In my country, pure electric vehicles (BEV), hybrid vehicles (PHEV) with a charging function, electric drive vehicles (REEV) with an engine-generator set, and fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) among the electrification products are called new energy vehicles; engine-motor oil-electric (gas) hybrids without charging functions are classified as energy-saving vehicles. At the Automotive Transmission Innovation Conference held in Berlin, Germany, at the end of 2014, more than 1,200 industry experts and engineers from various countries participated in the keynote voting. 98% predicted that by 2030, every car will be equipped with at least one drive motor. my country's automobile industry must seize this once-in-a-lifetime historical opportunity, keep up with the global trend of automobile electrification, and accelerate the transformation of the automobile industry from large to strong.

It is imperative to develop the new energy automobile industry

National energy security needs. Today, the world's oil resources available for cheap extraction are constantly decreasing, and reliance on imported oil supplies poses serious challenges to national energy security. In 2014, my country's oil imports reached 58%, and it is expected that the import volume will approach 70% in 2020. 70% of the new oil imports will be used in the growing road transportation or automobile-related industries. The development of energy-saving and new energy vehicles will help reduce the pressure on oil imports and enhance national energy security.

People’s livelihood needs for clean air. Smog is a major environmental problem that our country, especially densely populated first-tier cities, has faced in recent decades. Taking Beijing as an example, the city government's 2014 statistical analysis concluded that fine particle emissions from motor vehicles and engineering vehicles contributed 22.2% to PM2.5. This year's analysis by the Ministry of Environmental Protection showed that 31.5% of atmospheric PM2.5 pollution comes from motor vehicles. The degree of its quasi-negative impact on air pollution has yet to be verified, but it is an indisputable fact that blue skies and white clouds reappeared in Beijing during the APEC meeting in May and the military parade in September. Practice has proved that by implementing odd and even number restrictions on motor vehicles in Beijing (half of the fuel vehicles will be stopped or 50% of new energy vehicles will be introduced) and appropriate restrictions on the operation of surrounding heavily polluting enterprises, "APEC Blue" and "Parade Blue" can not only be created but also sustained.

Carbon emissions and fuel economy are forcing the electrification of vehicles. 23% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions come from the transportation sector, and road transportation-related industries account for as much as 17%. In April 2007, a U.S. court defined CO2 as emissions, giving the United States a legal basis to limit automobile CO2 emissions. The first 200,000 new energy vehicles sold by U.S. companies can receive a 0 g/km CO2 score reward. Production and sales of more than 200,000 vehicles will begin to be recorded in the CO2 emissions of the upstream power structure. Automobile companies that cannot meet fuel economy indicators have difficulty entering the U.S. market, or even if they have entered, they will have to bear huge fines from the U.S. government for excessive carbon emissions. In regions such as North America, the European Union, and Asia-Pacific China, it is impossible to meet carbon emission regulations (China's plan) without energy-saving and new energy vehicles. Therefore, hybrid power, extended-range hybrid power, and pure electric vehicles are the only technical blueprints and industry directions in the world that meet carbon emissions and company average fuel consumption regulations (plan).

Breakthrough for the development of new energy automobile industry

Module and integration technology with battery management system (BMS) needs to be improved. Compared with the fuel tanks of traditional cars, the energy storage unit batteries used to drive new energy vehicles are more complex, which is a technical difficulty in the development of new energy vehicles. The reason is that the power of the car requires the battery to be charged and discharged quickly, that is, the power is high; at the same time, it requires a long mileage after each charge, that is, the stored energy is high; furthermore, the car is required to be small in size and light in weight. According to chemical and physical principles, battery technology with high power density and energy density that meets the above three requirements is limited. Our country's battery unit technology is close to the world level, but the module and integrated technology with battery management systems are relatively lagging behind. With the withdrawal of subsidy policies, the challenge from international battery suppliers is very serious.

Difficulty in charging is a facility bottleneck for the development of electric vehicles. New energy vehicles require most dispersed normal charging piles to facilitate daily charging by users, and at the same time require a small number of relatively centralized and well-located fast charging stations to meet the needs of retail consumers for fast charging and concentrated users. An increase in the number of charging piles, improved quality, unified standards and charging efficiency are the mainstream development needs. In any case, giant charging stations that charge hundreds of vehicles a day do not meet the actual needs of electric vehicle users at this stage and are a waste.

The competitiveness of core components is insufficient. With the demand for product marketization and the decline or cancellation of subsidy policies, international suppliers are rapidly expanding their market share, and my country's internationally competitive electric drive system suppliers are even rarer. In terms of cost-effectiveness of mass-produced products, domestic controllers are also not competitive enough. Not only that, the core power modules of the controller are all imported from chips to packaging. Almost 98% of digital signal processors, film capacitors, proprietary circuits and chips are imported from Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea. In fact, my country's annual import of power electronic chips and modules has far exceeded the cost of imported oil, exceeding US$280 billion in 2014. In addition to special chips and power electronic components, my country also lags behind developed countries in terms of materials, mechanical components, sensors, connectors, etc.

The independent capabilities of equipment and production lines are insufficient. Our country's independently developed and domestically produced instrumentation equipment can meet the needs of the industry in the early "from scratch" stage. However, with the needs of "from scratch to excellence" and the improvement of international competitiveness, laboratories must be equipped with high-precision equipment for steady-state and dynamic performance testing. my country's independent capabilities have been challenged, and it has basically turned to dependence on imported or joint venture suppliers. Taking the advanced manufacturing industry in Germany represented by "Industry 4.0" as an example, motor system production is highly automated, IT-based and digitalized, while in my country motor off-line, controller assembly, logistics, etc. are still mainly manual and semi-automatic. "Made in China 2025" not only needs to catch up with Industry 4.0, but also "make up lessons" in Industry 2.0 and 3.0. Otherwise, not only will the global competitiveness of China's manufacturing be questioned, but the established independent market in the field of new energy vehicles will also face the situation of returning to the "hollowing out" of traditional vehicles.

Insufficient understanding of third-generation power semiconductor controllers. The industry generally accepts that batteries are the technical bottleneck of new energy vehicles and charging facilities are the operational bottleneck. However, there is insufficient understanding of the challenges of motor systems, especially power electronics. In fact, my country's battery industry chain from materials, units to modules and system integration has solved the problem of starting from scratch, but the competitiveness is weak; and in automotive power electronics, my country is in a gap in the industry chain, and electronic circuits, chips and modules based on modern power semiconductors (IGBT and MOSFET, etc.) are almost all dependent on imports. At present, the third generation of wide bandgap power semiconductors represented by silicon carbide, gallium nitride, etc. has become the development trend of motor system controller components. Toyota of Japan has developed a prototype electric drive assembly based on silicon carbide controllers, which will reduce the fuel consumption of existing hybrid vehicles by 5%. It plans to put it into mass production in 2020, reducing cumulative fuel consumption by 10%, and the production plant has been built, including silicon carbide chips, packaging, module integration and system integration. The evolution of modern power semiconductor controllers to the third generation of wide bandgap power semiconductor controllers is both an opportunity given by innovation and a challenge of historical development. Promoting the development of the entire industry chain step by step, combined with promoting the development of core technologies such as motor design, intelligent industrialization, and powertrain system integration, will help innovate the global core competitiveness of the automotive industry.