In the process of accelerating the automobile industry to intelligence, the field of intelligent driving has become an important battlefield for car companies to compete. However, there are hidden worries. In recent years, some car companies in order to seize the price advantage in the fierce market competition, regardless of quality and safety, arbitrarily replaced the car gauge chip with industrial chip. This short-sighted behavior not only seriously threatens the safety and stability of intelligent driving, but also seriously disrupts the market order and casts a shadow on the healthy development of the automobile industry. At the same time, the low-price competition between parts suppliers has exacerbated this mess, making the entire industry face serious challenges.

 

Car companies replace chips: security risks behind the "price war"

 

Vehicle gauge chip is the key to ensure the stable operation of intelligent driving system. The car will face a variety of complex conditions during driving, such as high temperature, low temperature, vibration, electromagnetic interference, etc., which requires the car gauge chip to meet extremely strict standards in reliability, stability, safety and adaptability to extreme environments. However, in the increasingly fierce market competition in the environment, some car companies in order to reduce production costs and obtain price competitive advantage, choose industrial chips instead of car gauge chips. Although this approach may help enterprises win a certain market share in the short term, in the long run, it has buried a huge security risk.

 

"Compared with industrial chips, car-gauge chips are more stringent in reliability design, functional safety design, production management, product testing and certification." "Given the vehicle environment, the age of the vehicle, and the degree to which the chip is associated with the safety of the vehicle, it is extremely risky to replace the vehicle with an industrial-grade chip when the vehicle exceeds a certain age, operates in extreme environments, or is used in a function that is closely related to vehicle safety." Zhou Xin, senior engineer of China Automotive Research Chip, analyzed the actual risk of replacing the car-gauge chip from the perspective of technical safety. At the same time, in the eyes of the industry, such replacement behavior is both a technical compromise and a blasphemy against safety, quality and long-term reliability.

 

In the actual testing and certification, China Automotive Research Institute also found many typical differences. Zhou Xin introduced: "When we tested and certified a manufacturer's chip, we found that the industrial-grade chip used a copper binding wire, while the cargo-grade chip used a gold binding wire. When reliability tests were conducted against the AEC-Q standard, gold wire significantly outperformed copper wire in the reliability of the final application." This example fully demonstrates the stringent design and manufacturing standards of the vehicle gauge chip, which is essential to ensure the long-term stable operation of the vehicle.

 

In addition, due to the relatively low design and manufacturing standards of industrial-grade chips, it is easy to fail under complex conditions. Due to the use of industrial-grade chips, some vehicles have problems such as instrument downtime and sensor signal loss, which seriously affect driving safety, and may even cause traffic accidents, endangering the life and property safety of drivers and passengers.

 

In addition to bringing security risks, the behavior of car companies to "secretly change chips" has also seriously damaged the market fair competition environment. Those car companies that always stick to quality and insist on using car gauge chips are at a disadvantage in price competition due to high costs. In the long run, this phenomenon of "bad money driving out good money" will spread in the industry, resulting in enterprises that really pay attention to technology research and development and product quality are difficult to get their due returns. This will not only seriously hinder the technological progress and innovative development of the industry, but also ultimately harm the long-term interests of the entire industry.

 

Supplier low price competition: Catalyst for disorderly market

 

The "price war" between parts suppliers has played a role in the replacement of car-gauge chips with industrial-grade chips to reduce costs. In order to obtain orders from car companies and suppress competitors, many parts suppliers have fallen into the mire of low-price competition, and even supply at prices below cost.

 

At present, the competition in the field of automotive chips is extremely fierce, but there are still new manufacturers continue to pour into the car gauge chip track, including many consumer chip design companies to expand the car gauge product line. The relevant research of China Automotive Research Institute pointed out that some suppliers try to expand market share through the short-term low price or even lower than the cost price supply strategy, and then rely on market performance to obtain funds for technology research and development, and then enhance product competitiveness, forming a virtuous circle. The reality, however, is more complicated than that. On the one hand, many automotive chip design companies have limited technical capabilities and are difficult to gain a foothold in the rapidly changing market competition. On the other hand, some chip manufacturers have misjudged the long-term development direction of the market and insufficient expectations, coupled with the pressure brought by the long accounting period of domestic car companies, resulting in the breakdown of the capital chain of manufacturers and getting into trouble.

 

"If parts suppliers supply at below cost prices for a long time, they will inevitably make sacrifices in product quality and research and development investment." In order to maintain profitability, they may choose to reduce the quality of raw materials and simplify the production process, which will directly affect the performance and reliability of components, which will jeopardize the quality and safety of the vehicle." The person in charge of an automotive electronics company speaks bluntly.

 

In addition, low-price competition will also lead to the inability of suppliers to carry out technological innovation, unable to meet the rapid development of the intelligent driving industry's technical needs, thus hindering the industry's technological upgrading and progress.

 

"In a project, a number of parts suppliers have adopted a low-price strategy to compete for orders. Such behavior not only damages the interests of the suppliers themselves, but also undermines the fair competition environment of the entire market. In the end, some suppliers who were technically superior were forced out of the competition because they could not withstand the pressure of low-price competition." A person in charge of an automotive chip supplier took the cockpit pre-control project of a well-known car company as an example, and said helplessly to reporters.

 

To curb the chaos of core replacement, it is necessary to cooperate with many parties

 

The chaos in the field of intelligent driving has touched the bottom line of the healthy development of the automobile industry, and it is urgent to solve this problem. In the view of the industry, to build a fair competition, standardized and orderly market environment, the government, industry organizations and enterprises need to work together to form a governance system that attaches equal importance to supervision and self-discipline, innovation and quality.
First of all, the relevant government departments should speed up the improvement of relevant policies and regulations, clarify the application standards of vehicle regulation and industrial grade chips in the automotive industry, and formulate severe penalties for the illegal use of industrial grade chips to replace vehicle regulation chips, and effectively increase the cost of violations. At the same time, the relevant departments also need to strengthen the supervision of the "price war" in the automotive industry, establish and improve the price monitoring and early warning mechanism, and immediately investigate and deal with unfair acts such as low-price competition once found.

 

In addition, in terms of the supervision of parts suppliers, the government should strengthen the audit of suppliers' qualifications, regulate the market access threshold, and prevent suppliers that do not meet quality standards from entering the market. Suppliers that supply goods below cost and disturb market order shall be punished according to law. At the same time, the state should also regulate the investment attracting behavior of local governments, avoid excessive intervention in market competition by local governments in pursuit of short-term political achievements, and create a fair and just market environment for car companies and parts suppliers.

 

Industry associations also play an important role in promoting industry self-regulation and standard-setting. The person in charge of the above automotive chip supplier pointed out that the industry association should strengthen the management and supervision of member enterprises, establish an industry credit evaluation system, publicize and punish non-compliant enterprises, and guide enterprises to consciously comply with industry norms. In addition, the industry association should also actively participate in the formulation of technical standards and norms for the intelligent driving industry, organize enterprises to carry out technical exchanges and cooperation, jointly overcome the key technical problems in the field of intelligent driving, and promote the industry's technological progress and product quality improvement.

 

For auto companies and parts suppliers, it is urgent to establish a sustainable development strategy and build a dual-driven development model of quality technology. Enterprises need to completely abandon the "short and quick" profit-seeking thinking, the core technology research and quality system construction as the strategic cornerstone of building long-term competitiveness. Specifically, vehicle enterprises should list the research and development of intelligent driving technology as a strategic level investment direction, concentrate resources to break through the "jam neck" technology such as vehicle gage chip and perception algorithm, and establish a full chain technology management system covering research and development verification and production quality control; Parts suppliers need to return to the essence of value creation, expand the market through differentiated competitive strategies such as process optimization, material upgrading, and service deepening, and eliminate low-price competition at the expense of quality.

 

The person in charge of a well-known car company said: "We are well aware that the healthy development of the intelligent driving industry cannot be separated from fair competition and a standardized and orderly market environment. Therefore, we always adhere to quality standards and ethical bottom line, do not participate in low-price competition and chip replacement and other violations. At the same time, we are also actively cooperating with suppliers, universities and scientific research institutions to jointly promote the development and innovation of intelligent driving technology."

 

Intelligent driving, as the strategic commanding point of the transformation of the global automobile industry, not only carries the historical mission of improving traffic operation efficiency and reconstructing the travel service ecology, but also becomes the core yardrod to measure the modernization degree of the national automobile industry. To achieve this strategic goal, it is necessary to build a "trinity" governance system of government supervision, industry self-discipline and enterprise innovation. Only by forming a collaborative governance framework of "rule of law supervision, standardization guidance, and market-driven" can we effectively crack the industry chaos and escort the intelligent driving industry to develop in a standardized, orderly, and sustainable direction.

 

Originally published by China Automotive News, April 2, 2025