traffic police, urban management and other departments to complete the road survey, summarizing the following three characteristics:

Rich scenes;

Transportation facilities have the basis for intelligent upgrading: ;

Have a certain data and communication basis;

The second phase will be based on the previous phase of upgrading, both in terms of technology and scale

Phase THREE: Scale up and look to the future

The high-tech partners present here can give more scientific and technological elements to the smart logistics solution, which is possible to promote and apply the three-dimensional logistics of unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligent networked electric trucks; further integrate with urban intelligent infrastructure and traffic management systems; and achieve the public low-carbon goal in Hefei to make the city greener;

In terms of scale, we plan to promote the application of smart logistics in Volkswagen's factories nationwide.

Above is a brief introduction to our project.

The project itself is full of challenges, but Volkswagen has always believed that intelligence, low carbon and electrification are irreversible trends, and China is the leader in these aspects. As a member of the automotive industry, Volkswagen is willing to make explorations and attempts within its capabilities to provide meaningful reference for the whole industry, and here, I would like to share two typical thoughts in the process:

First, from the perspective of an oem, for a long time, our main task is to ensure that vehicles roll off the line on time, which is also the main assessment indicator for us by the central and local governments. Under such pressure, Volkswagen also insists on making some innovative attempts from a technical and commercial point of view, which does require great courage. Therefore, we advocate that the scale of the initial project should not be too large, for two main reasons: First, as a vehicle manufacturing enterprise, logistics has a direct impact on production. Therefore, as an exploratory project, it should avoid excessive interference with actual production; secondly, when the business model is not clear, the excessive scale is also impractical for a single vehicle enterprise.

Although the initial scale will not be very large, as an international vehicle company, our project provides you with a valuable real application scenario, through the joint research, discussion and practice of all parties, so that smart logistics can truly help the coordinated development of intelligent networked vehicles and smart cities;

Second, as an international company and at the same time a traditional enterprise, in the face of new business areas and new partners, my team needs to bridge the gap between different technologies, languages, concepts and professions, while maintaining close communication and contact with governments at all levels. Of course, this is both a challenge and a process of generating new perspectives and new ideas through the collision of ideas, which is a meaningful attempt by traditional enterprises to face the future.

After the exploration of the project, we have deeply realized that it is impossible to achieve smart logistics and dual smart city development just by going it alone.

We must organically combine the superior resources of all parties, including the government, to establish an industrial ecology with clear business models, scale effects, and cooperation and symbiosis, so as to help enterprises and sustainable social and economic development.

Thankfully, we don't feel alone. At the beginning of the project, it received the attention and support of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Hefei Municipal Government, and all walks of life in the industry.

At the end of the report, we hope to join the like-minded colleagues from all walks of life to open a new chapter in the ecology with smart logistics as the core. We hope that through the project, we will do our best for the development of China's automobile cross-industry and for the exchange and cooperation of the automobile industry between China and Germany!

Thank you!