Autonomous driving and artificial intelligence Beijing Auto Show 2024: The battle for the first-time buyer

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Although it's called the Beijing Auto Show – the car is by no means the only focus at the Beijing car show. The Beijing Auto Show this year became the most important global leading trade show for autonomous driving.

Henrik Bork, long-standing China correspondent for the German Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, is Managing Director at Asia Waypoint, a consulting agency specializing in China based in Beijing.

"The next ten years will be the decade of intelligence," emphasized He Xiaopeng, founder and CEO of the Chinese electric car startup XPeng at the trade fair, where he was followed like a rock star and courted by foreign CEOs like those of Volkswagen.

AI for ADAS and AD

The most important technological trend in the automotive industry at present is that the wave of electrification and the subsequent wave of the "smart cockpit" and autonomous driving is now being replaced by the next wave – namely the artificial intelligence (AI) that is moving into all areas of the digitally upgraded vehicle.

Xpeng didn't quite make it to the show in time, but still used it as a platform to announce its next software updates pointing in this direction. The latest AI-enhanced version of its driver assistance system (ADAS) is set to officially launch in May and then be wirelessly transferred to existing cars of the brand via over-the-air upgrades.

The most important feature of Xpeng's new ADAS is that it is an end-to-end or e2e large model. With the help of Deep Neural Networks (DNN), the complex decision-making processes of existing autonomous driving solutions - from the sensor, to route planning, to control - are simplified by large datasets.

From navigation to smart cockpit

These end-to-end solutions for ADAS and autonomous driving are currently the most important gateway for AI into the automotive industry, and therefore they are generating the greatest interest among visitors at the Beijing Auto Show. In addition to navigation, AI is also rapidly conquering the cockpit. Again, Xpeng, the new technology partner of Volkswagen in China, is involved. At the auto show, the Chinese manufacturer presented its AI Tianji system for the first time, a new operating system that brings artificial intelligence to the smart cockpit. It is expected to be available for all Pro and Max versions of the Xpeng models X9, G6, G9 and P7i from the end of May.

According to the manufacturer, the new Qiankun ADS 3.0 software from the Chinese corporation Huawei is already working with e2e technology. The AI promises improvements in the four dimensions of software architecture, safety, navigation scenarios, and parking, it was said. Huawei has already found a number of Chinese automakers such as Changan, Dongfeng, BAIC, and GAC as customers for its new software, and apparently has already found its first foreign buyer, as Volkswagen wants to equip its new Audi QL6 e-tron, manufactured in China, with Huawei's new AI-ADAS, Reuters news agency reported on the sidelines of the auto show after interviews with insiders.

At Nio, too, it was to be learned during the Beijing Auto Show that work is being done at full speed on end-to-end AI. The new algorithms promise decisive improvements in predicting events in autonomous or assisted driving, the company's engineers say. Ren Shaoqing, Vice President for R&D of Intelligent Driving at Nio, particularly believes in his new "World Model," an extension of the end-to-end concept. In his opinion, "auto companies will definitely rise to become the leading AI companies on Earth." Hopefully his investors were listening.

BYD relies on in-house developments and continues to be the company that puts the most pressure on the entire competition. As seen at the auto show, BYD bundles premium features including advanced ADAS systems into increasingly cheaper electric cars, currently starting at under 20,000 euros (approx. 21,500 USD) per unit.

Era of the software-defined vehicle

Behind all these developments stands a trend specific to China: The relatively young car buyers in the People's Republic are fascinated by technical sophistication. Unlike in Germany, the car market here is still dominated by first-time buyers, not car owners replacing an old car with a new one. It is precisely this group of customers, who will determine the growth of the auto conglomerates in the coming years, that is now being fiercely competed for with autonomous driving functions, ever smarter cockpits, and even AI in the factory hall to accelerate production.

If there is a moment when you can announce the arrival of the era of the software-defined car, it was the Beijing Auto Show. (se)