Auto China 2024: The Emergence of Intelligent Driving
After four years, the Beijing Auto Show is back again. The theme of the 2024 Beijing Auto Show is “New Era, New Cars”, which is very much in line with the current situation of the automotive industry.
As reflected in this Beijing Auto Show, the popularity of electric vehicles is still high. According to the organizing committee, there will be 117 new cars (including 30 new cars from multinational companies) and 41 concept cars at this year’s Beijing Auto Show. Among them, there are 278 electric cars.
New technologies are accelerating the popularization, of 800V high-voltage architecture, SiC silicon carbide power module, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8295 chip, lidar, and other technical terms, with the launch of a model gradually into people’s lives.
It is worth noting that high-end intelligent driving has become a must for major brands, more and more models are moving towards high-speed and urban NOA, and the rollout of L3/L4 autonomous driving pilots means that autonomous driving is getting closer and closer to us.
From a near-term perspective, as one of the most important auto shows of the year, the Beijing Auto Show will become an important window to observe the layout and trend of the auto market in the future, and from a longer perspective, the electric car will gradually change the way people travel.
Successive Joint Ventures Ignite the Electrification Revolution
Honda will exhibit three models of its all-new electric brand “Ye” at this year’s Beijing Motor Show, while Honda e: NS2 and Honda e: NP2 will be officially launched. Toyota’s two all-electric models, the bZ Sport Crossover Concept and the bZ FlexSpace Concept, will make their world premieres. In addition, Nissan’s all-electric Hyper Force concept car will make its debut in China.
According to the BMW Group, the BMW next-generation concept car will make its debut in the Chinese market, and MINI’s first pure electric crossover models, the MINI ACEMAN and BMW i4, will make their world debut. The BMW Group said that at this year’s Beijing Auto Show, it will also bring the new BMW 4 Series family, the BMW M high-performance model, the new BMW M4, and the BMW iX5 hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. It is reported that BMW’s new-generation model will be launched in the global market next year.
Mercedes-Benz announced that it will unveil 21 new vehicles, including 1 world premiere car, 7 Chinese premieres, and 8 Chinese premieres. Among them, the Mercedes-Benz pure electric G-class off-road vehicle will make its world premiere at the Beijing Auto Show, the Mercedes-Benz CLA-class concept car will make its debut in China, and Maybach’s first mass-produced pure electric model, the Maybach EQS pure electric SUV, will be launched in China.
To this end, at this year’s Beijing Auto Show, the Volkswagen brand will release a new category of intelligent pure electric vehicles and announce the official name, and the first new car under the new category ID.UNYX will be officially unveiled, which is also the debut of the gold-standard Volkswagen. The car is positioned as an A-class electric coupe SUV and will be launched in the Chinese market this year.
The Audi Q6 e-tron, the brand’s first all-electric model tailored to the Chinese market, will make its world premiere.
In addition, models such as the domestically produced Ford Bronco, the Ford Mustang convertible sports EcoBoost, the second pure electric SUV of the Cadillac brand, and the all-new Beijing Hyundai Tucson L will also be unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show.
NIO and Xpeng Pushes the Second Brand, Xiaomi and Huawei Face On The Same Stage
The founder of Xpeng Motors revealed that Xpeng Motors will officially release a new brand at the Beijing Auto Show in April, and the first model will be delivered in the third quarter of this year. According to Xpeng Motors’ senior management on the earnings call, the new brand will be called “MONA”.
NIO will also unveil its second brand, ONVO, at the Beijing Auto Show. In the video of NIO’s third-generation battery swap station released on April 23, ONVO Automobile appeared in camouflage. ONVO Automobile presents a coupe SUV as a whole, with a new design for the headlights, the left and right headlights are separated, the headlights are divided into two parts, and the door part does not see the handlebar protrusion.
Qin Lihong, president of NIO, previously revealed that the positioning of “ONVO” is not a low-end brand, but a benchmark against Tesla and facing the mainstream market. Li Bin, CEO of NIO, said that ONVO can be “cheaper than Tesla Model Y”, on the one hand, based on NIO’s overall capabilities, and on the other hand, relying on domestic supply chain, manufacturing and other capabilities to define such products.
The first benchmark model of ONVO Auto’s product is the Tesla Model Y, and the current pricing and specific configuration have not yet been revealed.
At this year’s Beijing Auto Show, the new intelligent model Stelato S9 jointly created by Huawei and BAIC Blue Valley will be officially unveiled, which is positioned as a medium and large sedan. According to the information announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Stelato S9 will be launched in two power versions: single motor and dual motor, and the motors are both from Huawei Digital Energy, but the models are different.
In addition, the new Aito M5 will be officially unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show, and the new car will be available in a red colorway, and the Luxeed S7, jointly built by Huawei and Chery, will also be unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show.
Xiaomi SU7 also officially announced that it will participate in the Beijing Auto Show for the first time, since its release in March, Xiaomi Auto is unprecedentedly hot. Huawei’s previously successful Aito series is an SUV model, while the Luxeed S7 and Stelato S7 are both sedan models, and the two old rivals are expected to become a highlight of the auto show.
High-end Intelligent Driving Acceleration Coverage
From a model perspective, the show is highly competitive, and from a technical perspective, there are also some notable trends. In particular, the continuous improvement of the coverage rate of high-end intelligent driving will bring more perceptible progress to consumers.
Since the second half of 2023, reducing the dependence on high-definition maps has become an industry trend. At the 2024 Beijing Auto Show, many models have chosen the mapless intelligent driving solution, such as the Li Auto L6 Max Edition, Luxeed L6, Xiaomi SU7 Pro and Max Version, all of which can achieve high-speed and urban full-scene NOA.
Xpeng MONA is expected to be equipped with a pure vision assisted driving hardware solution, combined with Xpeng intelligent driving technology, to achieve high-speed or urban pilot intelligent driving.
There are also some models that combine high-precision maps to achieve intelligent driving functions. For example, the BYD Sea Lion 07 EV is equipped with the high-end intelligent driving function of the Eye of the Gods, which can achieve high-speed NOA, and the Forthing U-Tour V9 combines high-precision maps to achieve high-speed NOA, including intelligent cruise, global path planning, intelligent lane change, automatic obstacle avoidance, and other functions.
From the perspective of space, electric brands are entering a new stage of high-end intelligent driving. At the Luxeed S7 secondary launch conference, Huawei announced that ADS 2.0 was upgraded to “you can drive if you have a road”, and also launched a visual intelligent driving solution without lidar.
Compared with ADS 1.0, Huawei’s high-end intelligent driving system HUAWEI ADS 2.0 subtracts hardware and adds functions. In terms of hardware, the number of lidars has been reduced, and the number of lidars has been changed from 3 to 1. In terms of algorithms, Huawei focuses on the route of visual fusion perception, and the road topology inference network has been further enhanced, and has successfully covered intelligent models such as Aito, Avatar, Luxeed, and Stelato. All of the above models are expected to be unveiled at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show.
It is worth noting that joint venture brands and fuel vehicles are also catching up. Volkswagen’s new Tiguan L Pro was unveiled on April 10, and the biggest feature of the car is that it is equipped with DJI’s intelligent driving platform, so that a fuel vehicle can also gain intelligent driving capabilities. The car will also be exhibited at the Beijing Motor Show.
The exhibition of new models and technologies will undoubtedly further promote the vitality of automobile production and consumption.
The Passenger Association said that the resumption of the Beijing Auto Show will not only focus on displaying new technologies and new products in the industry, but also be a grand event in the auto industry to show the new image of the brand, which will inevitably attract widespread attention from the society.
