After four years, the 18th Beijing Auto Show officially kicked off this week. Many domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers and core component suppliers have brought cutting-edge achievements to the show, showing a strong momentum of poised to go. Aptiv, which is committed to making travel safer, greener and more connected, has launched a new generation of full-stack software and hardware platforms and products to meet the needs of China's local market, and help the development of "software-defined vehicles" with full-system solutions for the "brain" and "nervous system" of automobiles. It is worth mentioning that, as a multinational company, Aptiv is promoting localization through a series of measures to build a team in China with decision-making and responsiveness that better meets local needs.
"In China, for China" strategy
In order to further promote localization, Aptiv has integrated its business lines and related functions in China into independent business units, and adjusted the reporting from the original global business lines to report directly to Dr. Yang Xiaoming, President of Aptiv China and Asia Pacific, in order to provide China with full independent decision-making power and fast and accurate market responsiveness, and at the same time set an ambitious business goal of achieving 50% business growth within five years and expanding cooperation with China's own brands to reach 70% of the relevant business to further speed up the "China speed".
Referring to the new situation in the automotive industry, Yang Xiaoming pointed out that the industry is undergoing significant changes, especially in the product development and mass production stage, and the relationship between automakers and suppliers is no longer as fixed as in the past. Traditionally, car companies will give up to two or three years of development time and the subsequent multi-year order production cycle to establish a long-term and stable cooperative relationship. However, in recent years, the market has continued to explore new models of vehicle manufacturing, resulting in a shortened development cycle of 12 months, which has led to the emergence of new companies, new ideas, and new approaches to adapt to rapidly changing market demands. In addition, the mode of cooperation in the mass production phase is also changing. In the past, suppliers could expect stable supply contracts for several years after product development, but now the sustainability of the partnership depends on the characteristics of the product. Fierce competition from these areas is putting pressure on automotive suppliers. In the face of these challenges, Yang Xiaoming believes that suppliers should properly understand market changes and explore new business models. Suppliers who can provide comprehensive solutions, have reliable technology, global network support, and keep costs at a competitive level will be able to remain competitive in the global marketplace. It is understood that the new Aptiv China continues to improve the quality and expansion of its layout in China. In terms of technology and investment, aiming at the megatrend of electrification and "software-defined vehicles", Aptiv's R&D investment in China will continue to remain high, reaching 10-12% of annual sales, and the new Wuhan high-voltage connector system plant for new energy vehicles will also be put into operation in the first quarter of next year, following the Wuhan Engineering Center that was put into operation at the end of last year. In addition, the establishment of the Aptiv Artificial Intelligence Center and the Wind River Software Center in China has entered into strategic planning. On the market side, building a fully integrated local "circle of friends", including customers, technologies, products and supply chains, is another priority. Aptiv's customers in China cover almost all major brands, with local suppliers accounting for an average of 80%. At the same time, Aptiv China attaches great importance to the localization of chips, for example, after signing an in-depth cooperation agreement with Horizon Robotics, a leading chip supplier in China in June last year, the first advanced driver assistance (ADAS) project with Aptiv China has also been successfully mass-produced on a leading domestic independent brand in March this year. Aptiv China's "Cabin Parking Integration" solution based on local SoC chips can better leverage the advantages of localized scenarios, localized development and delivery, quickly respond to the needs of the Chinese market through localized solutions and service layout, and bring more comprehensive performance improvement and cost advantages to vehicle customers. At present, Aptiv has established 7 technology R&D and engineering centers and 22 production bases in China, with more than 30,000 employees, engineering and technical personnel accounting for 11%, and the management decision-making level has been fully localized. In fiscal 2023, Aptiv China achieved a 12% increase in sales, with the Asia-Pacific region, including China, contributing 28% of Aptiv's net sales worldwide.
The local team presented the answers, helping the Chinese market to lead the future of "software-defined vehicles".
The launch of Aptiv's software and hardware platforms and products developed by local teams is the first answer sheet presented by Aptiv China to the industry and consumers with a new look. It includes a hardware architecture that supports high-level autonomous driving and electrification functions, as well as a software architecture that achieves sustainable development through a cloud-native approach, bringing a revolution to vehicle R&D, manufacturing, and operation and maintenance and functional updates throughout the vehicle lifecycle, and helping the Chinese market lead the future of software-defined vehicles with localized solutions. SVA (Smart Vehicle Architecture) can provide the required hardware and architecture for software-defined vehicles, with software and hardware decoupling, input and output separation from computing equipment, and computing "serverization" as technical characteristics, which can be used by vehicle manufacturers to make independent choices according to their own vehicle development system and supply chain system, reducing the complexity of R&D and total manufacturing. Operating costs, calmly meet the requirements of "more", "faster", "better" and "cheaper" in the era of software-defined vehicles. Aptiv showcased a locally developed SOA (Service Oriented) software solution architecture running on SVA hardware architecture. Through the middleware of the Aptiv platform, two major functions can be realized: one is the decoupling of software and hardware, enabling OEMs to upgrade and replace the hardware without changing the application software, and the other is to realize the middleware that can be uniformly deployed across functional domains. iterate and validate, which greatly improves the efficiency of development, empowers OEMs at a lower cost and faster speed, and continuously improves the user experience. Tang Haiyi, General Manager of Aptiv Active Safety and User Experience System China, pointed out that Aptiv's intelligent driving solutions are built around the SVA architecture. The full-stack system embodies Aptiv's distinctive features, including the Wind River operating system, middleware, and algorithmic models based on the company's long-standing experience.
As for the requirements of "more", "faster", "better" and "cheaper" in the era of software-defined vehicles, Li Huibin, engineering director of Aptiv Connector Systems Asia Pacific, explained that based on the upgrade of software and hardware frameworks, it can first accelerate the development process of the whole vehicle and shorten the time to market, which is the embodiment of "fast". The complete separation of hardware and software makes development more efficient, facilitates parallel development, and is a "good" development experience for developers, while the innovative development process helps to reduce development costs and achieve "savings", especially in the vehicle cost structure, development costs account for a large part, and 20%-40% cost reduction can be achieved through SVA architecture and Wind River's platform design method.
Wind River Software System, a complete edge-to-cloud platformWith differentiated advantages such as Wind River Studio, VxWorks, Helix Virtualization Platform, and containerization technology, Aptiv's Wind River Software System provides a software framework for the development and operation of "software-defined vehicles". A highly secure real-time operating system and a complete toolchain not only ensure the continuous operation of all safety-critical applications, but also seamlessly integrate them into the architecture of the software-defined vehicle, enabling the development of hybrid critical systems and enabling vehicles to achieve greater intelligence and safety. Wind River Studio, for example, automates processes with cloud-native technologies and provides easy access to virtual test environments, resulting in up to 25% increased developer productivity and faster time to market. This means that the time from requirements setup to initial integration and testing has been reduced from months to weeks, or even days if the software is ported using Wind River's middleware. Zou Lujun, General Manager of Wind River Systems China, pointed out that in the field of automotive software development, the application of container technology is an important technological progress. The core advantage of container technology is the virtualization of services, which greatly improves the standardization of software. Software developed with container technology is highly portable and can be easily transferred from one project to another. For example, in vehicle manufacturing, even if the platform technology of the two models is completely different, as long as they both use the same container technology, the software developed for model A can be easily ported to model B.
In addition, container technology itself excels at decoupling software, the so-called "soft-soft decoupling". Software components are encapsulated in independent containers, which not only realizes the complete decoupling of software from each other, but also effectively solves the problem of dependencies between software components. In this way, container technology provides greater flexibility and lower maintenance costs for software development in the automotive industry, while also providing strong technical support for rapid software iteration and continuous integration. Aptiv, a cockpit integrated solution equipped with "China Chip", has brought the first cross-domain fusion computing platform developed by the Chinese team and based on China's local high-performance system-on-chip single chip, covering the three control domains of intelligent cockpit, intelligent assisted driving and automatic parking, simplifying the electronic and electrical architecture of the vehicle and the design of system software and hardware, and saving R&D costs. As the first cross-domain converged computing platform in the automotive industry, it adopts a variety of Wind River software technology solutions, and its ability to multi-control, flexible and secure, and decoupling software and hardware has brought significant business advantages to local vehicle customers, including the use of DevOps tools and digital feedback loops for continuous development and improvement. Aptiv offers solutions that provide maximum flexibility, enabling different chipmakers to adopt the most suitable combination of chips and hardware for their customers' needs, and to develop, deploy and iterate quickly and easily in the future. Talking about the prospect of the integration of cabin, travel and berthing, Tang Haiyi believes that from a technical point of view, there is no big gap to cross the problem of cabin berthing integration, and it is in line with the development trend of electronic and electrical architecture of central computing and regional control. He believes there will be a major milestone this year, predicting that it will take about 18 months for the scheme to be adopted on a large scale. Aptiv, an intelligent perception system for ADAS, has always been committed to developing the most optimized and high-performance perception system at the lowest possible cost. These systems include modular endpoint tracking software, best-in-class hardware, advanced machine learning, and tools for continuous improvement of these systems. The high-performance, low-cost Aptiv intelligent sensing system on display can reduce costs by up to 25% depending on the specific configuration requirements. The system is equipped with Aptiv's latest-generation radar and applies machine learning capabilities to deliver a quantum leap in sensor detection performance: 50% higher accuracy for judging object size, 40% higher accuracy for determining object position, and 7 times better ability to classify and identify vulnerable road users and other objects in urban scenarios, providing a solid guarantee for safe driving. At the same time, the system on display this time launched a subversive parking sensor all-in-one solution. Surround view plus parking assist is enabled by an innovative solution that integrates a surround-view camera and mmWave radar to provide bird's-eye perception while eliminating blind spots around the vehicle. Compared to traditional solutions that use cameras to support bird's-eye view applications, this innovative all-in-one device also adds radar functions at the same size, giving the vehicle more powerful 3D circumference perception capabilities, while saving installation costs and increasing angle perception at the same total cost. The radar carried in this innovative all-in-one machine is the seventh-generation 4D millimeter-wave angle radar developed by Aptiv's local team in China and equipped with the first integrated radar chip in China. Aptiv provides a complete electrification solution from the grid end to the battery side when it comes to automotive electrification. The demonstration includes electrified system-level solutions such as battery management software based on a cloud-native approach, integrated power electronics to reduce complexity, and Incapac's advanced busbar products. Aptiv's innovative "3-in-1" product is a high-voltage power management system for new energy vehicles developed by a local team that integrates an on-board charger (OBC), a DC converter (DC/DC) and a power distribution unit (PDU). The system uses an advanced integrated topology, 3D cooling, and a three-port decoupling control strategy to deliver high power density and energy utilization while simplifying system cabling and optimizing product volume. The modular power distribution unit takes into account diversified vehicle applications, integrates with OBC and DCDC to provide a safe, reliable, efficient and green power supply and distribution system for vehicles, and supports bidirectional substation and V2L functions to achieve a diversified vehicle-end power consumption experience for users.
Write at the end
In the face of the new challenges of the automotive industry, Aptiv is strengthening its vertical integration capabilities, providing seamless integration from the underlying operating system to advanced algorithms, maintaining technological leadership and the uniqueness of market competition, and on the other hand, its series of in-depth localization measures are worthy of long-term attention, and these strategic layouts will help Aptiv deepen market penetration, build a more resilient supply chain system, and form closer synergy with the local industry chain in the increasingly competitive automotive ecosystem in the future.