A wave of electrification and intelligence is sweeping through the global automotive industry, leading to reshuffling, disruption, change, and innovation, becoming the most prominent keyword of the moment.
In the field of new energy, BYD, Geely, SAIC, Changan, Great Wall, GAC, and other companies have already laid out their plans. New domestic automakers are also vying with each other, as NIO, Ideanomics, and Xpeng complete their second listings and brands like WM Motor, NIO, and Leapmotor emerge in the public eye. Foreign brands are racing to catch up, with Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi, which have been in the lead for a century, accelerating their transformation at the Munich Auto Show and once again emphasizing their determination. Outside the industry, Internet companies Apple, Baidu, and Xiaomi are also making a strong push to get a piece of the pie.
However, compared to the fierce competition between traditional forces, new forces, and new new forces both inside and outside the intelligent automobile industry, a more universally relevant problem remains unclear today: where does the transformation path of new energy vehicles lead?
Previously, the competition for Internet carmaking was extremely fierce. But from autonomous driving, payment, social networking to other applications, and even the network channels of operators, which direction can we find the future “Holy Grail”? Who can stand at the top of the industry pyramid?
The rise of new stars inevitably accompanies the downfall of yesterday’s stars.
Until there is a clear answer, “innovation in chaos” will continue to be the consensus that maintains limited harmony among all parties in the industry. This goes beyond the low-dimensional competition level of “who is unlucky and who is afraid” in the short term, because once we move from “chaos” to “regulation”, the original competition pattern will once again face a cruel reshaping.
Intelligence: The Must-Win Area for Automotive Companies
Looking back at the history of the automotive industry over the past century, there seems to have never been a phase as violent as the transformation of electrification and intelligence, and the market’s perception of the future of automobiles has never been so drastically overturned.
Automotive electrification is the trend, but compared to “pure electric” follow-up, “intelligence” may be the real leader.
Today, technology content and ecology have become the core competitiveness of automakers. Electric vehicles are naturally more suitable for intelligence, while intelligence can bring significant competitive advantages to electric vehicles. Therefore, intelligent electric vehicles will undoubtedly gradually become the “main force” in the Chinese auto market.
While the industry is continuously looking forward to intelligent electric vehicles, the policy level is also outlining this “brand-new track.”
In November 2020, a joint publication by the Beijing Municipal Government, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Transport, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, and other departments, the “Intelligent Connected Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0” was released. It was proposed that by 2025, the sales volume of L2-L3 level intelligent connected vehicles will account for more than 50% of the total automobile sales that year, and L4 level intelligent connected vehicles will begin to enter the market.Looking at the macro trend, the Chinese automobile market continues to boom, while European countries are setting time limits for banning fuel cars in their policies, maintaining the direction of intelligence and electrification. This provides opportunities for outsiders like Apple and Baidu.
Data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers shows that in 2020, China’s production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.366 million and 1.367 million respectively. As for infrastructure, the country has built 43,000 charging stations, 528 battery swap stations, and 1.5 million charging piles, and completed a fast charging network of about 49,000 kilometers along “ten vertical and ten horizontal” highways.
However, these achievements over the past seven years may just be the beginning. In terms of overall quantity, smart cars are just beginning to develop in the market.
Returning to the product itself, what should a qualified “smart electric vehicle” look like in the future? Perhaps different answers can be found in every person’s heart.
If we have to define it, at least the appearance should be good-looking, the interior should be luxurious, the intelligent experience should be user-friendly, the advanced driving assistance system should be leading in the industry, and the whole vehicle should have the ability to constantly upgrade through OTA…
Unfortunately, few cars currently meet the above standards of intelligence.
For all car companies that want to get a share of the new energy market, one thing must be clear: as the driving experience becomes increasingly homogenized under pure electric driving, competition at the level of intelligence has become the new battlefield.
For giants like Apple and Baidu in the internet industry and automobile giants who have been in the industry for many years, this seems to be a logical thing-auto is constantly integrating with the genes of the Internet, information, digitalization, and intelligence. Just like what happened with smartphones in the past decade or so, intelligence not only allows users to get novel driving experiences anytime and anywhere, but also creates and demonstrates almost infinite new commercial value.
The Cradle of Next-Generation Electric Vehicles
Under the global automotive industry’s trend of “new four modernizations”, the trend of electrification and intelligence is accelerating in the automotive industry, driving automotive products to transform from traditional “functional vehicles” to “intelligent vehicles”, and consumers’ understanding of cars is gradually shifting from “single transportation tools” to “third space”.
Controlling the temperature of the air conditioner and the opening and closing of the skylight through voice commands are just small steps in the intelligentization of automobiles. As the next-generation intelligent terminal, cars must carry more intelligent application demands of consumers. Advanced driving assistance system should have practical functions and the ability of continuous OTA upgrades. The home-court advantage of electric vehicles, such as endurance and charging, also requires a car that is intelligent enough to meet daily intercity commuting, and safety must reach the highest standard.
The entry of various players has made the development path of automobile intelligence clearer. On the road to electrification, more and more car companies realize that “intelligence” may be the key to truly leading and standing out in the end.As the electronic and electrical architecture and software architecture of vehicles become more and more complex, the demand for integrating indicators such as ECU together is increasing. In the face of numerous intelligent functions, it is necessary to build a mature platform architecture to truly showcase their strength.
The “oil-to-electricity” faction, led by BAIC, is struggling due to the lack of a professional electric vehicle platform; while the “technology” faction, mainly composed of new forces and some independent brands, has created electric vehicles based on self-developed pure electric vehicle platforms that are highly recognized by consumers and popular in the market, with sales reaching new highs.
On September 8th, BYD’s exclusive pure electric platform e-platform 3.0 was officially released, once again putting the “smart electric vehicle”, which belongs to the industry buzzwords, in the spotlight.
“The great transformation of the automobile industry, electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half, which will be even more exciting.” Wang Chuanfu, chairman and CEO of BYD Group, said. And e-platform 3.0 is BYD’s key layout from the first half of electrification to the second half of intelligence in the new energy vehicle revolution.
BYD’s pure electric exclusive platform e-platform 3.0, has four major characteristics of intelligence, efficiency, safety, and aesthetics. Starting from solving pain points in the user experience of new energy vehicles, it greatly improves the intelligent driving experience and creates a more reassuring smart electric vehicle.
E-platform 3.0 is equipped with the world’s first eight-in-one electric power assembly as standard across the board, and integrates traditional distributed electronic and electrical architectures into domain control architectures, using a new generation of SiC electronic controls. While improving the efficiency of system interaction, it also achieves the ultimate level of space utilization, endowing the entire vehicle with broader market competitiveness.
As the culmination of e-platform 3.0, its strength is far more than that. The hardware has ultra-high integration and miniaturization, and even an ordinary consumer can easily distinguish the specific names of components, which is even more understandable than the previous “33111” concept.
Wang Chuanfu called it the “cradle of the next generation of electric vehicles”, which is destined to be another black technology worth boasting about by BYD.
“Attack is the best defense.” “Innovation is not gradual improvement on the same curve, but a new combination from one curve to another.” This is the definition of innovation by Joseph Schumpeter, the father of innovation theory and entrepreneurship theory.
True innovation is revolutionary and disruptive, and it is the decisive weapon for enterprises to develop for a long time.
This also became the thinking theme of BYD’s release of e-platform 3.0.
The e-platform 3.0 technology architecture is no longer just a vehicle platform, but a finely tuned system that creates a new mode of electric vehicle performance improvement throughout the entire lifecycle through processors and operating systems.On the 3.0 platform, there have been a series of car models released. BYD’s “pure electric new species” – Dolphin, is the first model built on the e-platform 3.0. The concept car, Ocean-X, provides some clues to what the subsequent models on e-platform 3.0 will look like.
Ocean-X is a medium-sized high-performance sports sedan based on the e-platform 3.0. It adopts a blade-shaped battery body integrated design, an eight-in-one powertrain, and a four-wheel drive architecture.
This also means that e-platform 3.0 will support BYD to continue to upgrade their brand and compete with more high-end car models.
Renowned investor Li Lu mentioned in “Civilization, Modernization, Value Investment, and China” that BYD is like a constantly learning machine, competing fiercely with all global brands in a market. They have never had any so-called local competitive advantage because the Chinese auto industry has been open to all international brands from the beginning.
“Openness” is gradually becoming an important label for BYD. Since BYD announced the opening and sharing of e-platform to the entire industry in 2018, multiple car companies have partnered with BYD. BYD also formed a joint venture company with Toyota, and the future prospects for external expansion on e-platform are promising.
With its open approach, BYD will further open up with e-platform 3.0.
The e-platform 3.0 is designed to provide the next-generation intelligent electric vehicle basic solution for the industry and is fully open for sharing with the industry. In the future, BYD will not be the only one to enjoy this platform. E-platform 3.0 reserves various hardware interfaces for autonomous driving and can flexibly configure the world’s most advanced autonomous driving solutions. This will provide personalized travel experiences and enable users to use safe, reliable, and high-end intelligent electric vehicles.
In the face of the irreversible trend of the development of new energy vehicles, platforms that manufacture cars have become increasingly important. The first to occupy the highland of platformization can have greater initiative in the market competition.
BYD hopes to unite more car brands to promote the industry’s development better and faster. Based on this solution, the low independent research and development strengths of some car companies have the opportunity to focus more efficiently on expanding their new energy businesses.
“The new generation e-platform achieves full coverage from small to large cars and will continue to be open and shared to the industry. It is expected to accelerate the development of global intelligent electric vehicles by at least three years.” This is another flag that BYD set for the industry.
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.