The official announcement of the industry is the first in the industry!

This year, new energy vehicles first "volume price", and now they have begun to "volume license plates".

On the evening of December 29, the official WeChat public account of "AITO Automobile" posted that the M9 became the first model in the industry to obtain L3 autonomous driving test licenses in two places at the same time, namely Chongqing and Shenzhen.

It is understood that BYD (002594) previously announced that it obtained a conditional autonomous driving (L3 level) test license for high-speed road sections in Shenzhen in July, becoming the first car company in the country to obtain a L3 autonomous driving test license. AVATAR, Deep Blue, ARCFOX, Zhiji, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz have also obtained L3 autonomous driving test licenses.

Car companies have "show licenses"

In November this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and the Ministry of Transport jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work on the Access and Road Access of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice").

The "Notice" clearly proposes that on the basis of road testing and demonstration applications of intelligent networked vehicles, L3 and L4 autonomous vehicles with mass production conditions will be selected to carry out access pilots. For the intelligent networked vehicle products that have been approved, pilot projects will be carried out in limited areas.

It is understood that L3 level autonomous driving is "conditional automatic driving". At Level 3, the vehicle can achieve autonomous driving in most road conditions and take over a large part of the car's driving functions. However, at this stage, the driver still needs to be attentive at all times in order to take over the vehicle in the event of an emergency. Level 4 autonomous driving is "highly autonomous" and can already take over from the driver.

On December 27, the official Weibo of "BYD Auto" said that on July 21 this year, BYD obtained a conditional autonomous driving (L3 level) test license for high-speed road sections in Shenzhen, becoming the first car company in the country to obtain a conditional automatic driving (L3 level) test license.

According to the official announcement of Changan Automobile (000625), on November 17, Changan Automobile obtained 17 L3 autonomous driving road test licenses for high-speed roads, becoming the earliest and most single-batch enterprises to obtain L3 autonomous driving test licenses for high-speed roads.

The BMW Group announced that in December 2023, BMW Group's vehicles equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving functions officially obtained a high-speed autonomous driving test license in Shanghai, and the upcoming domestic all-new BMW 5 Series Long Wheelbase Edition has the ability to expand to Level 3 autonomous driving.

In addition, AVATAR, Deep Blue, Extreme Fox, Zhiji, and Mercedes-Benz have all obtained L3 autonomous driving road test licenses.

Autonomous driving is transitioning to Level 3

Behind the "show licenses" of various car companies, the importance of autonomous driving is becoming increasingly prominent, and it has become an important indicator for car companies to build differentiated competitiveness.

On December 28, Xiaomi's automotive technology conference was held. Lei Jun, founder and chairman of Xiaomi Group, said: "Xiaomi's goal for autonomous driving is to enter the first camp of the industry in 2024. In order to achieve this goal, Xiaomi insists on long-term investment in intelligent driving technology and full-stack self-development, with an investment of 3.3 billion yuan in the first phase, which has been added to 4.7 billion yuan, with an exclusive team of more than 1,000 people, more than 200 test vehicles, and a test mileage of more than 10 million kilometers.

On the afternoon of December 26, Huawei held a press conference for the M9 and Huawei winter all-scenario press conference, and Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei, CEO of the terminal BG, and chairman of the board of directors of the intelligent vehicle solution BU, said that the M9 has been fully upgraded with Huawei's ADS 2.0 high-end intelligent driving system, equipped with the industry's highest automotive-grade mass production of 192-line lidar, and the longest detection distance can reach 250m.

In terms of intelligent driving, as of November 28, 2023, Huawei's high-end intelligent driving has achieved intelligent driving pilot assistance for national highways and urban express NCAs. By the end of December 2023, the NCA in urban areas across the country will arrive as scheduled. Yu Chengdong said that this is "high-end intelligent driving that can be driven all over the country".

According to the research report of Cinda Securities, the representative functions of L3 level autonomous driving, high-speed and urban NOA, have also been gradually put on board, and L3 commercial operation pilots have gradually been rolled out, and autonomous driving operations in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and other places have begun to land. From a technical and functional point of view, L3 has become more and more mature.

According to the monitoring data of the Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, in the first half of 2023, 3,243,500 new cars equipped with L2 (including L2+) were delivered as standard for passenger cars in the Chinese market (excluding import and export), a year-on-year increase of 37.65%, and the standard installation rate of the front was 34.90%, an increase of about 8 percentage points over the same period last year.

Among them, 1,471,300 new vehicles were delivered with L2 (including L2+) as standard in front of new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 75.55%, and the standard installation rate of new energy vehicles was 50.38%, an increase of about 10 percentage points over the same period last year, continuing to maintain a high growth rate.

According to Roland Berger's International Strategy Consultants, by 2030, the penetration rate of L2 and L3 autonomous driving will be 60%, and the penetration rate of L4 and L5 high-level autonomous driving will reach 5%.

High-end intelligent driving gives birth to opportunities in the industrial chain

For many supply chain companies, the arrival of L3 autonomous driving will also provide them with a broad space for development, and the subdivision represented by lidar will usher in development opportunities.

Although Tesla has developed a pure vision solution that does not rely on lidar, more car companies still use multi-vision sensor fusion solutions that require lidar. For example, Xiaomi SU7 is equipped with 1 lidar, 11 high-definition cameras, 3 millimeter-wave radars and 12 ultrasonic radars. The M9 is also equipped with a fusion perception system including laser, millimeter wave, machine vision, and ultrasound, and uses 192-line lidar.

According to the statistics of the Gaogong Intelligent Industry Research Institute, from January to September 2023, a total of 29 models of 13 brands in the market are equipped with a varying number of lidars, of which one lidar is the mainstream of the market.

According to statistics, in September 2023, the price of the industry's leading Hesai Technology's vehicle-mounted lidar has dropped to $500 (about 3,550 yuan). According to the prospectus of Suteng Juchuang, the unit price of the company's lidar in 2020, 2021, and 2022 will be 18,085 yuan, 14,055 yuan, and 7,007 yuan respectively.

Guojin Securities (600109) research report said that in the long run, the cost of lidar is expected to drop to below 200 US dollars (about 1400 yuan), completely solve the key pain points of high cost, stand firm in the field of intelligent driving, and become the best choice for car manufacturers. Combined with the trend of cost reduction, lidar will achieve growth from 1 to N in 2024, and it is expected that the sales of models equipped with lidar will reach 2.21 million in 2024, with a penetration rate of 10.5%, and the industry will usher in explosive growth, and the future market space of lidar will exceed 100 billion yuan.

This article was first published on the WeChat public account: Securities Times. The content of the article belongs to the author's personal views and does not represent the position of Hexun.com. Investors should act accordingly at their own risk.

Linghexun Plus members, watch more exclusive content for free: 8 major financial columns, exclusive market interpretation of the latest and hottest information, and grasp the market investment trend one step faster.