Alliances and alliances: Ecarx increases the depth of China's intelligent vehicle industry

There is heaven above and Suzhou and Hangzhou below. Hangzhou, a city full of e-commerce atmosphere, lacks some "big brand" temperament compared to its neighbor Shanghai, but it has a vibrant "Wu Yue" business culture.

On March 20, 2024, during the Spring Equinox, the global mobility technology company Ecarx (NASDAQ: ECX) held a technology conference at the e-sports venue in Hangzhou with the theme of "Crossing Thousands of Peaks, Endless Life". Compared with other supply chain companies, this event has less "supplier" temperament and more elements of technology companies! The song "A Thousand Years of Waiting" before the opening lit up the characteristics of Hangzhou, amused the audience at the venue, and also made industry insiders say privately: T1 actually has a good user operation mindset, which is really rare!

The son of a landlord, directing a great show of technical muscle

Almost two years ago, Vehicle wrote an article titled "The Landlord's Son - Ecarx" based on Ecarx's IPO prospectus. It received a very good number of views and received comments from readers, which shows that this company is not generally popular. Two years later, Vehicle was invited to participate in Ecarx's 2024 Tech Day, which gave us a new feeling: the landlord's son has grown up, and he no longer has the style of an ordinary rich boy, but a completely international elite!

The visual design of a press conference often reflects the strength and vision of the company behind it. The red and black color scheme has a unique sense of technology and power. In this environment of volume upon volume, it is a great technical muscle show that completely caught everyone's attention.

Imagine if this was an eSports game?

The core point behind the cool technology

1. Digest Meizu's internal strength and connect the car and mobile phone ecosystems

Two years ago, Geely acquired Meizu Mobile Phone. At that time, the market felt heartbroken. Everyone thought that the somewhat "small and beautiful" mobile phone brand might disappear. But from the press conference this time, Ecarx has digested the "internal strength" of Meizu Mobile Phone very well and gained "rebirth" on the car machine side (FlymeAuto). From the hot sales of Lynk & Co 08 after its launch (as shown below), we can also see the huge potential in this direction. In addition, Ecarx is also the first Tier 1 company in China with experience in the global market Google Automotive Services (GAS). This is crucial for the future overseas strategy of Ecarx and the domestic car companies that Ecarx can serve in the current context of "not going overseas, or being out".

2. Cabin, travel and berthing are integrated, and it is time to develop intelligent driving

Starting from 2023, the battle of intelligent driving in China has not only been surging secretly. OEMs with new car-making forces as the vanguard have announced various degrees of NOA opening battles in a high-profile manner, pushing the technological competition directly to the forefront of users' minds. This is not an exaggeration. According to relevant survey information, more and more consumers have elevated the " intelligence " factor to an important demand point for car purchases. In this regard, "traditional car companies" will be half a beat slower than new forces, but after all, the underlying core of the car is "safety". Therefore, from the perspective of Ecarx, their Tianqiong® Pro intelligent driving computing platform, long-range semi-solid main laser radar with a detection distance of 200 meters, and the moment of light (and short-range all-solid laser radar for sensing the 3D environment around the car body) are all based on high safety. Under the premise of safety, let's talk about the progress of the implementation of the integrated driving and parking capabilities (including NOA, as well as smart parking functions such as APA, RPA, and HPA). Without deep safety skills, how can we talk about the universal benefits of intelligent driving?

At the press conference, Ecarx showcased its smart cockpit and smart driving product system named after "Mountain Range" (Atlas and K2 are both world-famous mountain peaks) and "Sky Dome", and made every effort to expand the "Car Brain" cabin and parking integrated solution. It is reported that its technology products have been installed on more than 6 million vehicles of several brands around the world. In the current environment where PPT big numbers are flying all over the sky, being able to use landing cases to talk about it will enhance the confidence of the upstream and downstream of the industry chain and consolidate the brand's resounding voice.

As an important part of Ecarx Technology's strategic investment and technology ecosystem, the Dragon Eagle Cockpit Driving Series SoC developed by CoreEngine Technology is the core of the ecological cooperation between the two parties. The two parties have long worked together to promote the construction of tool chains and ecosystems, continuously tap product potential, and upgrade the ECARX Antora series of intelligent cockpit platforms to a cabin, travel and parking integrated computing platform. Antora 1000 has high integration to achieve cabin, travel and parking functions, significantly reducing the cost of intelligent driving solutions; Antora 1000 Pro computing platform can also undertake mainstream cabin, travel and parking integrated functions and AI scenarios, greatly reducing the investment in vehicle development. The deployment behind this also fully reflects Ecarx's style of being well versed in the laws of technological development, anchoring strategic directions and moving steadily and swiftly.

3. Make chips and take your destiny into your own hands

At the press conference that day, in addition to Shen Ziyu, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Ecarx Technology, who introduced various aspects on the stage, another man also took the stage, that is, Dr. Wang Kai, CEO of CoreEngine Technology. The two jointly released the automotive-grade 7nm full-scenario high-end intelligent driving chip, Longying Intelligent Driving AD1000. Under the current general anxiety about computing power in the technology industry and the risk of supply interruption at the bottom, continuing to invest major resources in chip manufacturing is a strategic move to take the destiny into their own hands.

4. In the AI ​​era, you have to ride the rocket and sit in the front row

There was a saying in the investment circle: When you board a rocket, don't worry too much about which row you sit on it. At the end of this Tech Day, Ecarx also cleverly responded to the market's "expectations" for the current big model on the car, and "quickly" reached a strategic cooperation with Microsoft to build an end-to-cloud solution based on Azure Open AI big model and Azure intelligent cloud. This will also help Ecarx continue to innovate and improve its capabilities in the fields of smart cockpit, smart networking and autonomous driving . To some extent, this rapid response to industry development has allowed Ecarx to board the rocket of the AI ​​era, and they are also striving to sit in the front row.

5. Form alliances and join hands with FAW to increase the depth of China's automotive industry intelligence

We often say that in the new energy industry, the intelligent connected car industry, which is a rare opportunity for change in a century, the excitement in the market in the past few years can't help but remind people of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period in ancient China. At the first Tech Day of Ecarx, information about joining Huawei OpenHarmony was also mentioned at that time, but this time, regarding the ecological construction, looking back at the content of the press conference, Ecarx no longer mentioned Huawei Hongmeng. From the overall perspective, it always puts itself in the position of "core hub". For Ecarx, which is backed by the big tree of Geely, other OEMs in the industry will naturally have a cautious mentality. At this press conference, Shen Ziyu also officially announced that he had reached a strategic upgrade with China FAW. The two sides jointly built a leading intelligent computing platform and Hongqi OS ecosystem to help central enterprises accelerate the transformation of new energy and global development. Being able to establish a non-Geely cooperation benchmark is crucial for Ecarx to move to a bigger stage.

Forming alliances is one of the most needed abilities for entrepreneurs during the period of industry transformation. As a technology company that is not directly to C, Ecarx has been very strong in its global layout capabilities over the past seven years. There are currently R&D and operation centers in 11 cities around the world. The rise of Chinese cars, if we look back at the history of Korean and Japanese cars going overseas, a very important point is whether the OEMs can drive the supply chain to go overseas together. In the context of new energy already having global competitiveness, intelligence needs to think more about the functional and experience needs of products in different contexts and cultures around the world. Before achieving this goal, the domestic automobile industry must abandon the "crab cage thinking" (those who understand this metaphor will understand it) and work together to create value. At present, the strategic planning and business implementation compiled by Ecarx is an excellent practice to increase the thickness of China's automobile industry intelligence.

The founder's genes, the future of Ecarx

Finally, the author thought of a passage from the TV series "Drawing Sword" that he had watched before:

"Every army has its own traditions. What are traditions? Traditions are a kind of character and temperament. This tradition and character are determined by the character and temperament of the first military chief when the army was established. He injected soul into the army. From then on, no matter how time passes or how personnel change, the soul of the army will always exist."