🇨🇳🚗 Status quo - mobility of the future in China 🚗🇨🇳
Last week we were in Beijing and Shanghai. As participants in the Executive Mission led by WKÖ Vice President Wolfgang Hesoun (as part of Minister Martin Kocher's official visit to China), we had the opportunity to gain insights into the Chinese automotive industry - including autonomous driving.
>> Here are some highlights we would like to share with you:
- With a portfolio ranging from cars to buses and trucks, SAIC is China's largest (state-owned) automotive group. In 2023 alone, over 1.2 million vehicles were exported, 248,001 of them to Europe. MG is their most important car brand with 800,000 exported vehicles in 2023. SAIC expects 4,000 MG vehicles to be sold in Austria in 2024. Interesting detail: There were only two pictures on the office wall: a world map and an extra map of South America...
- The (privately owned) Chinese car manufacturer NIO has its flagship store on the ground floor of the Shanghai Tower, China's tallest skyscraper, right next to a Starbucks café. In addition to some insights into their new NIO et9 and their vehicle operating system SkyOS, the innovative strength of NIO (24% of turnover goes into R&D) was demonstrated with their battery swap system (Nio Power Swap). A battery is swapped every 1.9 seconds at almost 2,600 swap points (mainly in China, but also 56 in Europe) - 56 million times to date.
- Of course, we visited Austrian companies in China (Starlim Spritzguss GmbH, STIWA Group) and the Sino-Austrian Sutong Ecological Park in Nantong.
- Exciting: factory visit to BAIC Bluepark Magna Automobile, the production site of ArcfoxGlobal. 330 vehicles/day are produced here, potentially soon also at the Magna plant in Graz?
- The most convenient way to gap 1,000 km from Shanghai to Beijing? High-speed train. At a cruising speed of 346 km/h, the journey takes 3 hours 16 minutes.
- The appointments at ICBC (Asia) (world's largest bank) and of course the personal delegation meeting with the Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao at Ministry of Commerce, China (MOFCOM) were higly interesting and helpful from an economic/legal point of view.
- A test drive with a Huawei AITO showed how safely the Level2+ systems of this series-production vehicle already navigate through city traffic: You have to touch the steering wheel every 3 minutes, but only 5 steering interventions in 80 minutes had been really necessary, despite heavy traffic.
- Robotaxis are also available in almost all major Chinese cities. However, only in selected test regions, some of which are located 3 hours' drive from the city center in the suburbs. Pony.ai in Beijing e.g. is active from 10 am to 5 pm (with safety driver), provided you have a Chinese telephone number.
We look forward to incorporating the knowledge gained into our projects and intensifying existing collaborations. 🚀🌏
#FutureMobility #AutomatedDriving #China #Innovation #Automotive #Level4 #BusinessTrip #ALPLab
