In 2016, two major events related to bus companies occurred in Zhuhai. One is Dong Mingzhu's acquisition of Yinlong, which caused a sensation in the national manufacturing industry, and the other is ZTE, a bus company with little experience, settling in Zhuhai.
On May 29, 2018, China Bus Network interviewed Yao Quan, Senior Vice President of ZTE Smart Auto, and comprehensively interpreted the confidence and winning strategies of ZTE Smart Auto, a newcomer in the bus industry.
ZTE’s new energy black technology
Speaking of it, Zhuhai Yinlong and ZTE Smart Auto are not only neighbors, but also brothers:
Shaoguan Bus Factory in 2002 After moving to Zhuhai, it was renamed Zhuhai Guangtong and established two brands: Guangtong Automobile and Guangtong Bus. In 2012, the "Guangtong Automobile" brand was acquired by Yinlong; in 2016, the "Guangtong Bus" brand was owned by ZTE, a giant in the communications field.
According to Zhuhai’s “13th Five-Year Plan”, new energy vehicle equipment will be one of Zhuhai’s six key development areas. In July 2016, ZTE realized "cross-border" new energy vehicles and set its sights on Zhuhai Jinwan.
According to Yao Quan, as a wholly-owned subsidiary of ZTE, ZTE’s biggest advantage for smart cars in winning industry development opportunities is ZTE’s 5G technology, as well as its expertise in wireless charging, the Internet of Things, big data, Deep technical accumulation in cloud computing and other aspects. These technologies are the core of autonomous and intelligent driving.
Experts generally believe that the frontier and main frontier of autonomous driving in China will first be concentrated in the bus field. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that ZTE’s entry into the passenger car industry is an important step in its preemptive layout.
As an important strategic layout and business development, ZTE intends to build the Zhuhai smart car project into the group’s second largest business, and hopes to gradually reach the world-class level.
In ZTE’s view, “new energy intelligence” is what future cars will look like. Adding ZTE's strong scientific and technological strength to the existing foundation of Guangtong Bus and focusing on increasing investment in the research and development of environmentally friendly smart vehicle technology will be the decisive path to victory in the future.
Two-year report card of ZTE Intelligent Vehicles
Although ZTE has not been in the passenger car industry for a long time, relying on the original foundation of Guangtong Bus and ZTE’s brand benefits, it produced 1,000 units in 2017 Many buses have achieved domestic sales.
In 2017-2018, the company's production continued to grow, and the domestic market was mainly concentrated in the Pearl River Delta regions such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Macau, and Hong Kong. There are currently about 800 vehicles operating in China. According to Yao Quan, ZTE’s domestic sales target for smart cars in 2018 is more than 1,000 units. Currently, the company has signed an agreement with Zhuhai Bus to provide 653 electric buses to Zhuhai Bus within the year.
In addition, ZTE Smart Cars has gone abroad and successively launched strategic business cooperation with Alexander Dennis of the UK and JitLeun of Hong Kong. At the same time, it is also exported to Kazakhstan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Australia, Singapore, Thailand, and Georgia.
According to Yao Quan, ZTE smart cars mainly focus on high-end routes in the international market. In 2017, the export volume was close to 1,000 units and will grow on this basis in 2018.
To this end, ZTE’s new smart car base project is currently under construction and is expected to be completed and put into production in 2018. After the base is completed, the annual passenger car production capacity is expected to reach 10,000 units, and when fully put into production, it can generate an output value of tens of billions.
Although the development of new energy buses in China is in full swing, objectively speaking, the overseas market of electric buses is still in the introduction period. As a newcomer in the industry, ZTE Smart Auto believes that there is still a big gap between itself and industry leading companies such as Yutong and BYD. Therefore, Yao Quan has set himself a goal of selling only 100 overseas electric buses in 2018. As for fuel buses, he said that the annual export volume is expected to exceed 1,000 units.
According to Yao Quan, ZTE Intelligent Automobile plans to complete the R&D and production of hydrogen fuel buses within the next year, realize independent energy technology for clean vehicles with fuel cells as the driving system, and fully master fuel cell hybrid power. System VCU vehicle controller technology and fuel cell system optimal control technology FCU. In the future, these are the magic weapons for Chinese buses to win domestic and foreign markets.
In other words, ZTE Smart Cars will soon join the ranks of China’s hydrogen fuel buses and will win with independent technology.
Five-year goals for intelligent driving
Of course, based on ZTE’s strong technological advantages, ZTE Smart Vehicles believes that it has innate advantages in the field of self-driving buses.
Yao Quan, who comes from the communications industry, believes that to truly realize autonomous driving, it must be based on the mature application of 5G technology. This timeline should be 5-10 years.
“I think that when 5G technology matures and is applied on a large scale, driverless and autonomous driving can truly be realized.” Yao said that although ZTE Smart Cars is also doing some integrated applications in ADAS, but only Only with 5G technology can information transmission between cars, cars and roads, and cars and traffic lights be realized within a few milliseconds. However, current 4G technology requires hundreds of milliseconds, and this response speed cannot meet the needs of autonomous driving.
In his opinion, it will take about five years for 5G technology to mature and be applied on a large scale. By then, the transportation infrastructure will be gradually completed, and traffic lights and road networks can be uploaded to the cloud through the 5G technology of the Internet of Things. In this case, autonomous driving can be carried out safely.
To this end, ZTE Intelligent Vehicle has launched the ultimate goal of ZTE Bus: based on the convenience of travel, smooth traffic, and clean emissions, its phased development plan is as follows:
Plan for the next two years: Realize bus ADAS functions, namely lane departure, pedestrian detection and warning, and hazardous working conditions auxiliary braking, and develop an on-board intelligent computing platform and operating system that can meet basic scenario applications.
Plan for the next 3-4 years: Based on ZTE’s mature accumulation of Internet of Vehicles technology, intelligent computing platform, and operating system technology, realize the automatic driving function of buses, that is, under low-speed conditions (
< p>One million car purchase subsidy