In 2021, passenger cars fitted with intelligent driver-assistance systems took 20% of the new-vehicle market. As networking and intelligence technologies accelerate, connected vehicles have entered a critical development period, with industry figures and experts telling a 2022 innovation forum that the sector has become a key strategic direction for the global auto industry’s transformation – and that policy support will keep growing.
Qu Guochun, director of the MIIT Equipment Industry Development Center, said connected vehicles, as a vehicle for convergence between automobiles and electronics, communications and transport, actively improve road safety, traffic efficiency and low-carbon urban mobility. The industry is moving from testing and verification to multi-scenario demonstration applications.
Li Keqiang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Tsinghua professor, said the technology has drawn attention worldwide and formed a competitive landscape, with consensus on development already in place in China. Connected intelligence – the fusion of new-generation mobile internet technology with vehicles and transport – is a new industrial form affecting product R&D, manufacturing and use alike.
Challenges remain, Li noted: at the technical level, single-vehicle intelligence still struggles with inaccurate perception in extreme weather and limited sensing range, and automotive-grade AI chips and other key technologies remain weak points.
Li Yizhong, president of the China Federation of Industrial Economics, described the route shift from single-vehicle intelligence to single-vehicle intelligence plus vehicle-road cooperation: build perception systems for roads and buildings, create a ‘vehicle-city network’, and form an integrated urban transport brain spanning vehicles, roads, networks and cloud.
Low carbon is the other driver
Beyond smarter transport, decarbonisation matters. Li Yizhong cited data: an electric vehicle’s indirect carbon dioxide emissions run about 8.5 kg per 100 km against roughly 13 kg for a combustion vehicle – a clear reduction that connected-vehicle applications can extend further. Sixteen multinational automakers including Daimler, BMW and Toyota have issued decarbonisation plans, with electrification, networking and intelligence as the main levers.
Li Keqiang added that as a carrier of technological innovation, the connected vehicle is reshaping the auto industry, travel patterns, energy consumption structures and social operations, and that cloud-control platforms can help vehicles run in more energy-saving states, improving traffic efficiency and cutting emissions.
Qu expects faster transformation of the auto industry under carbon peaking and neutrality goals, deeper integration of connected vehicles with new infrastructure, and stronger links across the smart-transport industry chain.
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