Do joint venture brands rely entirely on "outsourcing" for intelligent driving?

With the help of AI large models, major automakers have made new breakthroughs in intelligent cockpits and intelligent driving this year: The in-car system can now answer users' various strange questions, and the intelligent driving system is gradually breaking out of the human-set rules, evolving towards a driving experience more akin to that of an experienced driver, further expanding consumers' and the industry's imagination of intelligence.

The Guangzhou Auto Show is the final battleground for the domestic auto market. New cars, new technologies, and new plans are undoubtedly the focus of automakers' promotion, with intelligent driving being particularly emphasized. Market competition has entered the knockout stage, and consumers' demands for intelligent driving are also rising, indicating that intelligent driving is no longer an optional weapon.

Photo source: Electric Car News production

Electric Car News has found that the field of intelligent driving is gradually forming three tiers:

The first tier is led by HarmonyOS Intelligent Driving and XPeng, which are the first to achieve high-level intelligent driving without maps nationwide;

The second tier includes brands that already possess high-level intelligent driving technology but have not yet officially launched it nationwide;

The third tier consists of automotive brands that have not yet equipped with high-level intelligent driving technology.

In order to survive in the intelligent driving race, automakers in the second and third tiers are also doing their best.

New forces show data, joint ventures "paint pie-in-the-sky promises"

Brands such as Xiaomi, XPeng, Thalys, and Lixiang have announced the latest developments in intelligent driving technology. Among them, although Xiaomi is new to the automotive industry, it has officially announced its entry into the first tier of high-level intelligent driving by the end of this year. Lei Jun pointed out at the conference that Xiaomi's total intelligent driving mileage has exceeded 80 million kilometers, with NOA mileage accounting for 82.4% of the intelligent driving mileage, and the latest end-to-end full-scenario intelligent driving has begun targeted internal testing.

Photo source: Electric Car News production

Thalys Motors stated that there are over 337,000 AITO intelligent driving users, with over 3 million OTA upgrades completed; Lixiang announced the latest progress of its new-generation intelligent driving technology architecture; XPeng announced the first nationwide test of its "parking spot to parking spot" intelligent driving solution; Zeekr Motors showcased its full-stack self-developed Haohan Intelligent Driving 2.0 technology for the first time; IM Motors announced cooperation with Momenta and NVIDIA, among others.

At this stage, the technology presentation and user base of new forces in the field of intelligent driving have reached a new level, and they will continue to invest in the future to ensure their leading position in the intelligent driving race.

While intelligent driving is indeed the comfort zone of new forces, Electric Car News noticed that joint venture brands are also painting pie-in-the-sky promises at this Guangzhou Auto Show, even shouting slogans like "entering the first tier of intelligent driving."

The first pie is price. GAC Toyota launched the first end-to-end intelligent driving pure electric SUV Bozhi 3X among joint venture brands, which can drive on any road and park in any spot. These two functions already possess the capabilities of the first tier. More importantly, the GAC Toyota Bozhi 3X, which is the first to be equipped with this high-level intelligent driving system, is priced at only 150,000 yuan.

Photo source: GAC Toyota official website

The official boldly declared that the high-level intelligent driving system equipped on Bozhi 3X is the "most cost-effective high-level intelligent driving system in the 150,000 yuan range" and did not add qualifiers such as "joint venture brand," directly competing with traditional domestic brands and new forces.

Although the competition in intelligent driving is fierce, there are not many brands that are widely recognized by users as benchmarks in intelligent driving. For consumers who pursue the intelligent driving experience, their concern for the brand is actually much lower than that of users who only look at cost-effectiveness.

Of course, the vast majority of users are not very interested in intelligent driving. How to get this group of users to be willing to try intelligent driving? "Equal rights in intelligent driving" is undoubtedly one of the most important strategies. Neighboring XPeng has already relied on this point to create a new hit in the entry-level pure electric sedan market with the XPeng MONA M03.

At this stage, GAC Toyota has been using the strategy of "trading price for volume" in the new energy field for a long time, but this is not conducive to building market reputation. The route of "equal rights in intelligent driving" is indeed more promising.

The second pie is planning. Dongfeng Nissan announced during the Guangzhou Auto Show that it would cooperate with the autonomous driving company Momenta to jointly develop a high-level intelligent driving solution based on the end-to-end intelligent driving large model, which can realize three major intelligent driving functions: highway NOA, city NOA, and full-scenario intelligent parking.

More importantly, the official clearly stated that this intelligent driving solution is still in the "first tier of the industry." It should be noted that before the launch of Nissan N7, the brand mainly focused on the relatively traditional Nissan Intelligent Mobility ProPILOT intelligent driving assistance. The Nissan N7, which is the first to be equipped with a high-level intelligent driving solution, will be launched as early as the first half of next year.

In other words, Dongfeng Nissan will rely on Nissan N7 to enter the first tier of the intelligent driving industry, and the timing is in the first half of next year.

Photo source: Dongfeng Nissan official website

It has to be said that joint venture brands are indeed paying more and more attention to intelligent driving. The reason why joint venture brands are in such a hurry is undoubtedly because brands such as BYD, NIO, and IM Motors all plan to launch intelligent driving systems that can be used nationwide by the end of this year. Brands in the third tier, if they enter the intelligent driving race one day late, will have a slimmer chance of rushing into the first tier later, and their probability of being eliminated will increase.

Joint venture intelligent driving relies entirely on outsourcing, and self-research shortcomings need to be addressed

The way for joint venture brands to enter the first tier of the intelligent driving industry seems to be through cooperation with technology companies, not like most domestic brands that take the self-research path. Even though GAC Toyota mentioned "Chinese self-research," it essentially means that products produced in China are entirely entrusted to the Chinese team, not completely self-researched from a technical perspective. You may ask, is it because they lack the capability to not take the self-research path in intelligent driving?

Electric Car News believes that joint venture brands such as Dongfeng Nissan and GAC Toyota have deep roots in the domestic market for many years, with relatively solid technical accumulation and a large market audience, so it is impossible for them to lack capability. To be frank, most joint venture brands are just too slow to respond in the field of intelligent driving.

The problem facing enterprises is that the research and development of high-level intelligent driving technology requires a lot of funds and technical reserves, and it also takes a long time. Take Huawei, which is in the first tier, as an example. Since its establishment until the end of 2023, Huawei's Automotive BU has cumulatively invested more than 30 billion yuan, with R&D investment reaching 3.422 billion yuan in the first half of this year. Moreover, before 2024, Huawei's Automotive BU was in a loss state.

When a brand is not in the middle or later stages of a certain race, only by leveraging the power of partners can it have the opportunity to become mainstream faster. It is not difficult to understand why GAC Toyota and Dongfeng Nissan chose to cooperate with companies such as Momenta and NVIDIA for their high-level intelligent driving, and the more well-known the technology company, the more automakers can rely on the company's reputation to build momentum for themselves.

Photo source: Electric Car News production

Another detail is that when some technologies are adopted from suppliers and some are self-researched, it is difficult for the product to achieve cross-platform data stability. Only when the technology can proceed according to the automaker's plan can data be well statistically analyzed and ultimately benefit consumers.

Of course, intelligent driving is gradually becoming the key to the development of the industry. When the core technology of intelligent driving is controlled by technology companies, automakers are likely to face a situation of being suppressed by the market. Let's take a look at Hoonan, which cooperates with Huawei. Its new Dreamer also uses Huawei's Kunlun Intelligent Driving ADS 3.0, but it has not abandoned its self-researched Kunpeng Intelligent Driving System; similarly, Changan Automobile Group, which also cooperates with Huawei, has a full-stack self-researched intelligent driving solution that integrates hardware and software.

Although GAC Toyota and Dongfeng Nissan introduced a circle of partners at this Guangzhou Auto Show, Electric Car News learned that both Toyota and Nissan have high investments in the field of self-researched intelligent driving.

Photo source: Electric Car News production

As early as the 18th China Road Traffic Safety Forum held on August 27 this year, Nissan Motors stated that it was developing a new driving assistance technology (i.e., NOA urban navigation function) centered on LiDAR and planned to complete the development of road condition perception technology by the mid-2020s; Mercedes-Benz showcased the latest intelligent technology achievements during the Guangzhou Auto Show - the MB.OS new domain control architecture, a brand-new architecture independently developed from scratch by the brand.

Toyota's subsidiary Woven Planet has acquired Lyft's Level IV intelligent driving team, invested in Pony.ai, the autonomous driving travel platform company Ridecell, and so on. Obviously, Toyota's route is similar to that of Geely Holding Group a few years ago: if the technology is insufficient, acquisitions will make up for it.

From the perspective of consumers, as long as they can obtain a good driving experience, it is not important whether the technology is completely self-researched by the brand. For automakers, the "money power" can often quickly solve practical problems while completely avoiding being throttled by technology companies.

Intelligent driving has become the "game-changer" in the auto industry

Compared with previous years, this Guangzhou Auto Show has indeed showcased many intelligent achievements, with discussions on intelligent driving exceeding Electric Car News' expectations.

Electric Car News believes that this trend change is essentially caused by automakers actively seeking differentiated advantages. When more products priced below 200,000 yuan achieve a high level of intelligent cockpits and performance, automakers must find new selling points to attract consumers. The entry of technology companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi has also provided development directions for traditional brands.

Think carefully, why are many joint venture brands so slow to respond in the field of intelligent driving? In the view of Electric Car News, it is precisely because they have too much experience in car manufacturing.

Photo source: Electric Car News production

According to data from the China Passenger Car Association, in 2023, the installation rate of L2 and above advanced driver assistance functions for new energy passenger vehicles in China reached 55.3%. In terms of the L2+ level, data from ZoZo-Auto Research shows that the penetration rate of highway NOA is close to 7%, and the penetration rate of city NOA exceeds 4%. In other words, there are not many users willing to try high-level intelligent driving.

However, when automakers use strategies such as "can drive on any road" and "equal rights in intelligent driving," they will only attract more and more consumers to choose high-level intelligent driving. If joint venture brands do not paint a "pie-in-the-sky promise" at the Guangzhou Auto Show, they may only be left with the path of "slow death."

(Cover photo source: Electric Car News production)

Source: Lei Technology