Ren Shaoqing, NIO’s vice president of autonomous driving development, talks about the company’s 5nm chips at the Technology Day in Shanghai on July 27, 2024.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng
BEIJING — Chinese electric car companies already locked in a fierce price war are intensifying on another front: chip-driven technology features such as driver assistance features.
Nioh and Xpeng Motors Announced that its in-house designed automotive chips are ready for production. Until now, many of China’s major electric vehicle manufacturers have relied on NVIDIA The company’s automotive chip business has generated revenue of more than $300 million per quarter in the past few years.
Tu Le, founder of consulting firm Sino Auto Insights, said: “When your competitors are using the exact same chips to power their infotainment and smart driving systems, it’s hard to say Your product is superior.
Le said he expected Tesla It competes with Chinese electric vehicle startups to design its own chips, while traditional automakers are likely to remain dependent on Nvidia and Qualcomm “for the foreseeable future.”
NVIDIA announced that its latest quarter automotive business revenue increased by 37% year-on-year to US$346 million.
“Automotive was the primary growth driver in the quarter as every automaker developing autonomous vehicle technology uses NVIDIA in their data centers,” management said on the earnings call, according to FactSet records.
“I think the main reason why China (automakers) are focusing on developing their own SoCs is Tesla’s success with fully autonomous driving.” Alvin Liu, senior analyst at Canalys in Shanghai.
Tesla reportedly switched from Nvidia to its Own chip For advanced driver assistance features.
By designing their own chips, Chinese automakers can customize features and reduce supply chain risks from geopolitical tensions, Liu said.
However, Liu does not expect a major impact on Nvidia in the short term, as the Chinese automaker is likely to test new technologies in small batches at the high end of the market.
Take advantage of the latest technology
NIO said at the end of July that it had Design completed The automotive-grade chip NX9031 uses highly advanced 5nm production technology.
“This is the first time that five-nanometer process technology has been used in the Chinese automotive industry,” said Florence Zhang, consulting director of China Insights Consultancy, according to CNBC’s Mandarin translation. “It breaks through the bottleneck of domestic smart driving chip research and development.”
NIO revealed the chip in December and plans to use it in its high-end ET9 sedan due to be delivered in 2025.
Jason Tsang, an analyst at CLSA, said after the release of NIO chips that 5-nanometer technology is the most advanced technology in the automotive field because 3-nanometer technology is mainly used in smartphones, personal computers and artificial intelligence-related applications.
Xpeng Motors did not reveal the nanotechnology used in its Turing chips at Tuesday’s event. The company’s driver-assistance technology is widely regarded as one of the best in China right now.
Although Xpeng Motors announced its chips on Tuesday, Xpeng Motors President Brian Gu emphasized in an interview with CNBC the day before that the company will mainly cooperate with Nvidia to develop chips.
The two companies have close ties, with Xpeng Motors’ former head of autonomous driving Joined NVIDIA last year.
China’s electric vehicle industry giants are also aware of the importance of chips to cars.
If batteries are the foundation for the first stage of electric vehicle development, then semiconductors are the foundation for the second stage of the industry, as it focuses on smart connected cars. BYDFounder Wang Chuanfu said at a press conference held in China in April Driving assistance chip company Horizon Robotics.
Mr. Wang said that more than 1 million BYD cars use Horizon Robotics chips.
BYD announced on Tuesday that its Fangchengbao off-road vehicle brand will Use Huawei’s driving assistance system.
U.S. restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China have not directly affected automakers because cars so far have not required the most advanced semiconductor technology.
But as attention grows for driver-assistance technology that relies more heavily on artificial intelligence — a core part of the U.S.-China technology competition — Chinese automakers are turning to in-house technology.
Looking ahead to the next decade, Xpeng Motors founder He Xiaopeng said on Tuesday that the company plans to become a global artificial intelligence car company.
Asked about the availability of computing power for training driver-assistance technology, Xpeng Motors’ Gu told reporters on Monday that the company had been working with Alibaba Cloud before the U.S. restrictions were imposed. He claimed that the current access may make Xpeng Motors the largest cloud computing power among all Chinese automakers.
Create new technologies and standards
Government incentives, ranging from subsidies to support for building battery charging networks, have helped electric vehicles take off in China, the world’s largest auto market.
Industry data shows that in July, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles (including pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles) exceeded 50% of China’s new passenger car sales for the first time.
That scale means companies involved in the development of electric vehicles in the country are also contributing to new standards in automotive technology, such as eliminating the need for physical keys to unlock car doors. Instead, drivers can use a smartphone app.
Alysia Johnson, president of the California-based Car Connectivity Alliance, said how the app or device securely connects drivers to their cars is part of an upcoming set of standards.
A quarter of the group’s members are based in China, including NIO, BYD, Zeekr and Huawei. Johnson revealed that Apple, Google and Samsung are also members.
She said the organization is seeking to enable NIO drivers using Huawei phones to securely send car “keys” to partners who use Apple phones and drive Zeekr cars.
“Digital key technology is becoming more accessible than people think,” she said.
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