Editor's note: On March 3, the China Automotive Industry Development Seminar was held in the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone, at which the "China Automotive Industry Development Report (2021)", jointly edited by the Industrial Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Society of Automotive Engineers of China and Volkswagen Group (China) and published by China Development Press, was released for the 14th consecutive year. Chen Qingtai, former secretary of the party group of the Development Research Center of the State Council and chairman of the China Electric Vehicle 100 Association, Long Guoqiang, deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, Zhang Jinhua, executive vice president and secretary general of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, Kong Lei, deputy director of the Management Committee of the Beijing Economic Development Zone, and Liu Yunfeng, executive vice president of Volkswagen Group (China), attended the press conference and delivered a speech, which was presided over by Wang Jinzhao, director of the Industrial Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council. More than 20 leaders and experts from the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Transport, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the Society of Automotive Engineers of China, the 100 Electric Vehicles Association of China, and the Beijing Economic Development Zone attended the meeting and discussed and prospected the role of the mainland automobile industry in building a new development pattern and new requirements and new strategies. The magazine specially planned a cover feature and published the speeches of some leaders and experts for the benefit of readers.
Smart electric vehicles are subverting functional cars, which have a larger impact than smart phones, more profound changes to the economy and society, and the effect of benefiting society will be more obvious. In this automobile revolution, the mainland automobile industry has changed lanes first, achieved some first-mover effects, and provided opportunities for the mainland to shift from an automobile power to an automobile power, but the window of opportunity will not be too long. With the opportunity of this major change in automotive technology, there are three main points of thinking on how the mainland can achieve an automobile power.
First, grasp the direction of the automobile revolution
This automotive revolution is not carried out in isolation, and what parallels and connects with it is the new energy revolution and a new generation of mobile communications, the transportation revolution and smart cities. Supporting this automotive revolution is the rapid development of mobile Internet, digital economy and artificial intelligence technology. These factors interact with the transformation of automobiles, providing a technical basis for the electrification, greening, networking, intelligence and sharing of future automobiles, and enriching their use scenarios. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the future car in a larger scope, evaluate its development prospects with a broader vision, and deploy the future, so as to stabilize the direction. It doesn't make much sense for cars to just electrify, but the convergence of electrification and green energy will have a more far-reaching impact.
The future of the car is a powerful carrier of intermittent renewable energy, is the link that connects green energy, smart grid, future travel, and a new generation of mobile communications, is the basic unit of intelligent transportation and smart city, and is a pillar-type leading product that drives technological progress and industrial upgrading. It has a strong ability to widely absorb informatization, networking, intelligence, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and new technologies, new materials, electronic power, advanced manufacturing and other aspects of new development, new potential energy, is a large platform for the integration and innovation of many industries. It is attracting and promoting the economic and social and many industries to digital and intelligent upgrading with a powerful force.
Electrification is just the prelude to this automotive revolution. At present, people are worried about the difficulty of charging, short mileage, unsafe and other issues are gradually becoming the past, and the benefit of residents, deeply change the economy and society is the electrification, greening, networking, intelligence and sharing of vehicles, and finally realize the collaborative integration of smart cars, smart energy, smart cities, and intelligent transportation, which is the direction of the next step of efforts and the focus of the next step of competition. It should be emphasized that networking and intelligence are the direction of the automobile revolution, but if there is no greening, it is a very big missing.
Second, attach great importance to the change of the "definition" and "attributes" of the car
With the in-depth development of the automobile revolution, more and more high-tech companies have joined in, the scientific and technological content of new energy vehicles has become higher and higher, and the service software has become more and more abundant. Compared with the traditional car, its attributes have changed, its definition has changed; its core has changed, and its boundaries have changed. It is transforming from a typical mechanical product into an electronic power product, An Internet product, and an electronic information high-tech product based on a mechanical product; it is a mobile machine from A to B, and it is a mobile intelligent terminal with data-determined experience and software-defined products.
Consulting firm McKinsey has predicted that more than 80% of the future car changes will come from electrical and electronic architecture and software, and the mechanical part is only the executor of the software. In the vehicle system, the proportion of software costs will rise from the current 15% to 60%. This data may be exaggerated, but this is the trend of development.
An important feature of software-defined cars is that they have the ability to "self-evolve", transforming it from a "dead thing" that "starts to fall behind when it is bought" into a "new species" that can continue to evolve.
What drives the evolution of car functions is data, while it is software that ensures data collection and utilization. In this sense, "data determines the experience, software-defined car" is not an exaggeration.
That is to say, the same car, chip and computing power, but the data is enriched, the software iteration progress, not only can continue to provide users with safe, heart-warming and pleasant new services, new experiences, but also according to the user's preferences, the car can become a "thousand cars and thousands of faces" personalized products and systems.
In the era of software-defined cars, manufacturers and users will transform from sequential buying and selling relationships into full-life cycle cooperative relationships, forming a virtuous circle of "users continue to provide data and manufacturers continue to expand services". That is to say, the business model of manufacturers will change from "manufacturing" to "manufacturing + service", and the proportion of service revenue will gradually increase.
In recent years, the leading car companies in the mainland have become more and more aware that if they still understand and define the future of the car with the concept of mechanical products from the concept, it is difficult to avoid the end of being eliminated. Data is a valuable factor of production, and the concept of software-defined cars is being recognized by more and more companies, and some companies are already taking action. For example, Great Wall Motor has set up a "digital center" to promote the digital transformation of the group's business. SAIC motor group set up a "zero beam" software team, focusing on the architecture of system software and the construction of basic software platforms.
In the mainland, some cross-border enterprises and investors have bravely entered the field of new energy vehicles, forming a new force of car manufacturing. So far, no second country has seen such momentum. This is not only a major feature of the mainland, but also a major advantage. What is important is that the new forces do not have the shackles of traditional car-making concepts and the drag of existing assets. The entry of these cross-border enterprises has brought new ideas, new thinking, and new technologies, broadened people's thinking, and accelerated the process of innovation iteration. In particular, some new car-making forces with Internet genes have integrated Internet thinking and the concept of networking and intelligence into product definitions and marketing models from the beginning, so that the mainland has grasped the direction of networking and intelligence earlier. After a rush of ups and downs, a large wave of sand and sand has left a number of "roots" with Internet genes, which is invaluable. Entering the stage of networked and intelligent in-depth competition, these enterprises are likely to show stronger competitiveness.
Third, attach great importance to the opportunities for the reconstruction of the automotive value chain and supply chain
From the perspective of the development history of the automobile industry, every important breakthrough in automobile technology and products is the result of close cooperation between the whole vehicle and parts enterprises. Generally speaking, vehicle companies contribute to the integration of technology, but most of the core technologies and key components are from parts companies, such as gasoline injection, turbocharging, anti-lock brakes, airbags, radial tires, etc.
Prior to this, the attention and investment of China's auto industry in parts were insufficient, resulting in the mainland automotive industry experiencing the bitter fruit of hollowing out parts.
The bottom of the automobile power should be a parts power, and the subversiveness of the future automobile to the traditional car will make more than 50% of the traditional parts system face restructuring. The "new species" of the future automobile has greatly changed the concept and scope of auto parts, from the battery, motor, electronic control, power semiconductor of new energy vehicles, to the chips, system software, computing platforms, video transmission, lidar, controllers, execution devices, and then to the vehicle control system, high-definition map, Internet communication, cloud control platform, AI algorithms and other software and hardware have become an important part of the automotive industry chain.
Electrification, networking and intelligence are the three major characteristics of future automobile development. To win this automotive revolution, we must pay extraordinary attention to the construction of electrification, networking, and intelligence, and the goal is to achieve autonomy and controllability under open conditions. At the same time, the value chain is also changing rapidly, and software will be the foundation and core of the future of automotive intelligence.
At present, the technical barriers and system barriers of future automobile parts have not yet been fully formed, some technical routes still have room for choice, many new technologies are still under development, there is a lot of room for innovation, providing too many opportunities for new entrants, and also bringing historic opportunities for the development of Chinese parts and components enterprises, especially technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises. It is gratifying that the fields of informatization, networking, and artificial intelligence involved in the new industrial chain are all areas where the mainland's development status has been relatively good in recent years. It is necessary to seize the opportunity, make great efforts in the links of short boards and "card necks," strive to make breakthroughs one by one, and completely change the situation of "hollowing out" parts in the mainland's automobile industry, so as to lay a solid foundation for the mainland's new auto parts.
The automotive supply chain and value chain are industrial systems with significant impact, and once the industrial pattern is formed, it will have a strong barrier effect. In the fields of on-board power batteries, motor electronic control, power semiconductors, etc., there have been some powerful new parts companies, such as Ningde Times and BYD; they have also begun to cultivate some small giants, such as Horizon. At present, the future automotive industry chain is still under construction, we seize this window of opportunity, it is possible to achieve breakthroughs in some core technologies.
The author is the former Party Secretary of the Development Research Center of the State Council and the Chairman of the China Electric Vehicle Hundred Association
Source: China Development Observation, No. 3, 2022
The copyright of the content belongs to China Development Observation Magazine, please indicate the source and original author.
Long press the following QR code, identify and follow and disseminate the "China Development Observation" WeChat public account (ID: ichinado), we will strive to provide valuable returns.
"China Development Observation", which is supervised by the Development Research Center of the State Council, sponsored by China Development Publishing House, and edited and published by China Development Observation Magazine, is a comprehensive monthly magazine with development as the main line and economy as the focus, with strategic, macro, regional, world, rule of law, social, cultural, frontier, industry, think tank forum and other columns, with strong forward-looking, authoritative and readable. China Development Observation has a wide and stable readership in the academic theoretical circles, party and government organs at all levels and entrepreneurial classes, and has been listed as a core journal or source journal by important institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the National Development and Reform Commission and authoritative databases such as CNKI and Weipu Information, and has been rated as the "Most Popular Journal of Economics in 2020" by the Academic Journal Database of the National Philosophical and Social Science Literature Center.
China Development Observation Magazine:
7th Floor, Block A, Yicheng Fortune Center, No. 22 Ronghua Middle Road, Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone (Zip Code: 100176)
Public account: ichinado (China Development Observation)
![Focus on the new development of autonomous driving The International Automobile Intelligent Shared Mobility Conference was held in Guangzhou[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)