my country's intelligent connected vehicle technology approach is vehicle-road cooperation, which connects "smart vehicles" and "smart roads" based on technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, edge computing, and 5G. "Smart vehicles" refer to autonomous vehicles equipped with various intelligent software and hardware devices; "smart roads" refer to the infrastructure that assists autonomous vehicles in environmental perception and real-time communication. The key to realizing vehicle-road cooperation lies in the real-time data exchange among the four elements: people, vehicles, roads, and the cloud.
Current domestic policies and a maturing industry chain are driving the rapid development of intelligent connected vehicles. According to the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, my country's intelligent vehicle industry has entered a golden age of development. The number of connected vehicles is constantly increasing, and the industry scale is expected to show a continuous growth trend, reaching 585.9 billion yuan by 2026.
Overall, automotive hardware remains crucial, but software will become increasingly important, as it will be responsible for many aspects related to user experience. In the future, automakers will focus more on better integrating hardware and software, and improving their own software development capabilities. This currently requires automakers to increase investment in in-vehicle systems. At present, only a few automakers are developing their own intelligent connectivity systems; most are collaborating with supply chain companies. The idea is that automakers will control the design technology roadmap, suppliers will provide core components, and collaboration with supply chain companies will allow automakers to expand their core resources.
Unlike traditional industries, intelligent connected vehicles possess an inherent characteristic of "cross-sector integration." The collaboration between the automotive industry and sectors such as energy, transportation, information and communication, and finance and insurance is becoming increasingly evident, and a network-like industrial ecosystem is taking shape. Particularly in urban transportation scenarios, intelligent connected vehicles have become crucial for smart city construction. my country has established 16 pilot cities for the coordinated development of smart city infrastructure and intelligent connected vehicles, providing valuable experience for the comprehensive empowerment of urban transportation construction by intelligent connected vehicles.
The next stage of intelligent connected vehicles will achieve further "intelligence," exchanging pedestrian locations, transportation data, vehicle data, and traffic operation data through various in-vehicle terminals, smartphones, and roadside equipment. This information will be input into the autonomous driving decision-making and control system, changing the current situation where development only focuses on the "vehicle" and incorporating sensors of the surrounding environment to achieve true autonomous driving. With the rapid development of technology, the rapid implementation of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, big data, and 5G communication technologies, and the deep integration of automobiles with electronics, communications, and the Internet, "intelligent driving vehicles" have become the commanding height of the new round of competition in the future automotive industry, attracting companies, capital, and markets alike.
In the era of internet information technology, intelligent connected vehicles are an inevitable trend in the automotive industry. LiDAR, image perception, vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, computing platforms, and high-precision maps, as hot technologies in global intelligent connected vehicle research, constitute the core of the global autonomous driving industry and are showing rapid development thanks to the continuous efforts of global ICT companies and research institutions, accelerating the progress of intelligent mobility. From the current industry landscape, OEMs are increasingly deploying in-vehicle information service products to drive product transformation and gain consumer favor. Currently, automotive products are highly homogenized, and competition among similar products is fierce; therefore, in-vehicle information service systems are gradually becoming an important selling point and a key competitive advantage for vehicle models.
China's intelligent connected vehicles have reached a significant strategic level. The traditional automotive market is large and experiencing stable growth, while automakers urgently need to find new profit centers. Furthermore, the continuous upgrading and evolution of artificial intelligence and communication technologies will drive the rapid development of my country's intelligent connected vehicles. However, my country's traditional automotive industry as a whole still lags behind international advanced levels, and achieving a perfect integration of the automotive industry with the transportation and electronic information industries remains a long and arduous task.
