Parts giant rushes to new technology who dominates the smart car market

Recently, Internet giants such as BAT have been active in the field of smart cars - Baidu and Changan Automobile have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to release the "smart car strategy"; Alibaba and SAIC jointly created the first Internet smart car Roewe RX5 plug-in mixed version officially unveiled Tencent and Foxconn, Harmony Auto and other investment in the harmonious Futeng car project started...

While Internet companies joined forces with traditional auto makers to increase the number of smart cars, the auto parts giants, including Continental Group and Delphi, also accelerated their pace, adding yet another boost to the smart car industry that was in the “damp” period.

In the future, “the popularization of intelligent networked vehicles will open up new value space for automotive products and further advance the socialization of automobiles.” Wang Xia, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade of the Automobile Industry, said at the 2016 Global Automobile Forum that the motorized , intelligence, and networking are bringing new opportunities for development in the traditional automotive industry. For micro-level enterprises, “How to better play their roles, how to realize cross-border integration, cross-border development, and how to build their own platform are issues that each company needs to consider.” said Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Group. .

Undoubtedly, the field of smart cars is becoming a new battleground between OEMs, parts suppliers and Internet companies. However, the three parties have reached a consensus that this round of competition should go from "pursuing competition between you and me" to "coordination and cooperation" of "complementing each other's strengths." However, in the face of an ultra-trillion-dollar market size, all three parties expect to gain the dominance of future industry development.

Beach layout

Compared with the Internet companies' cross-border involvement in the field of smart cars, the parts companies' actions are obscure. However, at the 2016 Global Automotive Forum, several parts giants demonstrated their latest technological achievements in safety, environmental protection, and automatic driving. Yang Xiaoming, president of Delphi China, confidently stated: "If the car is flying in the future, it will definitely use Delphi's technology."

As one of the world's largest manufacturers of automotive wiring harness systems, Delphi demonstrated 48V mild hybrid technology. According to Yang Xiaoming, the technology will reduce the dependence of cars on the engine and reduce the carbon dioxide emissions while improving the car's performance, thus realizing the "smart" electrification of the car.

Yang Xiaoming stated that Delphi has been upgrading its autopilot technology in order to match automakers’ autopilot program. In March of last year, Delphi achieved auto-pilot testing across 15 states in the United States, covering more than 5,000 kilometers, and fully automated driving in 99% of cases.

There is also the Continental Group that meets the needs of car companies by upgrading technology. Recently, Continental Group tested "dynamic electronic horizon" technology on public roads. It is understood that vehicles equipped with this technology can realize real-time sharing of road information such as speed limit information, traffic lights, construction sites, and obstacles, effectively reducing the chance of accidents.

In order to further meet the rapidly growing demand in the Chinese market, Continental Group plans to establish a new R&D center in Chongqing. This R&D center will be dedicated to the development of automotive electronic product applications and new energy vehicle products and solutions. Tang En, head of mainland China's chassis and safety business unit, said bluntly, “The Chinese market will closely follow the development trend of global automotive technology and it is expected to become the world’s largest smart car market.”

In the context of the accelerating advent of the domestic smart car industry, technology development of traditional parts companies has accelerated. In the eyes of the industry, parts and components companies expect to adopt a forward-looking layout to seize the technical commanding heights in this round of competition.

Domination

In the context of the speeding up of the deployment of new technologies by component giants and the continuous influx of Internet companies, vehicle manufacturers are not to be outdone. Tang Shikai, a member of the management committee of Daimler AG, responded humourously. “While it is optimistic that the automaker will be the winner of this competition, we cannot underestimate the 'newcomer' and we must treat new competitors seriously.” SAIC Motor Chen Zhixin, the president of the group, is more pragmatic. “In the face of the increasingly complex automobile market, SAIC will accelerate its transformation and upgrading. From the traditional companies that mainly rely on manufacturing, we will accelerate the supply of all-round products and services to consumers. Business transformation."

Recently, many vehicle companies have responded to the market's "newcomers" by demonstrating their smart interconnection technologies. At the CES show a month ago, the new long-wheelbase E-Class debuted in a high-profile manner; on the eve of the 2016 Beijing Auto Show, the self-driving car transformed from Chang An-Rui had experienced 2000 km of complicated road conditions and more in six days. After the tests in the changing traffic environment arrived in Beijing.

In addition, more than a dozen automobile manufacturers such as BAIC, GAC, SAIC, and BYD have also indicated that they have invested heavily in autopilot and vehicle networking technologies to conduct cutting-edge research and development.

However, due to the impact of Internet companies making cars, in the smart car sector, parts companies and Internet companies can rely on their respective new technologies to achieve direct cooperation. According to Yang Xiaoming, in January of this year, Delphi and the Internet map service provider Gao De reached a strategic cooperation in the field of automatic driving, specifically focusing on high-precision maps, precision navigation, high-precision positioning, LBS services and other aspects.

Cooperation between parts and components companies and Internet companies bypasses OEMs and will directly result in a change in the traditional relationship between OEMs and OEMs. An insider of an unnamed parts factory told reporters In smart cars, OEMs are not the only ones that parts companies can work with. In the research and development of new technologies, parts and components companies are walking to the front of the vehicle companies to a certain extent, and choosing to cooperate with Internet companies will reshape the original zero-reorganization relationship.

The Boston Consulting Group’s research report predicts that by 2035, there will be 18 million cars worldwide that have some unmanned features and 12 million cars will become completely unmanned cars. China will become the largest market. The YiZhi think tank had predicted that the market size of China's smart cars will exceed 150 billion yuan. If you consider the huge after-sales service market, the scale is expected to exceed trillions of yuan.

In the face of the trillion-dollar market, traditional auto companies seek transformation, Internet companies join the car-building camp, and parts and components companies take advantage of advanced technology in the layout of the beach. Behind the tripartite positive actions are the ambitions to control the future development of the automobile industry.