(Image source: Enterprise photo)
For most Chinese consumers, the month or so since the outbreak of the epidemic has been perhaps the most intensive period of exposure to driverless information. During that time, more and more unmanned vehicles have been placed in a variety of scenarios across the country to reduce human contact during the outbreak and ease capacity constraints. According to incomplete statistics from the Economic Observer, as of February 26, at least 13 companies, including Huawei, Jingdong Logistics, Meituan, Yicheng Innovation, XingShen Intelligence, and Xinshiqi, had put in unmanned vehicles to fight the epidemic.
These unmanned vehicles have become popular on the Internet, making unmanned more attention. on February 24, the key policy for the development of unmanned vehicles - "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy" (hereinafter referred to as the "Strategy"), after two years of public consultation has also been finally officially released. Unmanned vehicles during the epidemic were mainly low-speed unmanned delivery vehicles, while the Strategy is mainly oriented to passenger cars and commercial vehicle drones. Despite not quite the same application scenarios and different stages of development, they share nearly identical underlying principles and components.
Spurred by the epidemic and the release of the Strategy, the already sought-after smart cars have stirred another layer of waves in the capital market. During the period, a number of smart car concept stock rose, more than twenty stocks followed up or even stop, in addition to a number of capital increase, investment cases to follow up. But in the industry's view, the epidemic, although the driverless short-term hotspot, and is not enough to bring the whole industry to the rapid progress. "Whether it is unmanned distribution or passenger car driverless, if it takes 10 years to enter the maturity stage, the epidemic played a role in accelerating the role of a month, and ultimately in accordance with its own industrial laws, but the consumer psychology of recognition should be greatly accelerated." ? Cao He, president of Allied Vehicle Investment Management (Beijing) Co. said to the Economic Observer.
Other industry insiders believe that driverless was originally an investment hotspot, the epidemic will not have a substantial impact on this industry, but will change the direction of the technology in certain details. "Now for emergency situations to solve the pain point of urban distribution of big data analysis is relatively large, the need for real-time tracking, automatic analysis of the flow of goods. These vehicles can be unmanned in the next step. As for unmanned driving with people, I think at least buses and the like will accelerate the pilot." Zhu Weihua, deputy secretary-general of the Information Service Committee of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, told the Economic Observer.
Driverless still far away
Unmanned delivery is not a new concept. During the SARS period in 2003, some robots were already used in hospital wards to sterilize and deliver medical equipment and instruments, but the maturity of the technology at that time was far less than it is now. With the development of artificial intelligence technology, in recent years, the wave of unmanned distribution again, in addition to Ali, Jingdong, Meituan, Suning and other e-commerce platforms one after another layout of unmanned distribution business, ZhiWangZhong, Candela, new stone and other focused on the logistics field of the unmanned start-ups are also a large number of emergence.
In some closed parks, restaurants, hotels and other places, the application of unmanned vehicles has been opened in 2018. The sudden epidemic at the beginning of this year has increased the demand for its application and made the scene richer. Compared with the previous closed park operations, many unmanned vehicles were able to travel on external roads this time. For example, the unmanned vehicle developed by Jingdong Logistics distributed medical supplies to Wuhan Ninth Hospital, with an unmanned distribution ratio of up to 70%. Meituan unmanned vehicles for "online grocery" consumers to send food to their homes, "no contact delivery" orders up to 80%. In addition, other unmanned vehicles are used in indoor and outdoor disinfection, mail delivery, mask distribution, temperature measurement and other scenarios.
"This epidemic, in some specific scenarios automated logistics first try, reflecting the unique value - no contact, no infection, compelling, and greatly demonstrates the potential value of intelligence." Mei Songlin, a senior analyst in the automotive industry, told the Economic Observer. He believes that, because of this, vigorously promote the automatic driving and driverless in specific scenarios show the significance of reality, such as high-risk environments, the logistics field (including intra-city as well as inter-city), as well as hospital vehicles.
Many unmanned vehicle companies said that they will continue to put vehicles in the next few months. For example, the person in charge of Jingdong said it is striving to put nearly 100 unmanned vehicles in Wuhan this year. New Stone insiders also told the Economic Observer that the number of unmanned vehicles currently placed across the country has been increasing. In addition to the direct increase in the placement, the industry believes that the epidemic period application will make the unmanned car maximum collection of reality information, and use the resulting big data to optimize the algorithm service, for the next step of large-scale expansion speed.
The surge in demand for unmanned delivery vehicles, resulting in the relevant intelligent driving concept stock anomaly, including Zhejiang Shibao, Derun Electronics, Digital Source Technology, Wanan Technology, including a number of parts and components stocks have risen. "The development of unmanned distribution is continuous, because the level of technology and application scenarios to accelerate the matching, has entered the business model exploration stage. Whether there is an epidemic or not, it will develop. But the epidemic plays a certain role in promoting it." Saidi Automotive Research Institute general manager Deer Wenliang told the Economic Observer.
But unmanned distribution is not exactly the same as unmanned, especially when applied to the open road unmanned, need to deal with more complex road conditions. This time, Huawei has invested in 5G unmanned vehicles for medical personnel transportation, which is one of the few unmanned applications for passenger cars during the epidemic, traditional car companies, including new car manufacturers actually do not have unmanned vehicles to participate in them, and their cars are still currently in a specific test area to do the test.
Despite the fact that many vehicle companies switched to the production of masks, disinfectant water and even negative-pressure ambulances during the outbreak, no car company has announced that it has switched to the production of unmanned delivery vehicles. "The technical difficulty of unmanned delivery vehicles is not the car, but the driverless technology. As long as you can handle the driverless, any car company can be OEM, or find a low-speed electric car companies can. Car companies turn to produce this nothing righteous, research and development is more important." Deer Wenliang said.
While nothing has changed at the level of vehicle production, Mei Songlin believes that the epidemic of remote product hardware and software upgrades and service repairs also shows the unique value of the intelligent network connection, which will promote the development and application of vehicle enterprises related projects, such as contactless online maintenance, contactless trunk to receive courier, human/vehicle health monitoring, voice authorization, etc.. In addition, the short-lived fire has made many suppliers feel that opportunities are approaching. "The rise of unmanned delivery will definitely promote the mass production and landing of automatic driving, which will also have a boost to our existing business." Four Dimensions insiders told the Economic Observer.
Industrial chain elimination intensifies
"The lifting of the global epidemic is likely to be until the end of the year, and the stimulus will remain during this period." Mei Songlin said that if this wave of boost can promote the real practical driverless cars in logistics, hospitals, public **** health field landing, driverless will usher in a wave of development peak. But the driverless still exists overheating suspicion, may eventually appear "loud thunder, small rain" situation, can not continue to invest down, and ultimately can not make the landing of the product. "To really make practical products need to be a protracted battle, need to be after the epidemic can be the same as always. Now into the field of investors are ready?" Mei Songlin said.
From a realistic point of view, although the terminal market and the capital market have made waves, but automatic driving has not reached the stage of large-scale commercialization. Compared with manned autonomous driving, commercial vehicles and low-speed delivery vehicles in closed environments are thought to be the first areas where driverless will be commercialized. Before the outbreak of the epidemic, there were already unmanned vehicles applied in closed scenarios, but after the end of the epidemic, these unmanned vehicles are difficult to drive on external roads as they did during the epidemic. "Unmanned delivery carts are just on the road, but they are not legal in principle. Unmanned or not, they don't have the right of way." An industry insider commented to the Economic Observer.
The epidemic has also accelerated some other adjustments within the industry, "It's hard to say how mature autonomous driving is, and some companies in the industry chain, such as Telematics companies, are having a hard time." An industry source revealed that in the field of automatic driving, some enterprises are being hit by the epidemic. "This would be the case with or without the epidemic, and the epidemic has only exacerbated the already deteriorating situation." These companies are basically startups, but with car companies shrinking their budgets, procurement programs are starting to be cut back, and car companies are leaning toward in-house R&D in lieu of external sourcing, according to the aforementioned industry insider. "Most of these companies are startups, and investors have been unable to exit for nearly 10 years, so they are already dead in the water." He said.
In fact, this elimination within the autonomous driving industry was already evident in 2019, when Star Line Technology, or Roadstar.ai, a star startup founded in 2014 and focusing on L4 autonomous driving, was on the verge of collapse. Overseas, Drive.ai, a Silicon Valley autonomous driving startup founded in 2015, also suffered from financial constraints, employee departures, and was eventually acquired by Apple. In addition, Oryx?Vision, an Israeli LiDAR sensor technology company founded in 2009, also announced its shutdown due to a less-than-expected market profitability node.
In the field of car networking, which is closely related to autonomous driving, a source told the Economic Observer that domestic startup Botei has laid off 400 people, while Car Voice Intelligence has stopped paying salaries since the beginning of the year. "Can't finance money, but the popularization of car networking is this year and next year. A lot of things car companies are seeking to do themselves, do not give suppliers a chance." An industry insider pointed out. In the field of automatic driving, car companies are actively seeking independent research and development, in order to avoid being hollowed out by Internet companies and losing the right to independent development; traditional parts and components giants are also accelerating the transformation of the layout to avoid being subverted by new entrants.
Compared with the weak capital strength of the startups, car companies, parts and components, large Internet companies are the players with strong financial strength. Today, the big players are looking to acquire startups with innovative technologies, while the small players are looking for the shade of the "big trees. After the epidemic continues to stimulate and the release of the Strategy, on February 26, China's autonomous driving industry ushered in two investment cases: Germany's Bosch Group invested in Harness Technology; Toyota also invested $400 million in Pony.ai. In this protracted battle of automatic driving, the merger and elimination in the industrial chain is accelerating.
National-level target setting?
Despite the rising tide of the industry, intelligent driving technology has long been included in the national key plans, is the general trend. February 24, the National Development and Reform Commission official website shows that the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance and other 11 ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy", compared with the draft of two years ago, the official version of the "Strategy" the overall framework of the change is not big, the text of the statement to adjust more. More. According to the Economic Observer reporter's combing, which is more important adjustments in at least 20 places.
Bosch demonstrates innovative technologies and cutting-edge solutions?
The Strategy deletes the content of the consultation draft on the development goal of intelligent vehicles in 2020, and formulates a new vision based on the development of the industry: by 2025, the technological innovation, industrial ecology, infrastructure, regulations and standards, product regulation and network security system of China's standard intelligent vehicles will basically be formed, and it is expected that from 2035 to 2050, the system of China's standard intelligent vehicles will be comprehensively built and more complete. Intelligent Vehicle System is fully completed and more perfect. Compared with the exposure draft, the Strategy delays the formation of China's smart car standard system for five years, which is more in line with the current industry status quo and the law of industrial development, according to Zhongtai Securities.
In terms of specific development tasks, the Strategy provides strategic planning for six major aspects of smart car technology innovation, industrial ecology, infrastructure, regulations and standards, product regulation and network security. Compared with the exposure draft, the new emphasis on intelligent transportation and smart city construction, promote smart car application pilot, promote 5G and vehicle networking construction, and proposed to be financial support and industrial investment guidance.
Intelligent car-related concept stocks then increased, and a number of listed companies according to their own business layout of the Strategy to respond: all win electronic said benefit from the policy to promote the company's valuation is expected to enjoy a premium; BaoLong science and technology due to the continuous rise in share prices, issued a notice that the company's intelligent car-related products currently accounted for a relatively small proportion of the revenue, there may be a risk of the development of the business project is not as expected.
At present, a number of domestic car companies and Internet technology companies are in the layout of the automatic driving, although there are many companies claimed to reach the L4 level of automatic driving, but the real mass production of the technology is also in the L3 level, and most of the car companies are still stuck in the L2 level of assisted driving. Cao He believes that after the epidemic, the automatic driving industry will eventually develop according to its own industrial laws. "The budding stage has passed, the growth period will be longer, and it is currently in the early stage of the growth period." It claimed. And according to CV?Source investment in the data, the number and amount of financing in the field of automatic driving showed a sharp rise from 2015 to 2017, but fell back in 2018 and 2019.
"Autonomous driving technology in China has now passed the 'expectation inflation period' and is falling towards the 'bubble bursting trough period'.2020 investment and financing in autonomous driving will be more pragmatic, focusing on the coming years Autonomous driving technologies and applications that can be landed and mass-produced." Before the outbreak earlier this year, Mei Songlin, a senior analyst in the automotive industry, analyzed to the Economic Observer. And Deer Wenliang believes that after the launch of the Strategy, the direction of the development of intelligent vehicles is also set, the back will accelerate the development of capital should pay more attention.
This article comes from the authors of the automobile home car family, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.