“Brainpower is the new horsepower” in China, but the logic doesn’t necessarily apply in Europe
A visit to the Guangzhou motor show recently threw up an important question: does China’s accelerated development point to the future of automotive globally or merely its own?
China is leading on battery tech but its gung- ho, bitterly fought and highly cash-intensive battle to appeal to local customers in other areas is widening the gulf to Europe’s car industry.
Many of the new models at the show were massive. For example, the new IM LS9, a mid-market, family- oriented, plug-in hybrid SUV, was almost 5.3m long. Chinese cars have always skewed slightly larger, but the gap is growing.
The show also laid bare the scale of the race to be first to offer full autonomy. My drive of the current Xpeng P7+ liftback using its supervised ‘guided pilot’ feature demonstrated how near that might be.
China’s congested roads have low speed limits and are closely monitored by banks of constantly flashing cameras. Get snapped using a mobile phone and 10 minutes later in comes the message telling how to pay your newly awarded fine.
In that environment, not driving becomes much more desirable. Many would pay extra for the computing power and sensors needed to achieve self-driving, whereas a European car packing 1000 TOPS of computing power would currently be pointless.
“Brainpower is the new horsepower”, according to Xpeng, and it’s true: horsepower in China is no longer a unique selling point. Indeed, the state plans to limit 0-62mph times to 5.0sec and above.
Cars are used differently too. The digital playgrounds of those vast dashboard screens encourage China’s drivers to linger at the end of a journey. It will be a long time before Europeans view their car that way.
Besides, fears about connected cars mean that the full Chinese digital experience can’t just be cut and pasted onto their exported cars. It’s the same with their self-driving tech.
The walls are going up. With global car makers like VW now incorporating Chinese tech for models sold there, arguably China will have less impact on European models than it has previously, not more.
Europe will continue to gorge on highly specced, electrified, volume models from China if the price is right, but just now China’s home market is veering too far from our own to offer an unclouded view of the future of automotive.
Source: Autocar
