"I'll only go all the way"
Recently, the "card game" in the automotive industry has been particularly lively: there are shuffles, showdowns, and direct flipping of the table. However, GAC Group was not impressed by these disturbances. Thanks to the continuous investment in research and development, GAC, which holds the two "trump cards" of solid-state batteries and mapless intelligent driving, can not only win the cards, but also break the situation - at the "2024 GAC Science and Technology Day" event held recently, people were able to get a first glimpse of the strength of GAC's two trump cards.
You can win the cards, and you can break the game
In today's new energy vehicle market, although the game is chaotic, it is not difficult for the "senior player" GAC to win. In 2023, with the sales of nearly 440,000 pure electric vehicles, GAC Aion will continue to be firmly in the top three in the new energy vehicle market.
However, "winning" is not enough. The endless price war, marketing war and traffic war are consuming the vitality of the new energy vehicle market, and from the perspective of the long-term development of the industry, what people need more is to "break the game".
During the "2024 GAC Science and Technology Day" held recently, GAC Group came up with its own "game-breaking" weapon - a high-safety and large-capacity all-solid-state power battery to achieve breakthroughs in key technologies and a leading domestic pictureless pure vision intelligent driving system. The two technologies will be mass-produced in 2026 and will be the first to be installed on the Haobo model.
According to Li Jin, head of GAC Aion's battery R&D department, GAC Group has initially opened up the whole process manufacturing process of all-solid-state batteries, and obtained the key technology for mass production of vehicle-grade high-safety and large-capacity all-solid-state power batteries.
Energy density is the advantage of all-solid-state power batteries. Compared with the most advanced liquid lithium-ion batteries, the all-solid-state batteries developed by GAC have increased their volumetric energy density and mass energy density by more than 50%, making the vehicle have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
In terms of safety, GAC's all-solid-state power batteries have shown stable safety performance in tests under extreme conditions such as high temperature, acupuncture, cutting, low temperature, and hot water immersion.
According to the plan, GAC's all-solid-state battery will be mass-produced and installed in 2026, when it will first be used for high-end Haobo models. This is currently the most detailed solid-state battery installation plan in the industry, which means that GAC Aion may have begun to adapt all-solid-state batteries around specific models after completing key technological breakthroughs.
In addition to all-solid-state batteries, GAC Group's other trump card is advanced driver assistance systems.
In the view of GAC Group, the main battlefield of the new round of scientific and technological competition in the automotive industry is intelligent networked new energy vehicles, and intelligence, especially autonomous driving, has become the focus of competition. At this Science and Technology Day event, GAC launched a pictureless pure visual intelligent driving system that represents the trend of technological development.
Chen Xuewen, chief scientist of artificial intelligence at GAC Research Institute, said that this set of mapless intelligent driving system can be applied to complex and changeable scenarios, compared with the current mainstream technology route, it not only does not need high-precision maps, but also does not rely on lidar, but combines visual sensors and industry-leading AI algorithms to perceive the world like a human, and can achieve intelligent driving with a wider coverage with a more concise hardware system.
At the same time, GAC also has a layout in the mainstream "multi-sensor fusion technology" technology route, and can also get rid of the dependence on high-precision maps, which can ensure that its high-end intelligent driving system "can be driven with navigation".
"I'll only go all the way"
Today's automotive industry is not only in turmoil, but also in chaos. New car-making concepts, new business models and new marketing methods have created a new competitive environment; wave after wave of price wars are constantly sweeping the market, making it impossible for all players to stay out of the situation; and even more, individual companies have brought those means of touching porcelain in the face and false propaganda to the automobile market, and even unscrupulous means to gain traffic, and there is a great momentum of "bad money driving out good money......
All these are new problems that "big manufacturers", including GAC, have to face.
And GAC's response seems to be quite "detached" - "I will only go all the way by relying on a few roads". In the chaotic game, GAC still adheres to the strategy of self-research of core technology and ensuring competitive advantage with technical advantages.
According to reports, in 2023 alone, GAC's independent R&D investment will be close to 8.4 billion yuan, and nearly 3,200 new patent applications will be filed, of which invention patents account for about 50%. Up to now, the cumulative investment in independent research and development over the years has exceeded 45 billion yuan, and about 18,600 patents have been applied, of which invention patents account for 41%.
Long-term investment has led to a large number of technical results. Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said that in the past few years, GAC has successively released a series of forward-looking technologies such as ADiGO intelligent driving interconnection ecosystem, GPMA vehicle architecture, GEP pure electric platform, super fast charging battery, hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and hydrogen hybrid vehicle, and even flying car, most of which have been mass-produced and applied in the following years. In particular, the "magazine battery", which is the core of GAC's electric vehicles, has served about 800,000 users since its installation, and has traveled nearly 48 billion kilometers safely.
It is also between continuous investment, R&D and output that GAC Group has gradually accumulated technological advantages in the era of intelligent electric vehicles, and has drawn a new "trump card" for itself that is enough to win in the current game and establish a competitive advantage in the future. The time node for 2026 has been delineated, and in the near future, GAC's two trump cards will prove themselves in the market.
Text/Yang Zheng