Over 95% of China's automotive sensor market share is in the hands of foreign companies?

"Over 95% of China's automotive sensor market share is in the hands of foreign-funded enterprises," "The entire vehicle company and ECU manufacturers would rather give Bosch several million yuan in research and development expenses, and they are reluctant to use domestic sensors," and "China is now basic." Still relying on imitating foreign countries, the scale of the company is also small, and products cannot enter the mainstream market..."

At a variety of trade shows such as internal-combustion engine exhibitions and parts exhibitions, we often see such a phenomenon: the central position of the exhibition center is always dominated by multinational giants such as Bosch. The exhibition booth is luxurious and the people at the front desk shake; Some small booths on the edge of the venue are rather shabby and deserted. Often, the space is only enough for a table and a small amount of exhibits. Two or three staff members look forward to the crowds in the stadium because nobody cares.

In these small booths, there are no shortage of local automotive sensor companies. They are practical, diligent, and tireless in R&D and production. However, they have always been hard to get the attention of supporting manufacturers. They see that the demand for sensors has increased as much as nuclear fission, but they can only The tempting cake in the domestic market makes it so appealing.

"hollowing out"

“The development of intelligent and electronic vehicles is inseparable from sensors.” Wei Anli, deputy secretary-general of the China Internal Combustion Engine Industry Association, told the reporter that taking the automotive engine as an example, sensors such as brakes, addition and subtraction, and rotation speeds need sensors to obtain signals. Then, it is passed to the engine's brain, ECU (central processing unit), and the ECU notifies the various action departments according to a pre-determined manner to cooperate with the implementation. In terms of image, the sensor is equivalent to human eyes, nose, and ears. The signal is captured and sent to the brain. The brain then dominates the hands and feet to run and jump.

"The modern internal combustion engine is already alive with a network and nerves, and the sensor is the nerve ending of the engine." Wei Anli said. In fact, in addition to the power system, sensors are also widely used in safety management systems and body comfort systems. Especially in the increasingly upgraded emissions regulations and the increasingly high degree of automatic driving, sensors related to exhaust gas treatment and autopilot are more applicable. It is the focus of the industry.

It can be said that there is no modern car without sensor technology, which means that the more developed and automated the car is, the greater the dependency on the sensor. The data shows that about a dozen sensors are installed on an ordinary family car, and the number of sensors on luxury cars is as many as several hundred. There is no doubt that the number of sensors on the car in the future will also increase at a geometric multiple.

As the world’s largest auto market, China is a fertile ground for sensor development. In recent years, the market capacity has expanded dramatically. Experts agree that the Chinese sensor market is entering a period of vigorous development.

Unfortunately, compared with foreign sensor industries, China's automotive sensors have not yet formed an independent industry.

“The domestic sensor market has a demand of one trillion yuan, and the annual import amount is not less than 170 billion RMB. Such a large volume is mostly occupied by international component giants such as Siemens, Bosch, and Honeywell. Most of them can only do low-end products such as water temperature and pressure sensors, and some high-tech products such as nitrogen oxide sensors that must be used for exhaust gas treatment in the country's five or six emission stages are still totally dependent on imports. Imagination can't be understood if I want to imitate.” Li Songlin, general manager of Jilin Province Dewo Si Automotive Electronic Components Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Dervos”) reluctantly said.

Xue Zuxing, senior strategic consultant of Wuxi Longsheng Technology Co., Ltd. agreed with this. “Indeed, most domestic sensors have a certain gap between quality and foreign products, and it is difficult to enter the mainstream market. Usually, they are exported to foreign low-maintenance maintenance markets. Used for temporary replacement."

"Weak industry base," "low level of product technology," "the lack of product types," and "poor corporate product development capabilities," are some of the high-frequency words that reporters often hear in interviews. The summary of Wei Anli's words is: Currently, the “hollowing out” of the domestic sensor industry is very obvious, mainly reflected in two aspects: First, the sensor's internal chip technology is in the hands of foreign investors, and the second is that this core component is in China's automobile industry chain. The overall weakness is even missing.

Development encounters

Why China is a large country with strong demand for sensors, but not a strong country for R&D? Wei Anli spoke sharply and pointedly: The start was late.

Prior to this, China’s involvement in sensors was more generalized in terms of daily necessities, and there were too few specializations in the automotive field. When domestic vehicle ownership reached 20 million to 30 million vehicles, the country’s people realized the importance of sensors. Has been occupied by foreign-funded enterprises.

How late is the domestic research start in this field? It is understood that taking the nitrogen oxide sensor as an example, Bosch began research and development as early as 30 years ago. Even if it starts late in the country for more than 20 years, why can domestic companies still be helpless in the face of its annual growth rate of 30%? Li Songlin frankly stated: “Lack of capital investment. I personally have several invention patents for sensor technology, especially non-contact electronic gear switching technology, which fills the gaps in this field in China, but can only lie there to sleep due to financial problems.”

Li Songlin told reporters that the R&D investment of sensors is frequently tens of millions or even hundreds of millions. Generally speaking, privately-owned small enterprises do not have this financial strength, and they lack financing channels. They can only rely on their own modest profits to invest intermittently. “After investing in funds, the industry did not see results in 7-8 years. However, capital is profit-driven. Investors can't wait to invest in tomorrow to make profits, so no one is willing to invest in us. Here."

“Even if we have worked hard to develop products, domestic companies can experience extremely low levels of practical application,” said Song Xibin, deputy general manager of Shandong Guogu Functional Materials Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “China Porcelain”). In the application, the sensor must be matched with the engine and the entire calibration system. However, the domestic system and equipment at this stage are seriously lagging behind. This leads companies to fail to truly understand the follow-up product's consistency and reliability and how to improve it. Sometimes it is considered that products that have no problem will fail when they reach the customer, and ultimately make customers lose confidence in domestic sensors.

“Whole vehicle companies are reluctant to bear the risk of using domestic sensors. You want a sensor to cost tens of dollars. The vehicle test costs hundreds of thousands of yuan. Who would be willing to spend hundreds of thousands and a long time to test a few? With ten parts, customers prefer to choose foreign sensors that are more reliable to them, said Song Xibin.

In addition to the lack of passive application support, domestic companies also need to change their quality management concepts. “Some technical levels have been achieved, but stable production cannot be guaranteed. For example, some Japanese companies use sensors for automotive and consumer electronics production. There are two sets of management systems, but most of them are the same quality management system and the same batch of management personnel, so the products produced are often difficult to meet the automotive requirements for stability, reliability and matching.” Song Xibin said.

Without financial support, the company has been struggling, and the products it developed cannot be approved by customers. The worrying sales of products have made further research and development unsustainable.

This is a true portrayal of the status quo of a large number of weak, small, scattered and chaotic sensor companies in China. Most companies are struggling in such a vicious cycle.

Grasping the foundation and doing the industrial scale

"In its industry, it has been discussed that the cost of purchasing such a small sensor is not high. Should we not do it ourselves? However, it seems that the Beidou satellite navigation system developed by us has become more and more widely used." Wei Anli It seems that our country must establish its own perfect network communication system. The key area of ​​the sensor must not be false hands.

Wei Anli told reporters that the fact that cannot be ignored is that in recent years, a number of outstanding companies have emerged in the domestic sensor field. For example, Guo porcelain, which is known for providing basic materials for sensors and electronics, is an important supplier to many large manufacturers in the world. Commercially, especially barium titanate materials can account for 40% of the world market share; Changzhou Liande Electronics Co., Ltd.'s sensors have been in the world advanced level in similar products and have been widely used in Iran; Dewo Si seized electric vehicles. Opportunities for development, high-precision current sensors for BMS power monitoring developed by the company have independent intellectual property rights, and the performance can compete with Swiss Lime products.

“This year, we introduced an automated assembly line from Europe to achieve unmanned assembly of products and avoid man-made failures. The consistency and reliability of our products have been greatly improved and we can achieve zero defect in assembly.” Ningbo Yinzhou Yonglin Wang Linhu, chairman of Electronic and Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Winglin”), told reporters that Bosch is still a manual and semi-automatic assembly line. At this point, Yonglin even walked in front of Bosch. He pointed out that Yonglin has a more proactive and meticulous after-sales service than Bosch, and it will not be as costly as a foreign-funded enterprise to collect millions of development fees. “If vehicle companies and engine plants give us a chance, they will find The advantages of domestic sensors."

In addition to the more application opportunities for domestic sensors, in Wei Anli's view, it is more important to focus on basic research and industry scale.

The state should increase its emphasis and support in this area. Decentralized, sesame-salt investment is definitely not acceptable. It is necessary to select leading companies in the industry, continue to invest and give priority to their basic research, and then they must be excellent. Companies drive the scale effect of other companies.

“This is a natural law: China is the second largest economy in the world. In such an era of information and intelligence, how can we give up signal capture to such an important link? It is nothing more than fast and slow. In fact, in the driverless, mixed Power and many innovative fields, domestic sensors still have a lot of opportunities to break through. I believe that there are now a group of young entrepreneurs with a lot of momentum, the day the sensor will recover a large area of ​​domestic sensors will soon come.” Wei Anli said.