Top ten insights into China’s smart car market in 2023

Beijing, December 22, 2022 - In 2022, China's automobile market has experienced challenges such as core shortages, rising raw material prices, and supply chain factory shutdowns, but the pace of intelligence and electrification has never stopped.

New car usage scenarios will break through the tool attributes of vehicles and develop towards entertainment and office use. The connection between cloud resources and the multimedia audio-visual system in the cabin will greatly enrich the in-car viewing and gaming experience. Coupled with the advancement of display technology of central control screens, HUD and other equipment, as well as the blessing of traditional camping configurations such as in-car refrigerators and power supplies, the cabin New entertainment scenes will be derived. At the same time, existing car navigation can naturally implement the recommendation function for external places such as parking lots and restaurants. The attributes of the vehicle's own mobile platform will begin to transform into a traffic platform, and value-added services will play an increasingly important role.

The centralized control of the smart cockpit domain enables more and more functions in the car to be uniformly deployed through the main control chip, giving various functions a unified entrance. This creates good conditions for technology companies to deploy more comprehensive smart cabin solutions in cars. It allows car users to achieve more extensive control over the cockpit through highly intelligent human-computer interaction modes such as voice and gestures. In this type of scenario, the intelligence level of language-based AI will have a decisive impact on the cockpit experience.

Before autonomous driving reaches the L5 level, the driver needs to maintain a certain concentration on the driving behavior. However, as driving assistance functions increasingly take over the vehicle, the driver's attention will become increasingly distracted, requiring more technical intervention. As a result, driver monitoring systems will be deployed more widely, driven by regulations. In addition to the existing fatigue monitoring, visual AI technology will be implemented through distraction detection, emotion analysis and other functions to improve the safety of driving activities.

With the advancement of cameras and AI technology, the limitations of lane recognition functions will be further broken through. At the same time, the cost of both adaptive cruise and adaptive cruise will decrease, allowing it to be equipped in lower-priced models. The combination of the two functions will continue to increase the penetration rate of L2 autonomous driving in the passenger car market. As an early product of the progressive development of autonomous driving technology, it will achieve wider coverage of the passenger car market.

High-end driving assistance will break through the original limitations of intercity highways and urban loops and extend to urban scenes, thereby forming a comprehensive closed loop for existing traffic scenes. This type of function is currently mainly deployed in models of new brands, taking centralized control of the autonomous driving domain as an important prerequisite. It is a cutting-edge product for the implementation of autonomous driving technology in the passenger car market.

The automatic parking function is currently based on APA (parking position). In the future, with the increasing maturity of algorithms, the number of situations where human drivers are required to intervene during the operation of the parking function will be further reduced. The parking lot will be transformed into a place for drivers to take a short rest in the car, thus showing the nature of a traffic platform ahead of the driving scene. This type of function currently mainly covers new car-making forces and traditional luxury brands. At the same time, a few new force models can already implement higher-level functions such as memory parking and smart summoning.

The rise in oil prices is driving the popularity of electric vehicles, and consumers will gradually develop new car-using habits, such as using fast charging equipment around shopping malls to "charge while going out for parties and dining" and using slow charging equipment around residences to "charge" "Use the car during the day and charge at night" to adapt to the longer charging time of electric vehicles. At the same time, on the other hand, the development of solid-state battery technology and the application of "heated charging" and other technologies are also constantly shortening the time required for fast charging of electric vehicles. The disadvantages of electric vehicles in terms of charging time have an impact on consumers' car purchases. will gradually decrease.

The explosive growth of the new energy vehicle market in the first two years will level off with the reduction of subsidies, but the growth rate will still remain at a stable level. In the past few years, driven by policies, consumers have fully accepted the usage settings of new energy vehicles. At the same time, as subsidies shift from vehicles to piles, the charging environment for new energy vehicles will also be rapidly improved. Consumers’ range anxiety is also being alleviated with the development of battery technology. Sales of new energy vehicles will maintain steady growth on the current basis and penetrate into lower-tier cities. IDC predicts that total sales of new energy vehicles in China's auto market will exceed 8.5 million in 2023, with new car penetration reaching 30%.

The existing charging infrastructure has grown to a relatively high level in absolute terms, and the next step will be to cover the charging needs of old communities and remote areas. The state's subsidies for new energy vehicles are shifting towards charging and swapping infrastructure, and the focus of development lies in reasonable municipal planning and advanced technical means. The application of digital means will enable charging resources to be allocated more efficiently and lay a good foundation for future collaboration between vehicle piles and urban power grids.

The auto market's discourse system, which used to be dominated by power, off-road and other mechanical performance, is quietly changing. Auto companies have begun to embellish their brand narratives with environmental protection, technology and other elements. The voices of female consumers are gradually entering the mainstream view, especially their emotional needs are increasingly receiving the attention of major leading brands. The evolved selling points include rich body colors, sleek appearance, and compact body. Models with these characteristics are gradually opening up the market.