i卡會員

The era of Automobile 3.0 is here with wave after wave of new trends in car related digital technology innovation. This year promises to be crazy from start to finish.

The leaders of the global automobile industry and the ICT industry are working together to trigger a tsunami of innovation in overall automobile technology, and this has become the strongest growth engine for revenue for automakers and ICT manufacturers. The development of automobile technology has become the most important economic event worldwide, and it has become the most crucial issue for industrial growth in Taiwan!

Since the CES at the beginning of the year, automobile technology has been a hot topic in the news, becoming the focus of global attention. The fervor of automobile technology news is expected to last throughout the year. The artificial intelligence in the car’s computer, self-driving cars, top-flight electric Formula E racing, intelligent personal assistants, technology-packed car interiors and other brand new technologies have been shown in the grand exhibitions dazzling audiences and becoming hot topics for all.

Automated driving has become synonymous with the evolution of automotive technology; from feet-off to hands-off to mind-off, the operation and the value of an automobile have flipped. The self-driving car has evolved into the automated ride-sharing vehicle, becoming the major car manufacturers' common development goal.

Nissan’s CEO predicts that 25% of new cars will be self-driving cars by 2030, 100% of cars will be connected cars by 2025, and 25% of car mileage will be shared rides by 2030. A report on connected cars released by PwC suggests that, by 2030, the total revenue model of the automobile industry will have a completely different structure; new technology, digital services and shared services will become the new darlings, accounting for 20% of revenue. In the next decade, there will be swift advancement in automobile technology, making it the main battlefield for business opportunities.

Recently, an executive at Tesla revealed that the company is striving to deliver one hundred thousand unitsof its Model 3, Tesla’s entry-level priced model, by the end of the year, which surprised many experts. GM’s Chevrolet Bolt electric car was the first entry-level priced model delivered to the market, and thirty to eighty thousand units are expected to be sold this year. There are more and more electric cars entering the competition, heating up the market, and we can expect to see electric car sales take off this year.

The top two industries, worldwide, are the automotive and ICT industries. The market scale for both is similar with each taking about 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars/year in revenue. Starting from this year, these two industries are becoming deeply integrated to create a huge innovative business opportunity in the Automobile 3.0 era!

On January 17, 2017, the total market value of the world’s top ten automobile manufacturers was 0.7 trillion U.S. dollars. This is considerably smaller than the 3.2 trillion U.S. dollar total market value of the top ten ICT makers, and it is only slightly higher than the 0.65 trillion U.S. dollar market value of a single ICT company, Apple Inc.

In 2012, the total market value of the top 50 auto makers was only about one third that of the ICT industry's (Technology industry 1.9 trillion U.S. dollars, automobile industry 0.7 trillion U.S. dollars). The market value of the largest car manufacturer in the world, Toyota, was only about 170 billion U.S. dollars, which was well below Amazon or Facebook's value of nearly 400 billion U.S. dollars each. In 2016, the market value gap of the two industries grew wider still, showing that the value of the technological innovation factor is much higher than that of the traditional car innovation factor. The market value of GM, the lead U.S. automaker, is 56 billion U.S. dollars, leading the 38 billion U.S. dollars of the technology savvy company, Tesla; but the gap is not significant.

The automobile industry has more than a hundred years of development behind it. Before the 1970s, it was the motorized era of Automobile 1.0. The period from 1970 to 2000 may be described as the electrical era, Automobile 2.0. Starting from around 2010, Tesla led the way into the digital era, Automobile 3.0. The idea of a traditional car is gradually transforming into a "software defined" car. In the past, the engine was the heart of the car; in the new generation of Automobile 3.0, the software and digital smart-control system is the car's mind and soul!

The battle for dominance in automobile technology is intense. Will it be the automaker or the technology company that claims the leadership? Since the war for global dominance in automobile technology has already erupted, automobile technology companies in Taiwan may be able to sit on the sidelines and profit from the competition.

The fulcrum of Automobile 3.0 lies in the digitization and intellectualization of the automobile industry, which can be included in the realm of the digital economy for prioritized promotion purposes, by Taiwan's industrial policies. Taiwan has a strong foundation in the fields of ICT and automobile technologies, and it should fully take hold of the new beginnings presented by the era of Automobile 3.0, and realize the god-sent opportunity for the explosive growth of the automobile technology industry. The IEK of ITRI estimates that Taiwan's automotive electronics output will reach NT$278.6 billion in 2020, a growth of 53% compared to 2016..