At the time of critical transformation, Elmar Degenhart, CEO of German Continental AG, the world’s second largest auto parts supplier, suddenly announced his resignation due to “health reasons”. Degenhart has been in the mainland for more than 11 years. The original term will not end until August 2024.
In fact, under the promotion of Degenhardt himself, the mainland is undergoing transformation in the three major directions of powertrain electrification, autonomous driving sensors, automotive electronics, and software. Here is a systematic review.
1. Powertrain Vitesco: new products, upgrades, and elimination of three moves
Mainland China divested its powertrain business in 2018 and established "Vitesco" with a clear direction.
First, vigorously develop the new business of electrification; second, the basic business of powertrain controllers (Electronic Controls), sensors (Sensing), and actuators (Actuation) will generate more profits and cash flow; third, Phase out of non-core engine business (Non-core ICE) and contract manufacturing (Contract manufacturing).
Specifically:
The goal of electrification is to invest 2 billion euros in new products to develop new products. Its product line can cover 80% of parts including 48V light hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles.
BSG motor, 48V battery pack, DC/DC converter, inverter, battery management system, high voltage junction box, electric drive, charging box, etc.
The basic business sector, products are upgraded. The original engine controller ECU, transmission controller TCU, exhaust gas treatment controller, NOx sensor, engine knock sensor, electronic throttle and other world-leading components first expanded to the non-passenger vehicle field, and expanded to commercial vehicles and Two-wheeler.
Secondly, it is necessary to realize electrification applications in the short term, and expand to fuel cell vehicle applications in the medium and long term.
The goal is simple, to become the global TOP 2 leader in this field.
Non-core business, traditional manufacturing, including engine injectors, high-pressure pumps, fuel pumps, SCR, and turbochargers are all eliminated.
2. Towards autonomous driving
Autonomous driving products in the German mainland include millimeter wave radars, cameras, lidars, and high-performance computing platforms, aiming at L2, L2+, and L3 autopilots, achieving complete automation on highways and congested roads.
Continental plans to launch 4D imaging radar in 2021 to achieve real-time accurate detection of distance and speed under rain, dazzling sunlight, and night environments. It can be applied to ground obstacles, elevated objects, complex traffic, road boundaries/landmarks, debris/ Potholes and other scenes.
Continental has also developed its own sensor perception platform, which extracts features from the camera's pixels for classification and recognition, or from radar point clouds, through Cluster pattern classification and recognition, and finally realizes sensor fusion.
In terms of data processing, Continental’s global test fleet travels 15,000 kilometers a day and can collect about 100TB, equivalent to 50,000 hours of movie data.
These data will be used for neural network calculation and training through the supercomputing center in cooperation with NVIDIA, to achieve data annotation, and to provide virtual testing of algorithm scenes.
3. "Software Defined Cars"
Continental's goal in this business area is to become a leader in automotive software, architecture, and domain controllers.
It is the first to realize the transformation to a centralized electronic and electrical architecture and software in the market. The ICAS1 module mounted on the Volkswagen ID system covers the Internet of Vehicles gateway module, body control module, battery management system, OTA upgrade, etc., and also plays the role of ID. 3 The role of the domain controller.
To prepare for the continuous growth of domain controllers (High performace computer), Continental's products include four domains or cross-domain controllers for advanced assisted driving, safety, car body, and cockpit. The total order volume by 2025 is more than 4 billion euros.
Continental can provide full-stack services from four levels of vehicle, software, operating system, and hardware, including advanced vehicle assistance, safety, body, cockpit and cloud services.
"In the next 10 years, the global automotive industry will undergo the largest and most profound transformation in more than 130 years of history. Looking to the future, we are making this transformation at an early stage and are currently doing our best to shape and guide this transformation."
Two years ago, Degenhardt initiated the biggest change in the history of the German mainland. At present, the mainland may still need some pains.