news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Source: Chuangyebang (ID: ichuangyebang)

Author: Pan Lei

Editor丨Hai Yao

Image source: midjourney

"We are definitely not as competitive as many Chinese companies, but we are afraid of being abandoned if we don't participate."

At the 2024 DEMO WORLD held by Chuangyebang last month, Wang Xiaoxiao, general manager of Hella Technology, said that she was quite surprised by the speed of innovation in China's smart car industry chain.

Wang Xiaoxiao, General Manager of Hella Technology

She gave an example, saying that everyone had just (transitioned) from fuel vehicles to electric vehicles, and (the braking system) had changed from vacuum pumps to EHB (electronic hydraulic brakes). However, less than two years after EHB was launched, some people in the market started calling for EMB (electronic mechanical brakes).

This is difficult for component suppliers: "I just launched a version (of a product), and my neighbor next door has already launched the next version. Should I follow or not?"

Wang Xiaoxiao actually pointed out the technical trajectory of "wire control braking" in her speech - this technology is considered to be one of the core technologies of wire-controlled chassis and is essential for achieving high-level autonomous driving.

But all signs indicate that the phenomenon that bothers her is still happening.

On July 10, Beijing West Group, a global Tier 1 in the braking field, announced that it will officially mass-produce EMB in 2026.

Jingxi Group's electronic mechanical brake system EMB sample

Jingxi said in an official press release that it has secured strategic cooperation projects from Kaiyi Auto and Yopao Technology.

Prior to this, Jingxi and ThyssenKrupp reached a cooperation to promote the implementation of the EMB production line in 2025 and start mass production for customers in the second half of 2026.

This has pushed the domestic EMB competition to a fierce level - EMB developers, including Tier 1 and start-ups, have made the track seem a bit crowded.

According to Xiong Shusheng, professor at the Institute of Vehicle Technology of Zhejiang University and visiting professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, EMB will experience explosive growth in the next decade and occupy about 20% of the global braking market worth hundreds of billions of RMB.

This means that the market size of EMB alone has reached 20 billion yuan.

The final piece of the puzzle for autonomous driving

"Tesla will not launch a 'facelift' version of the Model Y this year".

Elon Musk recently said in an interaction with netizens that Tesla will continue to upgrade and optimize existing models through OTA, rather than simply making so-called "model changes."

As a model that has been on the market for more than four years, its global sales exceeded 1.22 million units last year.

The benefits of Tesla's "software-defined cars" and the electronic and electrical architecture behind them are becoming increasingly recognized.

From the perspective of OEMs, hardware will inevitably move towards standardization or modularization in the future, and the differentiated value of automobiles will be more reflected in the software level.

This is the case with the smartphone industry.

For links like chips, flash memory, or foundry, prices are transparent and there is no magic.

The only product strength that can distinguish one mobile phone brand from other brands is software.

For example, Huawei has Hongmeng, and Apple has iOS.

Based on these software, various ecological services have been derived, such as entertainment applications, forming a new business model, that is, making money by selling software, functions, and services.

There is a similar trend in smart cars.

If car companies want to make differentiated products, they must take control of software sovereignty related to product strength.

This has given rise to a phenomenon where OEMs are seeking to decouple software and hardware, that is, separate software and hardware.

After car companies achieve the separation of software and hardware through a centralized electronic and electrical architecture of central computing + domain controller, they can choose hardware suppliers more flexibly, thereby improving development efficiency and reducing costs.

The most important thing is high-level autonomous driving.

Because high-level autonomous driving must have multiple safety redundancies and faster response speeds in key links such as braking.

This makes it necessary to use a wire-controlled structure to replace the previous large, complex and inefficient mechanical structure.

Therefore, autonomous driving above L3 relies on a wire-controlled chassis, and EMB is the core component of the wire-controlled chassis, which can provide more precise vehicle control.

Doug Carson, CTO of Jingxi Group, said that Jingxi's EMB system's wheel locking speed is twice as fast as 1-Box and 2-Box braking systems, and the four wheels are independently controlled.

Doug Carson, CTO of Jingxi Group

This means that even if the EMB of one wheel fails, the other three can still provide braking function.

After EMB is integrated with the autonomous driving system, in addition to integrating functions such as AEB, it can also better integrate information from sensors such as lidar and cameras to enhance vehicle perception capabilities.

Moreover, after the introduction of AI algorithms, EMB can continue to learn the driver's driving style.

At the same time, EMB is plug-and-play, which naturally promotes the integration of software and hardware systems in smart cars.

This is also the biggest reason why Tier 1 companies, including Jingxi Group, are keen on launching EMB.

By mastering EMB and making the braking system fully electronic, we have solved the key link of the wire-controlled chassis and kept up with the general trend of autonomous driving.

EMB is therefore called the "ultimate solution" in the field of automotive braking, or the "last piece of the puzzle" for autonomous driving.

No car company dares to miss EMB

When EMB was seen as a technology that could revolutionize braking systems, no one wanted to miss this opportunity, and no one dared to miss this opportunity.

Zheng Jieliang, global CEO of Jingxi Group, said that the core value of smart cars in the next decade will be high-level autonomous driving and smart cockpits.

EMB can meet the needs of high-level autonomous driving, while Jingxi’s other core product, wire-controlled suspension, can meet the needs of comfort, controllability and smart cockpit.

For example, one of the customers announced by Jingxi Group, "Youpao Technology", is a developer of wire-controlled chassis.

In addition, EMB may provide Chinese suppliers with an opportunity to "change lanes and overtake".

Before EMB, the braking system was generally the preserve of a few Tier 1 manufacturers.

Take Bosch as an example. For quite a long time, it has been synonymous with chassis and braking systems.

ESP (Electronic Stability Program) launched by Bosch generally appeared in car companies' promotional posters in the past few years to prove the safety of the car.

This is similar to the "Intel inside" in computer advertisements.

In the era of vacuum pumps for brake systems, Bosch is the leader in this field.

Currently, EHB is gaining popularity, and Bosch's related product iBooster has a global market share of up to 90%.

iBooster

But EMB is different.

Although Bosch, Continental and ZF still have advantages, Chinese companies should not be underestimated.

Judging from the information released by various companies so far, Chinese EMB developers are relatively ahead in terms of product implementation progress.

Jingxi Group plans to put EMB into mass production in 2026.

"Coordinate System", a wire control brake developer established in 2023, has deployed a factory in Suzhou. It is said that it will be ready for EMB mass production by the end of this year, and has obtained orders for Dongfeng Fengxing and Dongfeng Lantu.

Huashen Ruili completed the CV (proof of concept) sample testing in 2023.

Another company that attracted attention was Jiongyi Electronics, which completed its second round of winter testing at the beginning of this year.

Tongyu Technology, Qiangu Technology and others are also stockpiling EMB-related technologies.

Relatively speaking, except for ZF which released four rounds of EMB plans at the end of last year, most of the international Tier 1 manufacturers have not yet announced the EMB implementation nodes.

This may be related to the situation mentioned by Wang Xiaoxiao earlier.

She said that traditional Tier 1 generally follows the rule of launching one generation, developing one generation, and reserving one generation.

However, the rapid iteration of China's smart car industry chain has made this rhythm no longer so effective.

"Originally, Tier 1 could use the money earned from launching one generation of products to slowly develop the next generation, forming a cycle, which could also continue to maintain the motivation for innovation," she said, but now things have changed.

"When the traditional Tier 1 company has just launched one generation of products, its next-door neighbor has already launched the next generation, so there is no way to recoup the investment in R&D and equipment."

If the traditional Tier 1 does not keep up with the iterative process of its competitors, its leading position will be lost, "which makes traditional component suppliers very conflicted."

Chinese car companies

Or leave behind European and American car companies for two to three years

Although Chinese automakers are competing to launch new features to attract users, thereby putting tremendous pressure on Tier 1, Doug Carlson believes that this is common in the automotive industry.

In his view, Tier 1 means making the right innovations and launching the right technologies at the right time.

It is true that the pace of innovation in the Chinese auto market is very fast, and this is certainly a challenge.

But it is also an opportunity for Tier 1.

Specifically speaking of EMB, he believes that Jingxi has been developing EMB technology for nearly 25 years, and "now is the best time to launch EMB into the market."

He also stressed the importance of safety performance.

"Ensuring that EMB is activated when we need it is not a problem. The biggest challenge is to ensure that this product does not start when we don't need it," he said. Jingxi spends a lot of time on research and development and does a lot of testing to ensure safety.

He also believes that China is the best market to first implement EMB.

"Because China has the largest number of electric vehicles (in the world), and EMB is an indispensable part of electric vehicles," he said, and a major characteristic of Chinese users is that they are very receptive to new technologies.

But for European and American automakers, the situation may be different.

"Of course they are interested in EMB," he said, but considering the "more traditional" development cycle of these automakers, it will be 2-3 years later than the Chinese market before they can adopt this technology.

This "more traditional" development cycle is related to the R&D rhythm mentioned by Wang Xiaoxiao - launch one generation first, develop another generation after making a profit, and reserve the next generation at the same time.

Doug Carlson also gave his views on the EMB-related startups that have appeared in the market in recent years.

"It's one thing to put a new technology on a small number of cars and show it to the world," he said, but it's another thing to mass-produce a product with reliable quality and excellent performance and deliver it to customers every day for four or five years.

EMB is on the eve of mass production

From a policy perspective, EMB does seem to be on the eve of mass production.

Earlier this year, the industry body China Association of Automobile Manufacturers organized the "EMB Passenger Car Standard Launch Meeting" and plans to release relevant standards within the year.

In April, China Automotive Research Institute and China Automotive Standardization Institute also held a communication meeting on the wire control brake standards.

In addition, the draft version of the revised European standard on EMB has been completed and will be officially released next year.

At least from a policy perspective, EMB is an inevitable trend.

Investors have begun to flock to this highly-watched track.

Taking Coordinate System as an example, it has completed three rounds of financing in less than a year.

The company's latest round of financing was completed at the end of March, with Northern Light Venture Capital investing RMB 50 million.

In less than three years, Huashen Ruili has completed three rounds of financing.

In addition, companies like Qiangu Technology also completed a new round of financing this year.

Jingxi Zhixing Zhangjiakou Automotive Electronics Co., Ltd. also completed a round of A round of financing of up to RMB 2 billion in June last year. The round of financing was led by Zhangjiakou Financial Holdings and followed by institutions such as Marble Global Capital and Hillhouse Capital.

Last year, West China Securities predicted that by 2025, the global market size of the five major systems of wire-controlled chassis is expected to reach 175.7 billion yuan, among which wire-controlled braking will be the first to start a new cycle.