2023 China Electric Vehicle Forum: Key Insights for Renewable Energy, Power Semiconductors, and Smart Mobility

Hosted by the China Electric Vehicle 100 (CEV100), and co-sponsored by Tsinghua University, China Society of Automotive Engineers, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China Automotive Technology and Research Center, and China Automotive Engineering Research Institute, the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2023) opened in Beijing.

The forum invited representatives from government departments and leading companies in the fields of automotive, energy, transportation, urban planning, and telecommunications, to conduct in-depth discussions on a variety of topics, including:

  1. Renewable energy, particularly solar and wind energy, will enjoy significant growth in the global energy structure over the next decade or so. By 2050, their combined share is projected to reach nearly 70%.

  2. The power semiconductor field (such as high-voltage inverters and energy storage systems) offers many industry opportunities in wind, solar and storage sectors. One megawatt of business is worth approximately €2,000 to €5,000.

  3. The solar market will need 240 GWh annually for sustainable development in the next decade. Achieving zero carbon emissions requires around 4,000 GWh.

  4. China’s passenger car and light commercial vehicle market is expected to recover to pre-pandemic levels by 2025. However, due to an aging society, the future development of the market remains to be seen.

  5. The new energy vehicle and electrification markets maintain strong growth and a solid trend.

  6. L2 and L2+ are currently dominant in the field of intelligent and autonomous driving, while L3 and above require further development in technology, market regulations, and other aspects.

  7. Vehicle connectivity is becoming increasingly popular and is not limited to electric or intelligent vehicles.

  8. The global lightweight vehicle electrification market is expected to continue growing, with semiconductor usage projected to average over $1,100 per vehicle by 2030.

  9. In software, encompassing operating systems, middleware, and application-level software, significant growth is expected in the next few years.

  1. The powertrain market (including batteries) is expected to grow at a rate of 15-20%.

  2. Infineon is a leader in the automotive semiconductor market, offering comprehensive products and system-level solutions. Continuous investment in capacity will be made to meet future demand.

Below is the original text of the speech:

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and colleagues in the industry, good morning!

Thank you very much for the invitation from the 100-people conference. My presentation will share from the perspective of semiconductors and automotive semiconductors.

My report is divided into the following parts.

Firstly, from a macro perspective, the structure of global power generation, as mentioned by previous guests, we can see that the proportion of renewable energy in the global energy structure will undergo significant development in the next decade or so. If we break it down a little further, we can see that solar energy and wind power in particular, due to their ongoing cost reductions, will play an increasingly important role in the future energy structure. According to predictions by relevant institutions, their share in the energy mix could reach close to 70% by 2050, between 60% and 70%.

We believe that green energy will bring many opportunities in various industries. From the perspective of semiconductors, power semiconductors, we take wind power, solar power, and energy storage as examples. As you can see, with power semiconductors, such as high-voltage inverters and energy storage, the business volume per megawatt varies between 2,000 and 5,000 euros.

What does the market hold for the future? In the next decade, taking solar power as an example, about 240 GWh is needed annually to maintain sustainable development. To achieve zero carbon or carbon neutrality requires a multiple concept, with over 4,000 GWh needed for zero carbon.

Returning to the automotive industry, the overall market has declined in recent years due to the pandemic and various reasons. We have seen many reports in the past few days indicating that the trend is gradually improving. As for the Chinese market, passenger cars and light commercial vehicles are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by 2025. At yesterday’s council meeting, some leaders discussed China’s current population structure and whether the moderately aging society will limit the scale of the automotive market remains to be seen – we wait and see. Of course, we also see recovery in other major automotive markets.Translate the following Chinese Markdown text into English Markdown text in a professional manner, retaining the HTML tags in Markdown, and only output the result:

Of course, the scale of new energy vehicles, accompanied by electrification, is still growing vigorously, even amidst various macro-environmental changes and challenges, this trend is actually quite solidly manifesting itself.

Just now we talked about new energy, electrification, intelligence, including autonomous driving and assisted autonomous driving, we see that the current trend is to deploy L2 and L2+, and we also discuss L3 and higher levels, as well as advanced L4 with the industry. Due to various factors such as current technology, market regulations, and application scenarios, the maturity and expansion of the market still need some time to pave the way, so currently, L2 and L2+ are mainly focused on.

From the perspective of networked vehicles, we also mentioned vehicle-cloud, vehicle-road, vehicle-network, V2X, etc. The process of networked vehicle connectivity will spread very quickly, and this is not only restricted to so-called electric or intelligent vehicles, but also applies to traditional internal combustion engines.

Looking globally, we see that the CAGR of low EV numbers in light vehicles will grow over the next few years. From a semiconductor point of view, this is an average semiconductor view, as we know that the electrification, intelligence, and connectivity processes vary in different markets, with different levels of intensity. This is a perspective on the average semiconductor usage per car globally. We can see that it is quite considerable, reaching an average of over 1,100 USD by 2030, and taking into account the market scale, it is still very huge.

If we break down each dimension a little, more discussions focus on the “three-transformations,” especially in software that includes basic operating systems, middleware, application software, functional software, etc., which are actually experiencing significant growth over the next few years.

Returning to the focus on powertrain, such as batteries and powertrain transmission systems, we still see a growth rate of approximately 15-20% in the future. As we all know, if it is 15%, to the power of five is 1.15, which is about doubling in five years, and then multiplying by ten years. So, it’s a very promising market with significant growth potential. As practitioners in the semiconductor industry, we are delighted to see this situation.

Next, let’s talk about Infineon. After discussing so much about the macro environment, what is our contribution in the middle? What can we provide for the market and our customers? We would like to report that we have a very comprehensive product line in automotive semiconductors, and we are the market leader in the global automotive semiconductor market, ranking first in market share. Our products are widely distributed across various vehicle areas, and due to time constraints, we will simply mention some examples to give you a concept. For instance, in the field of body and electronic electrical architecture, there are many typical body applications, such as wipers, body controls, gateways, we also include EEA here, like our zone control, various small motors, body control modules, and so on. From the perspective of chassis, safety, and autonomous driving, we have radar systems, including our lidar, cameras, steering, TPMS, and more. We also continue with powertrain, and of course, we should not forget that traditional internal combustion engines still have a significant market share, so in terms of powertrain, including traditional powertrain, we have many products.Translate the following Chinese Markdown text into English Markdown text in a professional manner, retaining the HTML tags within the Markdown and outputting only the result.

Infotainment includes systems like car multimedia, dashboard, Telematics, head-up displays, and features like USB power modules, and so on. Next up are electrified powertrains, with typical components such as OBC, DC-DC, main inverters, BMS, and more.

This constitutes a comprehensive, all-encompassing, vehicle-wide semiconductor solution. Naturally, the top market position is built on a diverse and extensive range of system applications.

We just mentioned high-level applications, taking BMS as an example. Why can we call it a system-level solution? As you can see, from components like PMIC power chips, transceivers, MCUs, microcontrollers, various pressure and current sensors in memory, to supporting wireless BMS with Bluetooth transmission modules and communication modules, etc. This is the true essence of a system solution. Due to the advantages, system efficiency, and quality of this approach, it has been recognized and adopted by numerous domestic and international mainstream customers.

It is worth noting that this year, we have observed, or rather, the general consensus in the market is that the overall semiconductor supply situation has improved. Of course, there are structural shortages, but our company is consistently investing in our capacity for the long term. As you can see from the chart, we have invested 15% of revenue into respective product line capacities for the past four years, which is quite significant for a typical IDM. This reflects our commitment to meeting capacity demands as automotive and automotive semiconductor growth continues. We will keep investing for the long run.

Take the popular third-generation semiconductor, silicon carbide (SiC), as an example. We have invested heavily and continuously in this area, as seen in public news. By 2027, we aim to increase our production capacity by about 10 times compared to current levels, with the goal of achieving 30% market share by around 2030, laying a solid foundation. Increasing production capacity is one aspect of our internal efforts. Externally, we have collaborated and communicated with numerous customers on various technical aspects and project implementations. As global leaders in automotive semiconductors, all Infineon automotive business colleagues believe in the mega-trends of electrification and intelligent connectivity. We are dedicated to providing market-demanded, high-quality, and competitive system-level solutions using our semiconductor and microelectronics technology to make automobiles more environmentally friendly, safer, and smarter.The following is the translated English Markdown text with professional phrasing, retaining the HTML tags from the original Chinese Markdown. Only the result is provided.

That concludes my sharing for today. Thank you, everyone.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.