【Global Times reports】October 13, Andreas Dick, Vice President (Technology) of FAW-Volkswagen, comes to Peking University to share the development and trend of China's automobile industry with Peking University teachers and students. During the two-hour course, focusing on the deep insight into China's automobile industry and the concrete practice of FAW-Volkswagen, Andreas Dick interacted with Professor Zhang Ying, vice president and doctoral supervisor of Guanghua School of Management of Peking University, and students to jointly explore the development experience and future trend of automobile industry in the process of China's new economic development process.
New economy leads to new business forms, new thinking enables new development
Currently, China's economy is in a critical period of transforming the mode of development, optimizing the economic structure, and changing the driving force of growth. New changes have taken place in China's economy, giving birth to new business models. The trend of electrification and intelligence of the automobile industry is reconstructing the industrial supply chain and value chain. As the leader of China's automobile industry, FAW-Volkswagen adheres to the concept of "Total value chain co-creation", drives the coordinated development of upstream and downstream industries, promotes the manufacturing level of the automobile industry, and creates a green value chain.
Andreas Dick said, we are facing two major issues, climate change and digitalization. These two issues will trigger profound changes in the coming decades. Climate change is an urgent problem to be solved. As a leading automobile manufacturer in China, FAW-Volkswagen has the ability and responsibility to promote industry transformation. To achieve this goal, FAW-Volkswagen cooperates with Volkswagen Group to implement the "goTOzero strategy", strive to achieve zero carbon dioxide emission in the whole lifecycle of products, protect the environment from damage, ensure the health and well-being of communities and employees, and strive to become a provider of green mobility. To achieve the goal, FAW-Volkswagen has implemented green production energy measures in Southwest base and South China base. By 2030, the carbon dioxide emissions of FAW-Volkswagen production bases will be reduced by 30%.
The second major topic is digitalization and a series of following changes, which is very important in the solution of smart factory and will greatly improve the operation efficiency and product quality of enterprises. FAW-Volkswagen is no longer just an automobile manufacturer, but also a mobility provider, industry development leader and driver of industrial transformation.
New technologies reshape new business models, new systems lead new opportunities
New opportunities might come out of crisis, and new phase will always be achieved in transforming development. Driven by the strategy of "carbon peaking and carbon neutralization", China's automobile industry has burst out with strong vitality. Intelligence and electrification have become an important direction for the development of the future automobile industry, and technological innovation has become the only way to lead the future industrial highland.
Andreas Dick said, with the MEB platform, FAW-Volkswagen has realized the fundamental changes in body design, interior design, and powertrain characteristics of electric vehicles, and defined a new model of pure electric vehicles. Meanwhile, in 2023, Volkswagen Group will introduce a close- loop approach based on unified battery cells. This model leads to lean processes as well as standardized and scalable battery systems, which will achieve 95% recycling rate and CO2 emission reduction of approximately 1 ton/vehicle. In addition, the standard cell will significantly reduce the cost of new energy vehicles. The cost of mainstream models will be reduced by 30%, and the cost of entry-level models will be reduced by 50%. This will further reduce the price of pure electric vehicles and greatly improve the attractiveness of FAW-Volkswagen new energy models.
Driving assistance will bring brand new user experience and business model. In the field of intelligence, connectivity and driving assistance, the E3 architecture of FAW-Volkswagen models will become a game changer in the industry. E3 architecture will realize L3 and L4 level assisted driving and automatic charging to improve the user experience. In the future, the introduction of more platform will further enhance the intelligence of FAW-Volkswagen products.
In the field of intelligent manufacturing, the past production methods focused on high efficiency and low investment, which did not consider the interconnection between installations. This leads to many different technologies, different suppliers and control units using different communication standards. To change this situation, FAW-Volkswagen has introduced industrial cloud and Plant Service Bus (PSB), which will not only connect the automatic equipment and systems in the factory, but also connect factories of FAW-Volkswagen, which will greatly elevate efficiency. In the future, all information of FAW-Volkswagen will enter the industrial cloud to realize data modeling and other functions. At the same time, it also provides a technical basis for the construction of industrial applications and real-time reporting functions. Through technological innovation, FAW-Volkswagen is realizing rapid and efficient transformation and growth by solving key problems such as the Internet of things, big data and artificial intelligence.
FAW-Volkswagen has accelerated its transformation and achieved fruitful results. In terms of products, ID.4 CROZZ and ID.6 CROZZ and Audi e-Tron family have been launched one after another, gaining both public praise and sales. Technically, FAW-Volkswagen has a bench test center, design and virtual reality center, measurement technology center, vehicle safety center, trial production center and multiple functional laboratories. The New Development Center composed of crash test center, powertrain test center, body test and function evaluation center, TE central workshop and light tunnel laboratory will also be officially completed in November this year to further improve the technical strength of FAW-Volkswagen.
Technology is the wing to seize new opportunities. FAW-Volkswagen has continuously promoted the accelerated transformation of China's automobile industry with 30 years of strong strength and rich experience. Andreas Dick’s sharing at Peking University further enrich the connotation of FAW-Volkswagen's "Industry-University-Research" deep integration ecosystem. In the future, FAW-Volkswagen will continue to provide users with high-quality products and nice driving experience with safer and innovative technology, which will also promote the high-quality development of China's automobile industry as soon as possible.