Daily AUTO: Nowadays, "intelligence" is becoming one of the new labels of China's manufacturing. From smartphones, smart home appliances to smart equipment, "Made in China" is undergoing a big transformation to "Made in China". On this new journey, the automobile manufacturing industry, known as the "Crown of Modern Industry", is undoubtedly one of the most important areas.
However, although China has long become the world's largest automobile market and automobile manufacturing base, China's automobile industry was not favored by the outside world at the beginning. Among them, the "bottleneck" of core technologies is an important reason. From "take-basedism" to "reverse research and development", China's automobile industry has been criticized, and "how Chinese automobiles can establish themselves in the world" has caused a lot of controversy.
As the wave of the fourth industrial revolution of swept, "intelligent" transformation has become the common answer of many Chinese automakers. On this track, China took the lead in changing lanes, started first, and achieved the "first-start effect". At the same time, China's strong Internet, electronic information and artificial intelligence companies have entered the automotive industry in a large number, and some cities have begun to deploy 5G, which have provided strong support for the subsequent development of smart cars.
For this reason, Xinhua AUTO conducted a survey in Changan Automobile , a representative enterprise of independent automobiles in my country, and learned that Changan Automobile Co., Ltd. faced challenges in the process of intelligent transformation of the automobile industry, bravely shouldered heavy responsibilities, constantly innovated in the process of entrepreneurship, and actively created independent and controllable core technologies. Here, I would like to share with friends who are concerned about the healthy development of China's automobile industry.
focuses on independent control and opens the "black box" of intelligent transformation
In the long history of China's automobile industry development, Changan is a unique existence. Founded in Westernization Movement , became famous in Anti-Japanese War , and grew up in New China. In the 160-year development process, behind it is always connected with the destiny of the country and nation, always connected with the country and nation, and always regard the development of the country and nation as one's own responsibility.
In the 1980s, in order to respond to the country's "military to civilian" strategy, Changan Automobile launched its first entrepreneurship - exploring civilian products, and successfully became the leader in the micro-car market.
In 2006, Changan Automobile started its second entrepreneurship of "entering the passenger car market". Thanks to the independent and independent innovation model of "not imitating, not buying, and not outsourcing", Changan has established a systematic R&D system and healthy corporate values, becoming the only car company among the four major automaker groups in China whose independent brand sales exceed the sales of joint venture brands.
With the deep integration of automobiles with industries such as information communication, artificial intelligence, and the Internet, intelligent connected car has entered a new stage of rapid technological evolution and accelerated industrial layout, and Changan Automobile has also begun its third transformation and development. In 2018, Changan Automobile released its corporate strategy - "Third Entrepreneurship-Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy", proposing the Shangri-La Plan and the Beidou Tianshu Plan to accelerate the transformation to an intelligent low-carbon travel technology company.
However, unlike the previous two transformations, breakthroughs in core technologies require the Chinese automobile industry to rely on its own efforts to achieve "from 0 to 1" innovation. This is undoubtedly more difficult, requiring a lot of time, energy and expenses, and also tests the responsibility of a company.
Take the creation of intelligent digital electronic and electrical architecture as an example. One of the cores of intelligent digital electronic and electrical architecture is the "combination of software and hardware". In the process of Changan Automobile launching the SDA architecture, together with its partners, based on the idea of "hierarchical decoupling", the architecture of "soft and hard decoupling" and "soft and soft separation" was redefined, and the Zhuge Digital Intelligent Brand was implemented.
"In the process of combining software and hardware, decoupling of software and hardware is very important for Changan," said Changan Automobile experts.
At the same time, on the premise of ensuring safety, users are informed and agreed, Changan Automobile also hopes to continue to iterate and optimize the OTA function through the cloud-based data carried by the "car terminal", promoting the evolution of the "car terminal" itself and creating new experience value for users.
"We need to rebuild the central computer and electronic and electrical architecture, and work with our partners to achieve a significant improvement in the operating system's independent controllable, software system, and data level capabilities. This is the construction of a data cloud, constantly training our software capabilities, and ultimately forming a normal state of autonomous, controllable, sustainable cycles." Changan Automobile experts concluded.
invested 80 billion yuan, and planned new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, digital transformation
National Committee Economic Committee Deputy Director and former Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Miao Wei once said bluntly that China's automobile industry still faces chip shortage problems and the lack of operating systems. "In the process of transforming functional products to smart products, if there is no operating system, no matter how strong the chip is, no matter how good the car is, it will build high-rise buildings on the beach. If the problem of 'losing cores and lacking souls' is not solved, we will not go fast and we will not go far," said Miao Wei.
More and more enterprises and industry practitioners realize that only by achieving breakthroughs in key hardware and software technologies can they truly be invincible in the fierce market competition. In solving the problem of "lack of cores and souls", local car companies play a crucial role in it and should assume the responsibility of "chain leader".
In fact, since the third new entrepreneurial journey began in 2017, Changan Automobile has proposed to build software capabilities as its core competitiveness and implemented the intelligent "Beidou Tianshu" plan. Especially in the past year, Changan Automobile's "new automobile and new ecology" blueprint is slowly unfolding. From the underlying architecture of new technologies and new platforms to the upper-level applications of new products and new brands, Changan Automobile has started a new situation of intelligent transformation, completing 59 key projects such as battery integrated integration, solid-state battery , and advanced autonomous driving, and more than 700 core technology breakthroughs.
According to Changan Automobile experts, by 2025, Changan Automobile expects to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation to accelerate the construction of core capabilities in the field of transformation. By 2025, the total number of Changan Automobile R&D personnel will reach about 20,000. Among them, there will be more than 10,000 intelligent and software R&D personnel plus new energy R&D personnel.
Since August this year, Chongqing has continued to be hot. In order to make electricity for the people, Changan Automobile implemented power restrictions and production suspension in Chongqing base, which has also caused concerns about the development of Changan. But in the view of Changan Automobile experts, short-term challenges have not changed Changan's long-term development ambitions.
"Recently, uncontrollable factors such as the epidemic and high temperature have been ignored by us. In this critical stage of transformation, the main focus is on the layout around the new track." Changan Automobile experts said that Changan Automobile is willing to deepen cooperation with outstanding global partners with a more open attitude, create a "new car" and a "new ecology" with partners, share "new value" with users, break into a "new future", jointly explore "new car and new ecology", and jointly promote the high-quality development of the smart car industry .
