Leading industrial transformation and upgrading with technological innovation

my country's 14th Five-Year Plan and 2035 Vision Goal point out that we should focus on strategic emerging industries such as new energy vehicles, accelerate the innovation and application of key core technologies, enhance the ability to ensure factors, and cultivate and expand new momentum for industrial development. With the vigorous development of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, countries around the world are planning and laying out their plans to seize the commanding heights of industrial development, and the global automotive industry competition landscape is being reshaped. To accelerate the transformation and upgrading of my country's automotive industry and realize the advanced industrial foundation and modernization of the industrial chain, we must give full play to the basic and key role of scientific and technological innovation in promoting the expansion and strengthening of the automotive industry.

Although my country's automobile industry started late, after more than 70 years of hard work, it has built the world's largest, most comprehensive and most complete industrial system. Entering the 21st century, with the continuous development of scientific and technological innovation, automobile safety has gradually improved, comfort has been continuously improved, personalized functions have been continuously increased, and the level of automation and intelligence has been continuously improved. The automobile industry is a labor-intensive, technology-intensive and capital-intensive industry. It gathers new materials, new equipment, new processes and new technologies in multiple disciplines. It has the characteristics of complex manufacturing processes, long product cycles, high technological content, and strong economic driving force. It has become one of the leading industries with the highest correlation with other industries.

With the continuous growth of the economy and the continuous enhancement of scientific and technological innovation capabilities, the technological innovation and development of my country's automobile industry faces unprecedented historical opportunities. With the rise of new energy vehicles, changes in business models, travel modes, platform resources, etc. have catalyzed the electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing trends of the entire automobile industry. The international consensus on carbon peak and carbon neutrality has also put forward higher requirements for the development of the automobile industry. Entering the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the automobile industry needs to assume more important responsibilities and goals in the development pattern with the domestic big cycle as the main body and the domestic and international double cycles promoting each other.

First, we must focus on original technological innovation in the automobile industry and give full play to the key role of automobile companies in basic research and original technological innovation.

New energy vehicles and intelligent connected vehicles have begun to enter an era of full competition, and the automotive industry has also entered a stage of disruptive change, which applies to industry participants and all links in the automotive industry chain. Although my country's automotive industry has achieved some innovative results, it still faces "stuck neck" situations in high-tech fields such as chips, and some key components have once faced the risk of supply interruption. The reason for this is that the domestic automotive industry has insufficient independent control of key core components represented by chips and insufficient voice in the industrial chain. If the Chinese automotive industry wants to have world-leading technologies and create world-class brands and products, independent brands must focus on source technology research and development, strengthen core technology reserves, and deal with the "stuck neck" problem. Faced with an increasingly complex and severe international situation, it is imperative to achieve independent control of my country's key core automotive technologies.

Faced with the wave of technological changes in electrification, intelligence, and lightweight, and the vigorous development of emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, automobile companies need to actively embrace a new round of scientific and technological revolution, actively promote the construction of an automobile industry science and technology innovation system with enterprises as the main body, and give full play to the basic and key role of automobile companies in the research and development of original technologies. As the main body of scientific and technological innovation, enterprises should actively connect with universities and research institutes, government agencies, suppliers, and users, influence each other, and enhance their independent innovation capabilities in competition and cooperation. First, strengthen basic research, and master more scientific discoveries and major technological inventions through original technology research; second, highlight integrated innovation, and form new products with market competitiveness through the convergence of relevant technological achievements; third, carry out extensive international cooperation, actively introduce foreign scientific research and technological achievements, and fully digest and absorb them for re-innovation. At the policy level, the state should reduce the burden of scientific and technological innovation for automobile companies, improve the enterprise R&D reserve system, implement the policy of tax-deductible R&D expenses before tax, and encourage companies to increase R&D efforts and bravely climb the peak of automobile technology.

Second, the automobile industry and scientific and technological innovation must form an integrated development mechanism, and national policies support the establishment of a platform for cooperation between scientific research institutes and enterprises.

Focusing on original technological innovation in the automotive industry requires strengthening the position of enterprises as the main body of innovation while strengthening the cooperative research between scientific research institutes and enterprises. my country's automotive industry still lags far behind the developed countries in the world in the field of science and technology, especially in the fields of basic and cutting-edge science and technology. In this case, it is particularly important for enterprises to jointly tackle the key and difficult technical problems they face in their own operations with universities and scientific research institutes. While ensuring the autonomy and independence of research by universities and scientific research institutes, we encourage interdisciplinary and cross-field cooperation and establish a mechanism for the integrated development of the automotive industry and technological innovation.

Original technology research and development is an important way to break through key core technologies, mainly relying on reverse research and development of the industry and forward research and development projects of universities and research institutes. However, in terms of the choice of technical routes, there is a qualitative difference in the technical research and development of the two. The technical research and development of universities and research institutes is relatively technologically neutral, while enterprises may have technical path dependence. The electrification, intelligence and networking development of the automobile industry requires strong support from scientific and technological innovation. It is not a good idea to rely entirely on industrial research and development, especially since the key core technologies of new energy vehicles are still in the development stage of a hundred flowers contending. If the entire industry only relies on enterprises for technology selection and research and development, and allocates a large amount of resources to enterprises with relatively mature technical routes, then the greater the initial investment, the less conducive it is to the development of technological diversity, leading to a tendency of technological dependence. In contrast, the technical research and development engaged in by universities and research institutes is based on the analysis of basic principles, based on the forefront of science and technology, based on technological diversity, and presents a free development trend, which conforms to the development law of science and technology, and realizes the updating and iteration of technology in continuation and subversion. This can avoid the risk of "seeing the trees but not the forest" in the evolution of industrial technology to a certain extent.

At present, the state has different focuses on R&D funding support for enterprises and research institutes. On the one hand, the central government adopts a funding model of "implementation first, then funding" for enterprise research activities, guiding enterprises to become the main body of technological innovation decision-making, R&D investment and achievement transformation; on the other hand, the central government will continue to vigorously support research institutes to carry out scientific and technological innovation in the field of new energy vehicles, and support central-level research institutes to carry out independent research on topics in the field according to national strategic deployment and industry development needs through basic research business expenses. In addition, the state should encourage universities, research institutes and enterprises to jointly tackle common problems in the industry at the central and local levels, share results, and improve the efficiency of scientific and technological innovation. Different innovation subjects have played an irreplaceable role in the technological innovation system of the automobile industry. We should accelerate the gathering of high-end factor resources and support the construction of industrial innovation platforms. Strengthen the scientific and technological innovation cooperation between automobile enterprises and well-known domestic and international universities and research institutions, well-known multinational company laboratories, well-known scientists and their research teams. With the support of national policies, we will carry out fruitful joint technical research through the advantageous resources gathered by the platform to jointly promote the high-quality development of the automobile industry.