China News Service Shanghai News, May 7 (Zhang Hengwei) The 21st Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (2025 Shanghai Auto Show) was successfully concluded in Shanghai recently. Industry leaders such as Yu Chengdong, Zhou Hongyi, Li Bin, and He Xiaopeng appeared at the exhibition.

The Chinese automobile industry has undergone tremendous changes in recent years. On the one hand, there is the "rapid advancement" of technological innovation, and on the other hand, there is the "big waves of sand" of market competition. Looking back at the Shanghai Auto Show four years ago, industry insiders saw a turning point in the Chinese automobile industry-the new energy trend has become a reality, and technology companies have ushered in opportunities to build cars. In 2023, the Shanghai Auto Show has truly become an international new energy automobile exhibition, and intelligent technology innovation has begun to explode. At that time, Lei Jun, who started his last entrepreneurial venture in his life, visited the scene and visited various booths to prepare for the launch of Xiaomi Auto.

This year, the Shanghai Auto Show has reached a new starting point for 40 years, and the scale of the exhibition has reached a new high. Xiaomi Auto and Hongmeng Intelligent Driving and other brands made their debut, while super luxury brands such as Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce, as well as Korean and French brands such as Hyundai, Kia, and Dongfeng Peugeot were nowhere to be seen. The deep integration of artificial intelligence (AI), as the "top stream" of technology, and automobiles has become a major attraction, while the fancy marketing of intelligent driving has been put on "pause".

"Intelligent driving" propaganda corrects the chaos

Words such as assisted driving, automatic driving, L2-level assisted driving function, NOA (Navigate on Autopilot, automatic assisted navigation driving) have repeatedly appeared in the propaganda of car companies in the era of automobile intelligence, but ordinary audiences may not understand their true meaning, and it is even more difficult to define the range of functions they can bring. So there was a news report of "a man sleeping for more than an hour while driving a 'smart car' on the highway", which was terrifying.

Not long ago, the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology held a meeting to emphasize that car companies should clarify the system function boundaries and safety response measures, and must not exaggerate or make false propaganda. According to the national standard for automobile driving automation, only L3 and above have the word "autonomous driving". The current formal name of L2 is called combined driving assistance. According to the data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2024, the penetration rate of new L2 passenger cars in my country will reach 57.3%. The industry predicts that by 2030, the market penetration rate of L2 and above is expected to reach 90%. L3 will be a watershed for automobile intelligence. Many car companies have been approved to enter China's first batch of L3 autonomous driving access and road traffic pilot lists, but they still face many challenges from testing to actual application.

As the world's first Robotaxi autonomous driving technology company, WeRide cooperated with Bosch to develop L2 assisted driving solutions. The company also made it clear to us the current use of assisted driving, that is, the driver has full control over the vehicle during the use of the corresponding assisted driving function. "During vehicle driving, if the driver enables the corresponding assisted driving function, the assisted driving function will provide the driver with some convenient assistance, such as lever changing lanes, on and off ramps, automatic parking, urban navigation assisted driving, and high-speed navigation assisted driving. The system will complete the driving with the driver as the main system and continue to monitor the driver's status in the loop when the driver continues to be in the loop (holding the steering wheel and looking straight ahead in the direction of driving). "

"Assisted driving" has become a hot word at this year's Shanghai Auto Show, appearing frequently in booth slogans and corporate brochures.

BYD's "Eye of God" was officially renamed "Driving Assistance System"; Ideal Auto L6 Smart Renewal Edition upgraded AD Pro assisted driving; Nullmax exhibited the full-stack self-developed MaxDrive assisted driving solution; Desay SV and Qualcomm Technologies jointly launched a series of combined driving assistance solutions, supporting L1 to L2 and above driving assistance system (Advanced Driving Assistance System, ADAS) functions.

Assisted driving faces a safety test

Related to the compliance promotion of "assisted driving" is that companies pay more attention to the display of automobile safety performance.

Yu Chengdong, Ma Dong and Huang Bo held a "Auto Show Friends" in the Huawei exhibition area to exchange experiences. "Safety is the greatest luxury" has become Yu Chengdong's latest catchphrase. The SU7 exhibition car at the Xiaomi Auto booth has a striking red label on the emergency mechanical handle of the door, indicating "Do not use it unless it is an emergency." Based on Maslow's needs theory, NavInfo has built a five-layer pyramid model from bottom-level safety to user value.

In fact, we don't have to worry too much about the safety performance of assisted driving. Technological development and safety enhancement should complement each other. The combination of multiple technologies is becoming a key path to improve the safety performance of automobiles, building a multi-dimensional and multi-level safety protection network for drivers and passengers.

A single sensor configuration is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of assisted driving in complex scenarios. The industry generally chooses to use the fusion perception composed of ultrasonic radar + millimeter wave radar + visual camera + laser radar, and the end-to-end large model helps perception, decision-making, and planning to be more energy-efficient and coordinated. DMS + steering wheel grip detection or steering wheel torque detection, combined with some visual, auditory, and somatosensory warning systems, is more conducive to preventing drivers from being distracted for a long time when using assisted driving functions.

The development speed of assisted driving technology remains unchanged

The regulation of intelligent driving publicity does not hinder the development of technology, but prompts it to get back on track. BMW Group Director Goller said: "We welcome the discussion direction of the new regulations of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. It does not slow down the development speed of assisted driving technology, but sets a clearer safety bottom line for the industry." The deep integration of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence with automobiles has brought new applications and experiences.

The two BMW exclusive AI intelligent bodies deeply customized by BMW and Alibaba made their global debut at the auto show. At the same time, the new BMW Intelligent Personal Assistant powered by a customized AI engine also appeared at the booth, integrating the usage habits and preferences of more than 6 million Chinese users.

WeRide's self-developed AI end-to-end big model takes into account complex factors in the real world when performing driving tasks and can also predict possible scenarios. WeRide said that the AI ​​end-to-end big model is conducive to the high efficiency of vehicles in complex perception, prediction and planning tasks. Its continuous learning and optimization characteristics also make the technology progress form a flywheel effect, so as to achieve results with limited resource input.

There is no doubt that intelligent driving is accelerating towards us, from the development of single-vehicle intelligence to the "nerve" of the city. In Suzhou, intelligent networked vehicles are tested on the first "smart highway" in China that can achieve L4 level autonomous driving; in Beijing, WeRide's new generation of mass-produced Robotaxi "GXR" has been approved to carry out "no one in the car" autonomous driving travel charging services, covering highway sections such as Beijing Daxing International Airport and urban scenes such as the Economic Development Zone and Beijing South Railway Station.

In WeRide's view, the development of driving assistance systems in the future will develop in three directions: hardware demand drops, user experience increases, and the availability of intelligent driving is greatly improved. The cost of hardware such as sensors and computing power has decreased; the assisted driving function has gone from "usable" to "easy to use" and "usable as long as there is a road", and it can also be used in more complex scenarios such as bad weather.

After 40 years of development, the Shanghai Auto Show has become an important window for observing the development path of China's automobile industry. Its historical trajectory is highly consistent with the rise of China's automobile industry, and it is also a weather vane for the transformation of the automobile industry. When the penetration rate of electrification will reach 60%, and intelligent driving will return to its safety essence, China's automobile intelligent manufacturing is rewriting the global industrial landscape. (End)

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Editor: Wang Danqin