Recently, at the high-level forum of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2022), Miao Wei, deputy director of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, delivered a keynote speech.
His speech was divided into three aspects, including the remarkable results achieved in the development of new energy vehicles in mainland China, the critical period of intelligent networked vehicle technology entering the landing period, and the thinking on accelerating the development of intelligent networked vehicles.
"If new energy vehicles are compared to the first half, intelligent and connected cars are compared to the second half, China's automotive industry has achieved great results in the first half, but the real decision is still in the second half." Miao Wei said, "We have the confidence and ability to continue to play the second half and finally achieve the goal of building an automobile power." ”
New energy vehicles change lanes to overtake
For the development process of new energy vehicles in mainland China, Miao Wei summarized three major stages: first of all, the demonstration application stage of "ten cities and thousands of vehicles", which began in 2009 and ended in 2012; in 2013, it began to enter the popularization and promotion stage; in 2016, it entered a stage of rapid growth, maintaining the first place in the production and sales of new energy vehicles in the world for 7 consecutive years.
"Last year, among the world's top 20 new energy vehicle companies, there were 8 in China, 7 in Europe, 2 in the United States, 2 in South Korea, and 1 in Japan. It turned out that everyone was worried about how big the gap between our internal combustion engine technology and the world was, and that great progress had been made after the reform and opening up. But I've always argued that we also have to look for opportunities to change lanes and overtake. Miao Wei mentioned that after years of efforts, the mainland has successfully seized the development opportunity of new energy vehicles and achieved lane change and overtaking.
Miao Wei pointed out that today, the market share of new energy vehicles in the mainland is increasing rapidly, and the gap between batteries, motors and other technologies and the international community is also narrowing.
Among them, in terms of power batteries, the mainland is in a leading position in the world. In 5 years, the energy density of ternary batteries has increased from 143.4 watt-hours to 206 watt-hours, lithium iron phosphate has increased from 117 watt-hours to 167.4 watt-hours, and the price per watt-hour has dropped from 1.43 yuan in 2017 to 0.84 yuan last year.
The Chinese electric car that can make US President Biden recognize the "world's first" naturally has its secret to development.
Miao Wei concluded that the experience of the development of new energy vehicles in the mainland mainly has the following five points: first, the advantages of the socialist system and concentrate on doing big things; second, seize the pure electric drive development opportunity of "changing lanes and overtaking"; third, maintain strategic determination and adhere to a blueprint to the end; fourth, build an innovation system based on enterprises; fifth, the government guides from the top-level design, technological innovation, standard system, fiscal and taxation policies and other aspects.
"Lack of core and soul" can not "dry call"
Despite the gratifying momentum of development, since 2021, chip shortages and rising raw material prices have become a major obstacle to the rapid development of new energy vehicles.
Miao Wei said that for the phenomenon of rising prices of upstream raw materials, it is necessary to crack down on the behavior of hoarding and making ill-gotten gains, but the trend of rising international bulk raw material prices "no one can stop it.".
He pointed out that at present, power battery manufacturers are generally increasing prices, and the whole vehicle has also begun to rise in price, which is unavoidable, "the price of upstream raw materials cannot be controlled and will inevitably be transmitted to the downstream, and the enterprises with higher pricing will be able to bear a little stronger, and the pressure on enterprises that compete at a low price will be greater." ”
In his view, the price affordability of the new forces of car manufacturing is relatively strong, and the traditional enterprises develop to new energy, because they are moving from the low end to the middle and high end, and the price affordability is a little worse.
In response to the lack of cores in the automobile industry, Miao Wei said that at present, many automakers still throw "card neck" technologies such as vehicle-level chips and operating systems to first-level suppliers, and do not take any action.
"There are already foreign auto factories investing in TSMC, and they want production capacity, but our auto factories will only call there." He criticized.
The automotive industry is beginning to shift to smart cars
Miao Wei said at the meeting that the global automobile industry is experiencing major changes in the power system and control system that have not been seen in a hundred years, and the automobile is gradually moving from a closed system to an open.
In his view, the automobile industry is transforming from functional cars to intelligent cars, and the key to intelligence lies in the development of intelligent networked vehicles. "If new energy vehicles are compared to the first half and intelligent networking is compared to the second half, the first half of China's automotive industry has achieved great results, but the decision to win or lose is still in the second half."
In view of the development of intelligent network technology, Miao Wei agreed with a proposal put forward by Li Xiang, chairman of Ideal Automobile, to standardize the AEB automatic emergency braking system.
In this regard, Miao Wei believes that with an AEB system, the possibility of crashing into a car due to the driver not noticing will be greatly reduced, and the number of deaths and casualties in road traffic safety will be greatly reduced. "AEB technology is very mature, the cost is not very high, should be made into a mandatory part." He said.
In addition, in view of the development path of "bicycle intelligence + intelligent network connection", Miao Wei stressed that the importance of intelligent network connection cannot be replaced, "we must engage in V2X". In his view, it is difficult to achieve automatic driving of L3 and above by relying on bicycle intelligence alone, and part of the computing power must be transferred from the car end to the roadside.
Based on this, Miao Wei pointed out that at present, the industrial chain of the mainland Vehicle Networking is not yet mature, and data, communication technology, and standard formulation have yet to be solved. Therefore, the Internet of Vehicles should develop short-range broadband wireless communication technology as soon as possible to meet the needs of edge computing, roadside units and vehicle communications; vehicle-road coordination should establish a national standard for road intelligent grading as soon as possible, as well as intelligent standards for roadside units, traffic lights, and road marking signs, so as to achieve unification in the country.
epilogue
The development of new energy vehicles in the mainland has indeed achieved world-leading results by relying on the advantages of the socialist system, but there are also many problems encountered at present. In the past few days, Miao Wei's speech on "lack of core and less soul" has been brushed in the circle of friends, indicating that most people are actually willing to hear different voices, rather than blindly avoiding the problem. Sharp criticism is always more valuable than just talking about achievements.