“At present, China’s intelligent network-connected cars are showing strong momentum of development, with breakthroughs in key technologies. The vehicle-mounted basic computing platform has been implemented for vehicle-mounted applications, and the computing power of the vehicle-mounted laser radar and artificial intelligence chips has reached the advanced international level.”At the 2021 World Intelligent network-connected cars conference, ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China Minister Xiao Yaqing said more than 3,500 kilometers of roads across the country have been upgraded intelligently, with more than 5 million vehicles carrying network terminals.
The China Electronics and Information Industry development research institute released the “Intelligent Network Automobile Industry Development Report (Shunyi District Index 2021)”predicted that the size of China’s intelligent network automobile industry will exceed 400 billion yuan this year, the number of 2023 will reach 900 billion yuan. With the rapid development of the industry, challenges and problems come along. How to take more effective measures to promote the intelligent network automobile industry to achieve high-quality development, entrepreneurs, experts have made suggestions.
Reshaping the ecology of the automobile industry
Under the double effect of digitalization and informationization, artificial intelligence, 5G, big data and other technologies have been deeply integrated with the automobile industry, and new products such as electric cars and intelligent networked cars have been continuously introduced. Electrification, intelligentization and networking are reshaping the ecology of automobile industry in a way of mutual promotion and integration, and promoting the reconstruction of supply chain of automobile industry.
“With the advantages of 5G technology, China is already in the leading position in the world in terms of information and communication technology standards for vehicle-to-vehicle networking, and has a certain first-mover advantage in the research and development of core products, and generally keeps pace with the international level in terms of relevant automatic driving technologies,”said Zhang Yanchuan, vice president of the China Communications Society.
“But at the same time, we should see that the supply chain of the automobile industry still faces important challenges in the process of transformation and upgrading,”said Huang Yonghe, deputy director of the General Division Office of the China Automotive Technology Research Center, the key technologies such as environment perception and line control execution involved in the supply chain of intelligent network automobile industry in China lag behind those in developed countries. At the same time, the gap between the field of basic software represented by the vehicle operating system and the foreign countries is obvious.
“The weak spot in our industry is that the chip processors still come from foreign suppliers,”said Liu Wenqiang, vice president of the China Electronics and Information Industry Development Research Institute, countries are actively exploring. Under the historical opportunity of a wide range of application scenarios, China should integrate the scientific and technological innovation capabilities of all parties to promote the integrated development of industry, university, research and application, and set up a joint laboratory to tackle key technical problems. At the same time, it is necessary to speed up the development and manufacture of the intelligent network automobile, guide the key automobile enterprises to set up the new research and development platform of the intelligent network automobile, and improve the security of the key technology supply chain.
Through the computation, the research and development, the service and so on platform competition and cooperation ecological construction, promotes the intelligent automobile industry development.
“In the next step, MIIT will support leading enterprises and manufacturing development centers, focus on key technologies such as high-precision sensor vehicle gauge chips and vehicle operating systems, integrate superior resources, increase investment in research and development, carry out joint research and development, actively promote the research and development and industrialization of vehicle-based self-driving platforms, and enhance the resilience of the industrial chain,”Xiao said.
New technology builds the bottom line of safety
Digital technology not only subverts the form of automobile industry, but also redefines the safety of automobile industry. “The smart connected car is a highly integrated product of advanced manufacturing and digital industries, featuring everything programmable, everything interconnected, and big data driven business.”said Zhou Hongyi, 360’s founder and chairman, as the software begins to define the car, the potential safety problems of the onboard system will increase, “There used to be only one million lines of code in a car, but with smart cockpits, sensors and the spread of artificial intelligence, the number could soar to hundreds of millions of lines, with four to six security flaws per 1,000 lines of code, and these vulnerabilities are more likely to be exploited.”
Zhou Hongyi told reporters that the cars connected to the car company’s cloud servers upload driving status and receive remote instructions to update the software, giving hackers an opportunity to attack the vehicle’s operating system through the cloud. In addition, sensors such as webcams, radars and speed sensors will continue to collect data on people, locations and environments inside and outside the vehicle, and will continue to be integrated into cloud servers, if leaked, it could pose a significant risk to personnel and even national security.
From the vehicle terminal and internal communication to the vehicle network, from the cloud server to the vehicle enterprise data, the security problem of the intelligent network is very serious, which also brings great challenges to the governance. “The intelligentization, networking and electrification of automobiles are all new forms of business, and their safety problems have never been encountered before and must be solved by new technological means,”said Tian Daxin, deputy dean of the School of Transportation Science and Engineering at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, “Edge computing + Blockchain + vehicle networking”technology system to open a new era of vehicle networking security.
Tian Daxin told reporters that because the distributed storage of blockchain has the characteristics of being tamper-proof, on-the-spot information such as violation information, vehicle failures and traffic accidents will be permanently recorded in the blockchain, the security of driving and the management efficiency of service providers can be improved by sharing the data information protected by the blockchain.
Zhou Hongyi also believes that the security problems facing smart connected cars today can no longer be solved by just buying a few antivirus software and installing a few firewalls. The 360 group set up a dedicated team in 2014 to set up a joint automotive safety laboratory with more than 10 auto companies, and has so far identified more than 1,500 safety vulnerabilities and protected more than ten million vehicles.
“The security problem of car-to-car networking is much more complicated than we thought, and only by going into the front lines of car companies can we find the most appropriate solution,”said Zhou Hongyi, adding that the company is working with Nezha cars this year to help them build security infrastructure, in the car network, especially in the area of big data protection has been improved and preliminary results have been achieved.
Creating a good environment for development
“At present, China’s intelligent network auto policy system is gradually improving,”Xiao said, referring to the Ministry of Industry and information, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China and other relevant departments, a series of policy documents, such as “Opinions on strengthening the management of auto manufacturing enterprises and product access”, have been issued to create a favorable environment for industrial development.
Not long ago, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China released a new edition of the Intelligent Network Vehicle Road Test and demonstration application management code (for trial implementation) , from the road test and the demonstration application main body, the driver and the vehicle, the road test application, the demonstration application application, the road test and the demonstration application management and so on 7 aspects carry on the standard. At present, China has built 16 intelligent network automobile test demonstration zones, issued more than 700 test licenses, road test total mileage of more than 7 million kilometers. “Code”on the basis of road test to add demonstration application related content, allowing a certain period of time or mileage road test, safe and reliable vehicles to carry out manned vehicle demonstration application.
In the future, the multi-sector will further improve the policy system to increase support for the intelligent network-connected vehicles.
Xiao Yaqing said that the development of intelligent network vehicles in China is shifting from testing and verification to a new stage of multi-scene demonstration application. We should speed up the application of large-scale demonstration, take the city and the region as the carrier, deepen the coordinated development of “Che-fo-cloud”, continuously perfect the policies and regulations, and actively explore the integrated supervision mode, through access management, standard-setting, safety supervision, product recall, and other ways to promote the intelligent network of vehicles to accelerate innovation, safety applications.
Focusing on the key links of supply chain transformation and upgrading, how can we further strengthen policy support, formulate standards and regulations to support the transition and high-quality development of China’s automotive industry?
Huang Yonghe believes that it is necessary to support places where conditions permit to carry out demonstration, application and supervision in the first instance, and to explore replicable experiences so as to provide a practical basis for the introduction of relevant policies and measures at the national level. For example, Beijing will combine the smart city construction and deployment, rely on the high-level automatic driving demonstration area, build the innovative development competitiveness of the Beijing Smart Network automobile industry, and play a demonstration and leading role, we will strive to achieve full coverage of intelligent facilities within the 60 square kilometers of the demonstration area by the end of this year, and promote larger-scale networked vehicle testing applications.
“The construction of current laws and regulations and technical standards is still lagging behind the commercialization of middle-and high-level autonomous driving, and the start-up and use of autonomous driving functions of L3 and above, and related regulations are still unclear,”Huang said, we will give full play to the role of standardization in leading innovation in the industry and actively work out technical standards in strategic emerging areas.