On the Factors Restricting the Development of Automotive Electronic Products in China

With the rapid development of China’s automotive industry, the demand for automotive electronic products in the domestic market has also increased rapidly. In this case, there are many factors that restrict the development of automotive electronic products. This paper introduces the prospects, composition and influencing factors of automotive electronic products; The factors restricting the development of China’s automotive electronic products are specifically analyzed in terms of technology research and development, device supply system, production management and understanding of the investment in electronic products.
I. Market prospect of automobile electronic products
With the continuous improvement of the degree of automotive electronics, the market of automotive electronic products has also become increasingly large and maintained rapid growth. The market demand for electronic components of passenger cars in the United States was 2.6 billion dollars in 1988, about doubled in 1993 to 5.4 billion dollars, and reached 14 billion dollars in 2000. The average annual growth rate is 15-16%. Globally, the market size in 2002 was about $26.9 billion. By 2007, the market size is expected to reach $35.4 billion. The markets in Asia, Central and Eastern Europe will grow the fastest. In North America and Europe, the price of electronic components has reached 10-15% of the total vehicle price. It is estimated that the price of automobile electronic equipment will account for 25-30% of the price of the whole vehicle by 2010
So far, the largest demand in the global automotive electronic component market is for power transmission electronic systems. From 2002 to 2007, power transmission electronic systems will grow steadily. Body and chassis control electronic systems will maintain an 11.7% growth rate, and their market size is expected to increase from 2.7 billion
The US dollar increased to US $4.7 billion. Safety and comfort electronic systems will grow rapidly.
II. The Composition of Automotive Electronics and the Development Status of Automotive Electronics in China Automotive Electronics
It mainly consists of five parts: (see Figure 1)
Power control system: including engine management control system, power steering, AT control, and ACC.
Safety control system: including airbag, ABS/ASR, and SAFE-BY-WIRE.
Body control system: including switch control, lighting control, anti-theft system, door lock control, window control, wiper and other body electronic controls.
Ride control system: including instrument, air conditioning, and chassis control systems.
Information system: including entertainment, mobile communication, GPS navigation, and information processing systems.
The current situation of domestic automotive electronics enterprises is that they have started late, are small in scale, have low standards, and are difficult to compete. Due to the late start of domestic automotive electronics enterprises, low product technology maturity, and unstable quality, they have not been adopted by vehicle enterprises. Even if its products meet technical requirements, they need to undergo rigorous testing and demonstration by foreign manufacturers. The long wait has let domestic automotive electronics companies miss a good opportunity. The high threshold of matching entry conditions makes it difficult for them to obtain opportunities to match with vehicle enterprises, and it is also difficult to improve their technical level through the accumulation of product experience in automotive applications. They can only sell products through the after-sales market, and cannot become OEM suppliers to further expand the product scale. On the other hand, the development system is incomplete and lacks core technology, which cannot meet the requirements of synchronous development and product competitiveness of vehicle enterprises.
Figure 1: Schematic diagram of the composition of automotive electronic subsystems
The factors that restrict the development of China’s automotive electronic products
1. There is a lack of products with independent intellectual property rights. At the same time, foreign auto parts companies have applied for a large number of patents in China; Enclosure”, The purpose is to control China’s automotive electronics market.
Independent intellectual property rights are the main factor restricting the development of China’s automotive industry. For automotive electronics, as a component, there are many constraints in developing products with independent intellectual property rights. Because most manufacturers do not have the conditions for synchronous development with automotive companies, they can only be in the imitation stage, let alone real development. Foreign parts companies have already seen this. Every year, major automotive companies such as Germany, the United States, and Japan apply for a large number of patents in China and implement them on a large scale in the field of automotive electronics; In this way, even if some domestic enterprises want to develop or have already developed their own products, they have to face the problem of circumventing patents that have been applied for abroad. A manufacturer once developed a rain sensor for detecting rain in cars. By then, their products had already come out. When they wanted to apply for a patent, they found that a German company had applied for a patent for this product in China and applied for protection of its working principle. This principle of optical physics had already applied for patent protection, which was difficult for the company to avoid and the product could not enter the market.
There is a lack of suppliers who are satisfied with the quality control system of the automotive industry, and major components are subject to foreign restrictions. https://store.stoneitech.com/
The performance of a product depends on the most unstable component of the product. It can also be said that what level of supplier is used, what level of product will be produced. In terms of automobile electronic products, this problem is more prominent. Often, after the development of an automobile electronic product, there are no problems found in the small batch loading test. However, after the mass production of just a few thousand sets, many problems arise as the times require. The reasons for this are not lack of technology and other factors, but the instability of the working performance of components is the most common. At present, There is a lack of electronic component manufacturers specialized in providing supporting auto electronic products in China. The sources of components used are mainly from two channels. One is to directly purchase components from foreign agents, such as various chips and power tubes; Another channel is to purchase products from domestic electronic component manufacturers, such as resistors, capacitors and transistors. Automotive products are different from other household appliances and application equipment. Automotive electronic products often involve many dynamic parameters, and many factors affect their performance, such as vibration, temperature, humidity, electromagnetic interference, etc. The production of automotive electronic products needs to establish a supporting supply system that can cooperate and communicate with them for a long time, that is, to establish a supporting system for the industry of automotive electronic products, All components should be separated from other electronic products. At the same time, the manufacturers of automotive electronic products should use the quality system of the relevant automotive industry to control the suppliers that support them.
3、生产管理体系不完善，难以生产出性能稳定的汽车电子产品。
Despite the rapid development of China’s automobile industry, many disadvantages of China’s automobile industry have been exposed behind this rapid development. Why are the performance of foreign brands stable? From a technical point of view, they have a strong research and development team, a stable production process control system and a sound logistics system, which is what we lack. The production of automobile electronic products is inseparable from the production of complete vehicles. At present, the control of its production process is still in the period of reference and exploration. Each manufacturer is its own business, and it is difficult to form a feasible system, while the automobile manufacturers are busy with themselves, and have no time to take into account. Without a feasible and strict process control system, it is impossible to produce electronic products with stable quality. Without a supplier of components with stable quality, it is impossible to produce cars with stable performance.
4. Traditional complete machine parts companies lack understanding of emerging automotive electronic products and invest insufficient energy in research and development.
The first impression a car gives is that it is a vehicle with a mechanical structure. Traditional concepts are difficult to associate cars with electronic, computer, wired, and wireless network control. But now, with the innovation of automotive technology, electronic and network technology is developing rapidly in the automotive field. Cars are no longer a single mechanical product. It has developed into an electromechanical product, and in the future, it will not be a single computer control, but a computer based on CAN bus structure
Networked management and control is indeed a process of understanding for automotive component companies that focus on traditional mechanical components, but the automotive electronics market has been developing rapidly. With the price reduction of automobiles, auto parts companies will also feel heavy pressure, especially in the traditional mechanical parts industry, and some companies are facing an alternate update period of new products. Under such circumstances, it is not allowed to have too much time to understand and consider. Currently, the production of automotive electronic products is a high investment and high profit industry, requiring a lot of effort to truly do a good job. “It should not be limited to verbal seeing and shouting, but rather to actual seeing and testing.”. Automotive electronic products require us to spend more time on in-depth research.
4、 Summary
70% of the innovative technologies of automobiles are concentrated in automobile electronics. The development of China’s automobile industry is bound to drive the rapid development of the entire industry. We should adopt the attitude of introducing, inheriting, learning and innovating the existing foreign mature technologies. Since we have not yet stood on the same platform, we should strive to catch up, because there is no reason to reject advanced technologies and advanced management concepts, Only after fully mastering the new technology of existing mature automotive electronic products and the relevant background of its production and development can we talk about independent innovation; We strongly advocate independent innovation, but independent innovation needs a strong foundation for development. It is the root of the problem to analyze various factors that hinder the development of automotive electronics, overcome these adverse factors, and create an external environment that is truly suitable for the development of automotive electronics. The rapid development of automotive electronics technology is an inevitable trend, and we should not always be a follower. We believe that through our efforts, China’s automotive electronics industry will certainly lead the way in the future.