Facing challenges head-on, new energy vehicles ask for answers from science and technology innovation

In 2021, against the backdrop of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the significant withdrawal of related subsidies, China's new energy vehicle production and sales both exceeded 3.5 million units, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years.

This figure was frequently seen in the speeches of several ministry officials at the high-level forum of the China Electric Vehicle Council 100 Forum (2022) held on 26 March. Focusing on the theme of "Embracing the new stage of market-oriented development of new energy vehicles", participants expressed their views on how to improve national support policies in the post-subsidy era and how scientific and technological innovation should continue to gain momentum.

Wan Gang, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and Chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), said that after years of development, scientific and technological progress has led to innovative breakthroughs in China's new energy vehicles, not only by significantly improving the technical level of the vehicle, but also by bringing the core technology of key components to the next level, and by leaping from a border defence to a deep defence system of active security.

As an example, Wan Gang said that China's progress in intelligent thermal management technology has supported the use of new energy vehicles in an environment of minus 30 degrees Celsius. The just-concluded Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics, the contribution made by new energy vehicles for the world to see, put into use nearly 1,200 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, the cumulative carbon reduction of about 220 billion tons.

Miao Wei, deputy director of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Economic Committee, summarized the experience of the development of China's new energy vehicle industry into five: first, the use of the socialist system to focus on doing great things; second, to seize the opportunity of purely electric development of "overtaking"; third, to maintain strategic determination, adhere to a blueprint to the end; fourth, to build an enterprise-oriented Fifthly, the government should provide guidance from top-level design, technological innovation, standard system and financial and taxation policies.

Innovation by the numbers The progressive industry shows its report card

"Science and technology innovation has played a central driving role in the process of moving the new energy vehicle industry towards marketization." Xiang Libin, Vice Minister of Science and Technology, pointed out in his speech that in recent years, new energy vehicle technology innovation has shown an accelerating trend, which has played a key supporting and leading role in enhancing the competitiveness of new energy vehicle products.

A series of technologies such as solid-state lidar for vehicles, 4D millimeter wave radar, and high-calculus autonomous driving chips have made important breakthroughs; sodium ion batteries, high-nickel cobalt-free batteries, and modular power exchange have made positive progress; artificial intelligence arithmetic has reached international advanced levels; by 2021, Chinese enterprises will have obtained more than 30,000 new energy vehicle-related patents, accounting for 70% of the global share... 

Not only the key technologies of new energy vehicles have made new progress, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin also "counted" the new results: by the end of 2021, the cumulative consumption of new energy vehicles will be about 1.6 trillion yuan, driving the output value of the upstream and downstream industry chains to about 4.8 trillion yuan, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by more than 100 million tons and making a positive contribution to the reduction of carbon emissions in industry and transportation and transport sector.