After electrification, how does the automotive industry face the new challenges of digitalization?

“In the future, cars will be driven not by oil, not by batteries, but by big data.”

Source: World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference

"In the future, it will not be oil or batteries that will drive cars, but big data," said Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360 Group, at the 2021 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference on September 25.

Nowadays, with the increasing number of smart connected cars, the amount of car "data" is becoming increasingly huge. How to make good use of car data has become a new topic.

Guo Renzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, believes that in terms of solving urban congestion, as cars continue to develop towards networking and intelligence, the carrying capacity of urban transportation networks can be calculated. Under the premise of unchanged demand, transportation can be optimized. The specific way to optimize is dynamic variable speed limits during peak hours and scheduled travel.

"Under existing conditions, we can implement variable speed limits based on dynamic traffic perception, coordinate the relationship between roads, and improve overall travel efficiency," said Academician Guo Renzhong. "In addition, we can implement travel reservations based on centralized computing and with sufficient computing power, and optimize the path globally under known conditions."

Wang Jian, founder of Alibaba Cloud, also expressed a similar view, saying that a truly intelligent connected car should use road resources efficiently. He showed relevant data from several cities, including three cities where the total number of vehicles on the road during peak hours only accounted for 10% of the total number of vehicles in the city, "which shows that the city's use efficiency is very low."

He believes that the cause of congestion is not the increase in the number of cars, but the inability of vehicles to find the most efficient travel plan. In order to improve the efficiency of urban resource utilization, the digitalization of cars should be effectively combined with the digitalization of cities.

As the amount of data in cars increases, car data security has also received more attention. "The automotive industry is one of the industries that attaches the most importance to security, and the cybersecurity and physical security of cars are inseparable," Zhou Hongyi said.

He pointed out that the current cybersecurity of automobiles faces four major challenges. First, the number of codes continues to increase, and the cybersecurity defects of vehicle systems are surging; second, the Internet of Everything increases the attack surface, and hidden dangers in the cloud threaten vehicle safety; third, the degree of networking of automobile companies continues to increase, and the security risks of the supply chain are huge; fourth, big data drives intelligence, and data security risks are rising.

The investment in Nezha Auto in May this year was an attempt by 360 Group to improve the security of the Internet of Vehicles. "Only by going deep into the front line of car companies can we truly understand the security issues of smart connected cars," Zhou Hongyi said. Nezha Auto is used as a test field, and after the exploration is mature, it plans to open 360's Internet of Vehicles security capabilities to other car companies.

Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, also shared Mercedes-Benz's digital progress at the event, focusing on the MB.OS operating system independently developed by Mercedes-Benz. This system specifically includes vehicle control systems, intelligent driving assistance systems and infotainment systems. The system can not only be used in a single vehicle, but also connect the vehicle with the cloud and the Internet of Things.

In the future, Mercedes-Benz will combine human thinking with the vehicle's human-machine interaction system, so that drivers can choose navigation destinations through their own thinking. Currently, this technology has been first used in the Mercedes-Benz Vision Avtr concept car. Finally, Ola Kallenius announced that the new Daimler China Technology R&D Center will officially start operations this fall, with an investment of 1.1 billion yuan.

Ford also demonstrated its determination to gain a foothold in the Chinese market. Jim Farley, president and CEO of Ford Motor Company, said that Ford will establish a research and development team composed entirely of Chinese people, and will develop pure electric models for Chinese consumers and the Chinese market in the future in response to China's localization needs.