On April 3, Zhixing Automotive Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhixing Auto"), an autonomous driving supplier company, announced that the company has become an autonomous driving solution provider for "a well-known flying car company in China", and will provide it with an integrated software and hardware autonomous driving solution with the autonomous driving domain controller iDC High as the core.
Zhixing Auto said that the designation of this well-known customer marks that the company's R&D strength has been recognized by new customers, further consolidating and improving the company's market competitiveness, and enhancing the company's sustainable development ability.
This time we have become a supplier of autonomous driving solutions for head flying cars (eVTOL), which is also a direct reflection of the competitiveness of Zhixing Automotive Solutions. The low-altitude economy with flying cars and drones as the core vehicles will become a broad development space for Zhixing Automobile.
Autonomous driving technology plays an important role in the low-altitude economy
With the gradual improvement of policies and the gradual maturity of technology, the low-altitude economic field is ready for large-scale commercialization.
According to the "People's Daily" report, the "low-altitude economy" is based on the low-altitude airspace (the vertical distance from the ground plane directly below is less than 1,000 meters, and can be extended to 4,000 meters according to the characteristics and actual needs of different regions) as the basis, with the general aviation industry as the leading, involving low-altitude flight, air tourism, regional passenger transport, general aviation services, scientific research and education and many other industries of the economic concept, is a comprehensive economic form with strong radiation driving effect and a long industrial chain.
There are many obvious use cases for low-altitude airspace aircraft: opening windows in high-rise buildings to receive deliveries, commuting in the morning rush hour, eating agricultural products grown by drones, and traveling on eVTOLs...... The development dividend of the low-altitude economy is expected to benefit everyone.
More than 10 years ago, low-altitude aircraft have become a popular field for entrepreneurship. Auto companies such as General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and Xpeng have all launched flying cars that can fly at low altitudes, but due to basic materials, energy technology constraints and policies and regulations that have not yet been improved, there has been no large-scale application in this field before.
Low-altitude aircraft need to fly with high safety and economy to open up business models, and policies, laws and regulations need to adapt to this new mode of transportation and clarify how to manage this new means of transportation.
In recent years, the government has attached great importance to the development of low-altitude economy. In 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning Outline", which included the low-altitude economy in the development blueprint for the first time.
Since 2024, policies to further support the development of low-altitude economy have been released: on January 1, the "Interim Regulations on the Management of Unmanned Aircraft Flight" was officially implemented, marking that the industry has entered the standardized development stage of "having laws to follow"; At the end of March, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, and the Civil Aviation Administration of China jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for the Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment (2024-2030)", proposing that by 2027, the mainland's general aviation equipment supply capacity, The industrial innovation capability has been significantly improved, the efficient integration of the industrial ecology has been initially formed, and the new general aviation equipment with unmanned, electrified and intelligent technical characteristics has been commercially applied in the fields of urban air transportation, logistics and distribution, and emergency rescue.
According to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Digital Economy Research Institute (IDEA), the comprehensive contribution of the low-altitude economy to China's national economy will reach 3 trillion to 5 trillion yuan by 2025.
With the vigorous development of the low-altitude economy, industrial chain companies with technical strength will also usher in new development opportunities. In the "Implementation Plan for the Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment", unmanned is ranked first in the technical characteristics of new general aviation equipment.
This is also an opportunity for suppliers of autonomous driving systems such as Zhixing Automobile. Autonomous driving technology, developed by the automotive industry, is a source of safety for low-altitude aircraft. The low-altitude transportation network is a new transportation system built from scratch, this field does not have the complex road and traffic environment like the road surface, there will be no pedestrians suddenly in the sky, complex traffic command network, and the idea of autonomous driving by technology companies is easier to realize in the sky, rather than on the ground.
Governments and industry chain companies also have a complete opportunity to make this emerging transportation system run safer and more efficiently through new technologies.
Zhixing Automobile has increased investment in technology to improve market competitiveness
Zhixing Auto is currently a well-known supplier of autonomous driving solutions in China. In 2023, Zhixing Automobile received 16 designation letters from well-known OEM customers, including Geely Automobile, Great Wall Motor, Chery Automobile and Dongfeng Motor.
In terms of partners, since 2018, Zhixing Auto has established a strategic partnership with Mobileye, a global leader in autonomous driving, and Mobileye has also become one of its major suppliers. In addition, Zhixing Automotive also collaborates with well-known upstream business partners such as Renesas Electronics, Texas Instruments, and Sunny Optics to jointly deliver customized solutions to OEMs.
Zhixing Auto's iDC High software-hardware integrated autonomous driving solution is also its next-generation product with higher computing power in the autonomous driving domain controller.
The iDC series products have high hopes for Zhixing Automobile. This series of products has pioneered the development of an advanced software architecture that integrates high-speed autonomous driving functions and low-speed automatic parking functions into a single SoC, improving system efficiency and reducing product costs.
According to the prospectus, mass production of iDC Mid has already begun in 2023, which is a cost-effective solution for the mid-to-high-end automotive market, which can achieve L2+ autonomous driving.
Zhixing Technology's next-generation autonomous driving domain controller, iDC High, is based on Renesas' latest-generation 7nm V4H chip, which has more powerful computing power. It can support the expansion of AI computing power (60TOPS), support up to 10 high-definition cameras and 5 millimeter-wave radar inputs, and adapt to different types of ultrasonic waves such as AK1/AK2.
The domain controller uses a single SOC solution, eliminating the need for air or water cooling, and allowing for natural heat dissipation. Zhixing Technology is deploying more advanced BEV+Transformer algorithms on this platform, which will greatly improve performance and support more autonomous driving scenarios, including cities.
(iDC High product image)
In the past year, Zhixing Auto continued to increase its technology research and development, and its R&D expenditure increased by 108% year-on-year to 217 million yuan, accounting for 18% of revenue, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points over last year.
Zhixing Auto said that at present, the company has developed the core algorithms, software middleware and cloud platform required for autonomous driving technology, and will continue to optimize the software, establish technical barriers, improve the cost performance of solutions, and enhance the company's core competitiveness in the future.