The automobile revolution has reached a turning point. Can SAIC's new four modernizations realize the Chinese dream on wheels?

The emergence of smartphones has overturned traditional mobile phone manufacturers and buried Nokia, which was slow to transform. The development of mobile Internet has brought new revolutions to many industries, and automobiles are the next breakthrough point of this industrial revolution.

From walking to riding horses to driving cars, traditional cars only play the role of a "transportation device". With the improvement of the national economy, cars are no longer a luxury, but they are still just a means of transportation. With the increase in the number of cars, the pressure on the environment and traffic is increasing, and the traditional automobile industry is about to transform.

"Electrification, networking, intelligence, and sharing" are known as the new four modernizations of the automobile industry. With these new four modernizations as the concept, SAIC achieved vehicle sales of 6.489 million units in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 9.9%, and a domestic market share of 22.6%. According to SAIC's 2016 annual report, the company achieved total operating revenue of 756.416 billion yuan in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 12.82%.

The horn of new energy has been sounded, and electrification is the future trend

Economic development has not only brought about an improvement in living standards, but also an increase in environmental pollution, with automobile exhaust becoming the "culprit" of environmental pollution. In winter, there are countless cities with PM2.5 levels, and the saying "you can't tell a human from a ghost 50 meters away" is the most appropriate way to describe the impact of smog on people's lives.

In addition to environmental pollution, there is also the problem of energy depletion. As we all know, gasoline and diesel are derived from non-renewable resources such as petroleum, which is already facing depletion. Relatively speaking, as a renewable resource, electricity has many ways to obtain it and is also pollution-free to the environment. Electricity is also widely regarded by the industry as a new energy source to replace gasoline and diesel.

It is self-evident that the future of electric vehicles is bright, but electric vehicles still need to break through the bottlenecks in the core technologies of batteries, electric drives, and electric controls in order to develop. At present, there are only a few manufacturers in China that truly master the core technologies of the three electrics, and SAIC is one of them.

SAIC's Electric Drive Unit (EDU) plug-in hybrid technology platform realizes all eight hybrid modes and has applied for more than 100 intellectual property rights, including two US PTC patents, and won the first prize of China's Automotive Industry Science and Technology in 2016.

The battery management system (BMS) has the highest safety performance and battery degradation level in China and has been put into mass production. From infrastructure to software writing, all are independently developed by SAIC, giving it greater advantages in performance and cost.

The independently developed highly integrated battery pack has obtained the US UL battery safety certification and passed the IP67 dust and water resistance certification. The battery degradation does not exceed 20% in 5 years or 100,000 kilometers.

The fuel consumption level of the self-developed electronic control system in hybrid operation and urban congestion operation is world-class. The development system conforms to the international automotive industry software standards, the distributed + single controller three-layer torque monitoring architecture, and the industry is the first to pass ISO26262 certification.

By 2020, the number of new energy vehicles on the road in China will reach 5 million. Both domestic and joint venture brands are undoubtedly aiming at this huge pie. In the future, energy vehicles will also become the basic platform for the Internet, intelligence and sharing of automobiles.

Connected cars are no longer isolated

The automobile industry has been around for 130 years. Although the Internet has developed rapidly, it has not changed the situation that cars are isolated from the Internet. Today, China is developing rapidly, and the speed of road construction has also increased significantly, but most car navigation systems cannot be updated online. Even Car Play and Android Auto are based on smartphone screen projection and are not truly connected to car driving.

The most important reason is the cost issue. The automotive industry is different from the mobile phone industry. It is very slow to update and has a high entry barrier. It is completely different from the traditional Internet industry in terms of technology, concept, product iteration and profit distribution model.

However, the isolation of traditional cars from the Internet is slowly changing. In July 2016, SAIC and Alibaba collaborated to jointly launch the world's first mass-produced Internet SUV, the Roewe RX5. The RX5 achieved a monthly sales record of over 20,000 units just after its launch, surpassing the total sales of Roewe's SUVs in the past 10 years in just four months.

At present, SAIC has completed the initial construction of the Internet car platform, and provides users with differentiated products and services by continuously upgrading the system, analyzing the environment and data, improving product functions, increasing service content, and adapting to different car models.

The system iteration rhythm of the Internet car products is one version every three months. In the half year since its launch, it has been updated twice, 51 functional points have been updated, 8 new services have been added, and the online upgrade success rate has reached 99.95%. A total of 126,812 vehicles have been pushed.

With the integration of automobiles and the Internet, Internet cars are becoming more and more popular among consumers. In the past 20 years, China has gone from being a laggard to a world-leading Internet power. I believe that in terms of Internet cars, China will also be the first to complete the Internetization of traditional cars. Internet companies led by YunOS Auto will also help complete the construction of the Internet car platform.

Smart cars do more than just free your hands

With the development of the Internet, the era of a smartphone in everyone's hands has long arrived, but cars are still in the "Nokia" era. The premise of smart cars is definitely Internet cars, but it is not just about networking. Today's smart cars are evolving in two directions. One is unmanned driving technology, and the other is to realize the intelligent application of cars through cloud computing, urban big data and automotive smart hardware ecology.

Regardless of the direction, smart cars will eventually be able to better alleviate traffic pressure. With the upcoming 5G era, people are about to enter the era of the Internet of Everything. Millions of connections to a base station can enable smart cars to analyze based on big data and plan reasonable roads for convenient and safe travel.

Based on the vehicle usage scenarios characteristic of China's urban traffic environment, SAIC simulates a variety of traffic scenarios for large-scale testing to build a smart transportation ecosystem. SAIC is accelerating the development of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology by gradually advancing the three stages of Internet cars, the integration of Internet cars and smart cars, and smart cars, in preparation for building a smart transportation system.

It already has complete independent intellectual property rights for the core technology of the second-generation intelligent driving platform. In addition, it has also integrated a vehicle networking platform with 5G communication technology and carried out research on autonomous driving technology for highways, urban areas and fleets.

Through big data collection, data support will be provided for future services. SAIC participated in the construction of China's first "Intelligent Connected Vehicle Test Demonstration Zone" in Shanghai Jiading Automobile City and established China's first intelligent driving evaluation research base in cooperation with Tongji University.

Compared with the traditional automobile industry, smart cars are definitely a direction of future automobile development and an inevitable result of development. Through the continuous research and development, testing and improvement of many manufacturers, I believe that the commercial use of smart cars is not far away from us.

Car sharing has become a "big cake" in the eyes of car companies

"Sharing" is a hot word at present, and the competition for the top spot in shared bicycles is also going on fiercely. Sharing is actually an important trend in future economic development. By the end of 2016, China's motor vehicle ownership had reached 290 million. Nowadays, the annual increase in car ownership and the scarcity of parking spaces have become the biggest contradiction. In the imperial capital Beijing, the parking space resource gap exceeds 1.5 million.

Therefore, car-sharing came into being. After SAIC completed the integration of EVCARD and eXiang Tiankai time-sharing rental business, Global Car Sharing was established in May 2016. At present, Global Car Sharing fully covers 16 districts in Shanghai, with a total of 2,556 outlets, and the operation orders of Shanghai's 6 major transportation hub outlets exceeded 63,000. By the end of 2016, Global Car Sharing had put into use 8,400 new energy vehicles, built 2,800 outlets, and covered 20 cities.

The emergence of shared cars will further ease the pressure of parking space shortage in cities. At the same time, shared new energy vehicles will also reduce exhaust emissions and reduce environmental pressure. Some analysts say that "in the next ten years, China's shared travel market will become the most competitive field for global auto companies and Internet companies.

At the Guangzhou Auto Show last year, many well-known companies were working hard to get closer to the "New Four Modernizations", but as far as the current situation is concerned, the transformation and reform of the industry cannot meet the upgrading needs of users. The automotive industry revolution is coming again. Can traditional automakers keep up with the pace of change? Can SAIC take the lead in breaking through the siege? Let us wait and see.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.