Wenjie M9 won the ＂2024 Intelligent Car of the Year＂, with 27 awards documenting the intelligent progress of Chinese automobiles
Introduction:
The 8th "Annual Smart Car Selection" ushered in the explosive year of the application of new smart car technologies. Chinese local brands and new startups won a big victory in this selection. The Smart Car Network and the selection organizing committee said that in the high degree of involution, Chinese cars have basically completed the upgrade to electric and intelligent industries, and a new industrial cycle is coming. In a slightly pessimistic atmosphere about the future, the 27 awards of the 2024 Smart Car Selection not only showcase the new pattern of China’s automobile market, but also herald the beginning of an optimistic new decade for automobiles.
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The second half of China’s smart electric car competition has begun, and smart driving is becoming the core capability of the new generation of car competition. On January 24, the "2024 Intelligent Car Selection" award ceremony initiated and hosted by Zhijia.com was held at the Beijing Ain Art Center. A total of 26 sub-awards such as model award, technology award, and brand award were presented. The final award – "2024 Intelligent Car of the Year" award was won by Wenjie M9.
The shortlisted models for this year’s selection include cars, SUVs, and MPVs in all fields, covering all market levels from household, sports, and high-end.
The Q & J M9 has been recognized by the judges for its interactive and efficient smart cockpit, safe and reliable handling performance, smooth and stable city, and high-speed pilot smart driving function. Huawei’s strategy of empowering the automotive industry with technology is producing positive results in the Chinese market and has attracted great attention from the industry.
01. Chinese local brands gain an overwhelming advantage
After eight years of development, the "Annual Intelligent Car Selection" has ushered in a full-scale explosion of intelligent driving technology this year.
This year’s "Annual Smart Car Selection" can be said to contain the highest amount of "electricity" and "smart driving". All the shortlisted models are equipped with L2 smart driving functions, and Chinese local brands have achieved an overwhelming advantage. In a total of 27 awards, only Mercedes-Benz, Volvo Cars, and FAW Toyota won three overseas brands.
In the sub-categories of technology and brand, all the awards were won by local Chinese companies. A more typical example is Geely Group, whose models of Galaxy, Krypton, Jitsu, Polaris, Volvo and Lotus have all won relevant awards, which has never happened in previous awards. This is in line with the strong rise of Chinese auto brands, firmly occupying 50% of the Chinese market.
In response to these new characteristics,The annual smart car selection achieved three breakthroughs in the setting of the awards:
First, break the boundaries between fuel vehicles and electric vehicles.
Second, breaking the boundaries between joint venture brands and independent brands.
III. Breaking the boundaries between luxury brands and ordinary brands …
All models are reviewed and evaluated by the jury and professional media under the same dimension and standard, and scored according to the three dimensions of the vehicle’s intelligent driving ability, human-vehicle interaction experience and car-making quality.
In terms of specific evaluation scenarios, the selection organizing committee selected 21 models from the nearly 90 models initially shortlisted for live evaluation on real city roads and professional venues, covering all high-end smart driving models currently on sale with city navigation functions.
Among the 21 models participating in the offline evaluation, 20 models have adaptive cruise function, of which 10 models have high-speed pilot function, 5 models have city pilot function, 14 models have automatic parking function, and 3 models have parking function. After the strategic cooperation between the Intelligent Driving Network and the National Intelligent Vehicle and Intelligent Transportation (Beijing-Hebei) Demonstration Zone Yizhuang Base last year, this year a more professional and scene-rich intelligent driving classification test was carried out. Real road assessments of cross-brand adaptive cruise, city NOA, and high-speed NOA were carried out from Beijing East Third Ring Road to Daxing Airport.
At the same time, the memory parking test was added to the automatic parking test. In addition, with the escalation of the AEB war of words, the annual smart car selection has specially resumed the AEB test. Among the 21 models, 8 models have practical AEB emergency braking avoidance function, but there were three collisions and one accident during the entire evaluation process. The AEB test is still the most dangerous test in the current smart car evaluation.
After a month of selection, "looking for emotional travel significant other" 2024 annual smart car selection committee issued all the awards in Beijing, a little regret is that the annual smart driving app and annual smart driving application two awards vacant, compared to previous years, these two awards shortlisted products lack exciting options.
In addition, as the most pioneering and cutting-edge awards in the annual smart car selection, technology and brand awards have also received extensive attention. The 2024 Smart Driving Technology was awarded to the Drive GPT of Mimo Zhixing, which is the first large model in the field of smart driving; and the Apollo City Driving Maxc of Baidu Apollo, which won the annual smart driving system, is providing a high-end and low-cost smart driving solution in the Chinese market with its BEV+Transformers+OCC pure visual route, which will greatly speed up the mass production of NOA in Chinese cities. Horizon, which was awarded the annual smart driving company, has long become a company that cannot be ignored in China’s smart driving industry chain.
These changes in China’s auto market and the emergence of new technologies and brands in the industrial chain have had a huge impact on the "annual smart car selection". The above 27 awards can be said to have left a historical manuscript for the intelligentization of China’s auto industry.
02. Smart driving has become the main option for new Chinese consumers to buy cars
At the award ceremony, An Qingheng, director of the China Automotive Industry Advisory Committee, said: "The advantages of Chinese brands are mainly focused on the field of electrification and intelligence. After the hard work and technical research of various enterprises, the level of intelligent driving in the automotive industry is getting higher and higher, and the transformation of functional cars to intelligent cars is accelerating. Now, the intelligent driving function has finally become a major consideration for the new generation of Chinese consumers to buy a car."
In 2023, China’s automobile market pattern changed greatly. The market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in December was close to 40%, and the average annual penetration rate exceeded 30%. The market share of China’s own brand passenger cars was firmly stable at more than 50%. Among all the models sold, new energy models reached 49.9%.
"I have witnessed the growth of the annual smart car for eight years. Eight years ago, the’smart car ‘was still a new introduction. In 2020, Jia from Zhijia.com proposed’Welcome to the smart car’. Now it seems commonplace, but at that time it still required courage and deep insight into the future. Today, the development of China’s automobile industry has verified this judgment." He stressed that the smart cockpit and smart car system have become a "business card" of Chinese brands.
Fu Yuwu, honorary chairperson of the China Society of Automotive Engineers, said: "As the third generation of Chinese automakers, An Lao and I did not expect that in the highly competitive year of 2023, China would rely on the export of nearly 5 million vehicles to achieve an unprecedented breakthrough in 30 million production and sales. We are very pleased that this achievement is realized on the 70th anniversary of China’s automobile industry." He said: "Minister Miao once put forward three criteria for becoming a world automobile power: there are the world’s top automobile groups in the world, there are widely used Chinese core technologies and products, and there are overseas markets with scale. Today, it is no longer a dream for China to become a world automobile power. At present, our country has formed a relatively complete technology chain of intelligent networked vehicles. Major breakthroughs have been made in the independent research and development of key technologies such as autonomous driving system integration, lidar, control decision-making algorithms, AI chips, intelligent cockpit, C-V2X, and north guide positioning. Our country’s intelligent networked vehicles have gradually formed a trend of running with the international in terms of technology research and development, product application, testing and demonstration, and industrial ecology. "
Yang Lin, vice-president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade’s Automotive Industry Branch, said: "The annual smart car selection has entered the eighth edition. After years of accumulation and precipitation, it has become the mainstream selection for evaluating new cars. Intelligent networking and smart driving functions are no longer a plus for a car, but the mainstream configuration and core selling point to attract Chinese consumers. There is a popular judgment in the industry that the first half of the competition – electrification has ended, and the second half of intelligent competition has just begun. The annual smart car selection is the way to advance Chinese cars, leaving an annual record and historical manuscript. 90% of the awards awarded this time are given to local Chinese brands, which is a reward for Chinese automakers to focus on technological innovation."
But she also said: "A big test for Chinese brands in the future is how to transform themselves from a local company into a global car group. Chinese cars will inevitably encounter more and more complex challenges such as competitors, intellectual property rights, tariffs, market access, legal disputes, etc. At a time when Chinese cars are becoming stronger and stronger, we must have a more humble attitude, attract world capital with a more open market, and allow different market players to compete freely with more flexible policies."
At the award ceremony, Jia Hongbing, the producer of Zhijia.com, delivered a keynote speech titled "2024: The Bar Mitzvah of Chinese Cars and Smart Cars Driving into No Man’s Land". He said: "The Chinese market has become the birthplace of automobile innovation in the world. Smart cars are not a product of the market with Chinese characteristics. The development trend of smart cars promoted by Chinese consumers will become a common choice for consumers around the world. China is expected to complete the full electrification of the automobile industry before other countries in the world, and is expected to launch a global operating system for vehicles in a broad sense before other countries. It is expected to take the lead in the commercialization of driverless driving in major cities across the country."
"Although everyone in the car industry has been tired and anxious in the past year, Chinese cars have completed industrial upgrading in such a deep involution." He stressed: "Although 2024 is called the year of elimination, 2024 is the beginning of a new cycle, a new and optimistic car decade cycle is coming. All this is due to the historical opportunity for Chinese cars to switch tracks due to China’s super-sized car market. As long as this market exists, globalization will exist, and the world of freedom and prosperity will always exist."
03. 2024 Smart Car Selection Car Type category winners list
2024 Smart Car of the Year – Ask the World M9
2024 Smart Home Car – Zero Run C01
2024 Intelligent Sports Car – Nezha GT
2024 Smart Fashion Car – Galaxy E8
2024 Smart Comfortable Car – Extreme Krypton 007
2024 Smart Premium Car – The New Mercedes-Benz Long Wheelbase E-Class
2024 Smart City SUV – New Landscape FREE
Smart Sports SUV of the Year 2024 – Zhiji LS6
2024 Smart Fashion SUV of the Year – Polaris 4
Smart Off-Road SUV of the Year 2024 – Jettrip
2024 Smart Premium SUV – Lotus ELETRE
2024 Smart MPV – Volvo EM90
2024 Smart Pickup – Jiangling Avenue
Looking forward to the smart SUV of 2024 – FAW Toyota’s new Prado
Expected Smart MPV in 2024 – Ideal MEGA
Looking forward to the smart car in 2024 – Xiaomi SU7
04. 2024 Smart Car Selection Technology and Brand Award List
2024 Smart Driving Technology – Mimo DriveGPT
2024 Smart Cabin System – Xiaopeng XOS Tianji Cockpit System
2024 Intelligent Driving System – Baidu Apollo City Driving Max
2024 Smart Cockpit – Extreme 01
2024 intelligent driving significant other – Jiyue intelligent AI partner SIMO
2024 Smart Factory – Liyang Base of Ningde Times
2024 Smart Driving Brand – Li Auto
Smart Driving Company of the Year 2024 – Horizon
2024 Smart Driving Design – Avita 12
2024 Smart Energy – Jieneng Smart Power
2024 Smart Travel Enterprise – Ruqi Travel