In mid-November, China's four departments jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Access", which made it clear that autonomous vehicles with L3 driving automation (conditional automatic driving) and L4 driving automation (highly autopilot) functions can be accessed by the four ministries and commissions, and carry out road access pilots in limited areas.
Since the issuance of the "Notice", Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Changan Automobile, Jihu Automobile, Deep Blue Automobile, AVATR and other domestic and foreign auto brands have also recently announced that they have successfully obtained L3 test licenses, and since then, the industrialization process of intelligent networked vehicles has been further accelerated.
On December 14, the BMW Group announced that its vehicles equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving functions have recently obtained a high-speed autonomous driving test license in Shanghai. Four days later, Mercedes-Benz also announced that it had become one of the first companies to be approved for the road test license of Beijing's conditional autonomous driving highway, and officially launched the conditional autonomous driving system test on designated highways in Beijing.
On the same day, Zhiji Auto announced that its vehicles equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving functions have officially obtained a high-speed autonomous driving test license in Shanghai. At the same time, Zhiji Auto revealed that it is applying for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's L3 autonomous driving announcement access pilot, and is expected to become the first batch of models to enter the L3 autonomous driving access pilot.
According to the official news of JiHu, JiHu has also recently become one of the first car companies to be approved for the road test license of L3 highway in Beijing, and will officially carry out the actual road test of the conditional autonomous driving system on designated roads in Beijing.
As the earliest and most single-batch enterprise in China to obtain relevant licenses, up to now, Chang'an's Shenlan has successfully obtained 17 road test licenses. According to reports, these 17 L3 autonomous driving vehicles are currently being tested, and Changan will bring L3 autonomous driving functions to the market at an appropriate time under the premise of policy and regulatory support.
With Deep Blue Automobile obtaining the L3 test license, AVATAR, which is also a Changan department, also announced that it has become one of the first companies to be approved for the conditional autonomous driving test license for high-speed roads, and has recently successfully passed the L3 autonomous driving test in the high-speed section of Chongqing, and obtained the test report certified by the China Automotive Research Institute.
It is not difficult to foresee that under the joint promotion of policies and industries, the development of high-level autonomous driving is expected to usher in a real "qualitative change" from the moment when the autonomous driving road test license is released.
According to the "Classification of Automotive Driving Automation" issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation in 2021 and the autonomous driving classification standard issued by SAE, autonomous driving is mainly divided into 6 levels (level 0 to level 5, L0 to L5). L3 level automatic driving is the watershed of "assisted driving" and "automatic driving", which means that the driver can "take off his hands", "take off his feet" and "take off his eyes" under specific conditions, and the vehicle can also fully automatically accelerate, steer and brake under specific conditions.
Up to now, three cities in China, Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing, have opened L3 autonomous driving road tests, and a total of 6 brands have obtained test licenses.
In this regard, Zhang Xiang, director of the International Cooperation and Research Center for Vodaf Digital Vehicles, told reporters that the industry standards for high-level autonomous driving in China were uneven, but the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Access" issued by the four ministries and commissions clarified the application conditions, application process, pilot implementation process, pilot suspension and withdrawal of the pilot, and pointed out the directional opinions such as the work objectives and safeguard measures of the pilot.
This policy brings autonomous vehicles closer to the road, and is expected to further unify and refine the relevant rules and standards of the industry in the process of applying for L3 road test licenses for car companies. Zhang Xiang said.
Lu Jiamin, chief analyst of the automotive industry at Cinda, said: "The gradual implementation of L3 autonomous driving tests is expected to promote further iteration of high-end intelligent driving, and new forces, independent brands, and traditional luxury brands have greatly increased their attention to high-end intelligent driving, and intelligent driving is also expected to become an important consideration for car owners when buying a car." ”
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2022, the sales of new intelligent networked passenger cars equipped with assisted autonomous driving systems in China will reach 7 million, a year-on-year increase of 456%, and the market share increased to 349%。In the first half of this year, new passenger car sales with combined driver assistance functions accounted for 424%, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points over the same period last year, and it is expected that the penetration rate of L2 and above intelligent driving of passenger cars will reach 70% in 2025. According to a research report on November 26, as of August 2023, more than 20,000 kilometers of test roads have been opened across the country.
At the same time, the proportion of intelligent driving in the importance of car purchase decisions is also increasing significantly. According to the data, intelligent driving functions account for 10% of consumers' car purchase decisions. At the same time, in the sales trend of new energy vehicles, the penetration rate of models with core intelligent driving functions has increased rapidly, especially in the range of 150,000-250,000 yuan and 250,000-300,000 yuan**, which has almost doubled in two years.
At a time when the competition of new energy vehicles is becoming more and more fierce, the competition of domestic leading manufacturers in intelligent driving solutions is accelerating and upgrading.
As one of China's largest new energy vehicles and supporting enterprises, BYD's intelligent driving system for all models still focuses on ADAS assisted driving systems, including adaptive cruise, cruise control, automatic parking, etc.
BMW also said that for a long time, the BMW China R&D team has been actively carrying out localized research and development of L3 autonomous driving. According to the regulatory requirements, we are fully prepared for the adaptation and application of L3 autonomous driving functions in China in the future, so as to meet the complex traffic conditions in China and the driving characteristics of Chinese customers.
At the end of March this year, Xpeng fully pushed XNGP (all-scene assisted driving) 42.Version 0, all G9 Max and P7i Max users can get this software version.
In December, the new M7 jointly built by Sailis and Huawei announced that it would be equipped with Huawei ADS 20 high-end intelligent driving system, and the vehicle's high-speed NCA intelligent driving pilot assistance function, can be used nationwide without relying on high-precision maps.
At the just-concluded 2023NIO Day, NIO's flagship model ET9 was also announced to be equipped with NIO's first 5nm automotive-grade intelligent driving chip, the Shenji NX9031, which is combined with the vehicle's global operating system SkyOS Tianshu, providing a new guarantee for the rapid implementation of NIO's assisted driving.
2024 will become an important moment for intelligent driving to move from cognition to purchase conversion on the consumer side. The era of autonomous driving has come, and the leading car companies that can identify differentiated selling points and lead intelligent driving technology will form differentiation in the next few years. Cui Yan, an analyst at Minsheng, said to **.
In September this year, Wu Feng, director of the Automotive Management Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, revealed at the 2023 Global Intelligent Vehicle Industry Conference (GIV2023) that he would deepen the test demonstration and pilot application, and work with the public security, transportation, housing and construction departments to accelerate the launch of intelligent networked vehicle access and road access pilots, and support the commercial application of L3 and higher autonomous driving functions.
Three months later, the Ministry of Transport issued the Guidelines for Transportation Safety Services for Autonomous Vehicles (Trial) (hereinafter referred to as the "Guidelines"), which clarified that intelligent networked vehicles can be used for transportation business activities from the national policy level, and pressed the "acceleration button" for the commercial application of autonomous driving technology in China.
Intelligent networked vehicles have shifted from small-scale testing and verification to a new stage of rapid technological development and accelerated ecological construction. However, there are still issues that need to be accelerated and improved, technology development paths and commercialization models need to be explored, and industrial management coordination needs to be further strengthened, which need to be jointly studied and solved by all parties. Wu Feng, director of the Automobile Management Division of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said.
Lv Wei, an analyst at Minsheng, believes that in the past few years, L1 and L2 autonomous driving have become rapidly popular. However, compared with L3 autonomous driving, L1 and L2 autonomous driving technologies still have significant gaps in driver intervention and safety. This gap will be an important watershed in the development of the autonomous driving industry. As consumers become more aware of and accept Level 3 autonomous driving, manufacturers will increase investment, increase the size and strength of R&D teams, and continuously improve algorithms, sensors, and systems to improve the safety and performance of autonomous driving and respond to regulatory requirements and market competition.
L3 autonomous driving will become the focus of the competition for new energy vehicle companies next year, and at the moment when the homogenization of new energy vehicles is more serious, how to stand out in the 'involution' market, and the autonomous driving function will become its core force. With the gradual maturity of the upstream and downstream industrial chain of autonomous driving, the gradual implementation of L3 autonomous driving testing is expected to accelerate the further iteration of high-end intelligent driving, and promote the development of the entire Internet of Vehicles and road network infrastructure industry, laying a new foundation for the early realization of vehicle-road collaboration. Zhang Xiang said.