In just over two years since its establishment, GAC New Energy has launched a total of five models, including three pure electric vehicle models and two plug-in hybrid vehicle models. Among them, the two pure electric vehicle models Aion S and Aion LX have attracted much attention, with NEDC ranges reaching 510 km to 650 km, entering the range where consumers are no longer anxious about mileage.
Aion S sold approximately 10,272 units from January to August this year, while Aion LX will begin production and delivery in October.
However, Xie Zhongmin, Vice President of GAC New Energy, is full of confidence in the market. At the Global New Energy Vehicle Supply Chain Innovation Conference, he shared his predictions for the electric vehicle market. He said that “from 2020 to 2021, the cost of electric vehicles will be comparable to that of hybrid vehicles, and at this time, there will be a turning point for the explosion of electric vehicles.” Electric vehicles will also truly usher in the era of software-defined cars.
In this regard, Xie Zhongmin also mentioned that autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit will become the two core elements of electric vehicle competition. For example, 40% of GAC New Energy car owners chose to add autonomous driving assist systems when buying cars, which is not a low percentage.
He also revealed GAC New Energy’s plans for the two areas in the next step. First, they will work on autonomous driving in fixed scenarios. For example, next year, GAC New Energy may produce automatic parking in parking lots. Second, in the intelligent cockpit, they will focus on quickly connecting the car with the phone in a seamless way, and will cooperate with Huawei in this area.
Below is Xie Zhongmin’s speech record with some deletions:
“Good morning, everyone. I’m here to share the situation of new energy vehicles with you.
Here, I have an APP for GAC New Energy, which has many functions, including a mall and a charging pole location service. You can download it, and there is a lot of data inside.
I also have some pictures to show you.”
According to our prediction, the cost of electric vehicles is expected to be basically equal to that of hybrid vehicles by 2020 to 2021, which will bring a turning point for the outbreak of electric vehicles. Under the new changes, electric vehicles will evolve into a mobile intelligent terminal. The advantages of new energy vehicles, especially pure electric vehicles, are obvious, and we won’t go into details because everyone knows it.
Another change in the attributes of new energy vehicle parts is the proportion of software and hardware in them. Currently, the proportion of software is gradually increasing, while that of hardware is gradually decreasing. To become a digitalized car, it is necessary to deeply integrate with the Internet. Therefore, new energy vehicles must achieve deep integration to succeed.
Now we know that there are two visible advantages of new energy vehicles, that is, the current types of faults are basically caused by software problems rather than hardware problems, meaning different bugs. Due to the empowerment of software, functional characteristics of new energy vehicles may fail and new software can be refreshed, which can change the functional and performance of the vehicle and bring new driving experience, thus bringing changes in the attributes of new energy vehicles.
Under the four transformations, endurance, charging, and cost can all be solved slowly. Where is the main competitive point coming from? Two major competitive advantages of electric vehicle, one is automatic driving, and the other is digital cockpit.
First of all, to make new energy vehicles, we must rely on their own platform or a platform exclusively for new energy vehicles to create the ultimate new energy vehicle product.
If you use a petrol car to convert to an electric car, in fact, it may not be able to perform well in some aspects. First of all, in terms of space, because the exclusive platform can provide a larger space, we call it the golden space. A car with a length of 4.7 meters may have a wheelbase of about 2.6 meters if made using a petrol car platform, but if made using an electric exclusive platform, it can be as long as 2.9 meters, providing customers with a large space.
Secondly, it has a quick and agile driving experience. The inherent acceleration of electric vehicles is good, as well as NVH, and the two major competitive advantages I mentioned earlier, automatic driving and intelligent Internet connectivity.
Next, let’s talk about the trend of automatic driving.From the trend of autonomous driving, some people outside the industry may think it will come late. However, in fact, autonomous driving has already come very fast. For example, our GAC offers L2 autonomous driving assistance that is not a demo, but a real product that you can install through our APP to choose whether to use it or not.
Originally, we thought that autonomous driving might not be chosen by consumers, but to our surprise, about 40% of users chose autonomous driving when customizing their options. This shows that China has a high acceptance of new technology, including autonomous driving.
Our LX, which was released in October, has L3 autonomous driving assistance on highways and is a mass-produced car. I am also working on a scenario-based autonomous driving system, and for now, fixed scenario-based autonomous driving, such as automatic parking in a parking lot, is achievable. Maybe next year’s cars can be mass-produced with it.
When it comes to autonomous driving, regardless of how it is achieved, China needs to develop its own chips and operating systems to control the key technologies for autonomous driving, including L5 autonomous driving.
The integration of cars and the Internet will change cars into a super-connected digital device, connecting to roads, charging stations, factories, phones, clouds, even to home appliances. Facial recognition can be used to activate ADiGo, the smart companion, and there is an intelligent experience cabin, worry-free charging, and automated navigation to charging stations.
No matter how luxury the car is, currently, you need to use your phone to connect it to the Internet. The auto industry is not satisfied, and we want to make it into a real-time online screen. We are constantly developing connected vehicles, such as QQ Music, and real-time navigation. However, we have found that, no matter how good the connected vehicle is, people are still used to using their phones.The mobile environment is a familiar environment, and people don’t want to get acquainted with another vehicle networking environment on every car. Anyway, everyone still uses their phones. The next step is to achieve seamless and quick connection between your phone and the car, so that when you get on the car, your phone can interact with it, and your phone’s computing power is better than that of the car, and your phone has a richer ecosystem and is more suitable for your application experience.
Next, we may collaborate with companies like Huawei to achieve better user experience in connecting mobile phones with car systems. This is how the digitization of the automotive industry comes into being. The traditional network architecture used to be Ethernet + domain controller. With the advent of 5G technology, a centralized and cloud computing architecture will be adopted. With 5G, the transformation to a fully software-defined car is complete.
From a digital perspective, traditional digitization must mention manufacturing digitization.
First, in terms of design, the design conditions now require a fully digital 3D model built using all processes, and the factory is fully digitalized with 3D models that can be switched to physical models after being set up. All automation codes are implemented on this model. When you debug the equipment, the virtual code will work as soon as it enters. You just need to fine-tune it to make it work.
We built a factory from piling to mass production in just 16 months, thanks to digitization. It brings something to design, which is to integrate IT, OT, and CT into a fully digitalized factory. What can a digitalized factory bring? I sum it up into several results.
First, for this factory, once you have data and connectivity, data application, and interconnection at the critical time, if you have not collected and applied data, it’s like doing twice the work for half the result. After collecting data, big data analysis, and cloud computing, the most critical thing is to achieve data-driven decision making.
For example, what is digital decision-making? All my equipment is connected to the Internet. Once there is deviation in the equipment operation data, the system will send an automatic alert. The alert will also be automatically pushed to all personnel, telling them that there is a problem and to take action. Meanwhile, your equipment maintenance personnel can also connect to the Internet at home and check your equipment parameters, achieving autonomous decision-making. Quality data and production data can both be processed using big data.
Another effect of a digitalized factory is that it can be customized. In my opinion, the highest level of future manufacturing is customization. You can customize any product. In my APP, if you have downloaded it, you can customize what kind of car you want, what color you want, or what configuration you want, such as autonomous driving, high-end sound, and so on.The second point can also be designed, for example, I can provide design possibilities in some aspects. For example, on the glass or seats, I can put your logo or signature on them and help you customize your car deeply. After you customize it, I can even push the production process to you, showing you the production process of your car and where it is in the process. When your car is offline, I can tell you where it is in logistics and which store to go to for pick-up. This is the highest level brought by digital factories.
To achieve this function, there must be an intelligent logistics system that efficiently matches information logistics to ensure customization.
Digitalization also has a link that connects physical objects and information. Design, supply, sales, logistics, and overall vehicle data chain monitoring, data from sales can even return to factory data, and people, cars, and network are integrated to form a digital marketing ecology.
In this way, what can I do with big data fusion? I can do product planning, user profiling, and precise marketing. My design can provide some user preferences, and there are still many big data from travel that can be used for operation, user analysis, vehicle analysis, and operation and maintenance analysis, achieving a full ecological service. Under the internet, service has undergone tremendous changes.
GAC New Energy created technological differentiation under the transformation of the internet, with ultimate product performance. Our company has only been independently engaged in new energy for two years, but we have new technologies, manufacturing, ecology, system, and products. We have created such new products, and what should we name this car? We cannot just have a logo like GAC did before; we need new empowerment. After thinking for a while, I believe it should be named AION, artificial intelligence online, and artificial intelligence is always with you under the internet.
The second is the Chinese name of AION, which means love walking with you, with two meanings. Our new system is called AI, and this car we have created has been launched. Everything we have done is leading, with long battery life, spacious interior, high aesthetic value, deep customization, and an intelligent driving system. It can even go from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds and has a range of 650 kilometers.
We welcome everyone to continue paying attention to new energy and have the opportunity to experience GAC New Energy’s new cars. We provide test drive experiences. Thank you!
“`
“`
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.