The 2019 China-SAE Congress and Exhibition will be held in Shanghai, China, from October 22nd, 2019

The 2019 China-SAE Congress and Exhibition will be held in Shanghai, China, from October 22^nd to the 24^th, 2019. The event will highlight the rapid strides China’s automotive industry has made over the recent past. According to the show organizers, the automotive industry in China has been developing rapidly since the new era, and has ranked first in the world for eight consecutive years in both annual vehicle sales and production. In 2017, each of sales and production topped about 30 million units. And it is estimated that by 2030, China’s Car Parc will increase from 200 million to 500 million units. With its largest sales and production, high growth rate and great development potential, China’s automotive industry is becoming more important in global automotive industry. 

“In the meantime, the automotive industry in China is shifting from speed-oriented growth to quality-oriented growth, and promoting a green, harmonious, healthy and sustainable development that takes low carbon, electrification and automation as future directions. The Chinese government has issued related policies including The Medium and Long-term Development Plan for Automotive Industry, Technology Roadmap for Energy Saving and New Energy Vehicles, and Parallel Management Method of Average Fuel Consumption Credit and New Energy Vehicle Credit for Passenger Car Enterprises (“Dual-Credit” policy) to support and guide the development of New Energy Vehicles (NEV) and Intelligent and Connected Vehicles (ICV),” says a press statement from the organizers . 

The 2019 China-SAE Congress and Exhibition is co-organized by the China Society of Automotive Engineers and FISITA. The latter is the international federation linking the national automotive engineering societies in 37 countries. The 2019 China-SAE event will focus on the opportunities and challenges of NEV and ICV to discuss a variety of topics: the integration of NEV with renewable energies, the mobility and sharing economy for the industrialization of NEV, the challenges of “Dual-Credit” policy for OEMs, the making of policies and regulations for ICV, how to create a policy environment in favour of ICV, and how to promote an innovative development of ICV technologies through competition and cooperation.

“Adhering to the concept of “Developing the industry on the platform set up by China SAE”, the China SAE Congress & Exhibition (SAECCE) insists on the format of combining congress exchanges and technical exhibition concurrently together under the same theme. After 25 times of development, it has been one of the best opportunities for the global auto industry to understand China, a wonderful arena for Chinese automotive industry to display its technical achievement, as well as a platform for technical exchanges and showcasing that is one of the biggest in scale and the most acknowledged by the whole industry. The 2019 SAECCE will be held in October. Academicians, senior executives, and top experts will discuss heated topics in the ways such as high-level panel sessions, Academician Forum, special sessions and paper presentations, so as to guide the further development of future pioneering technologies. The congress is expected to attract over 3,200 attendees, Whilst the Concurrent exhibition will cover an area of over 16,000m²,” says a press statement from the China-SAE organizers.

At the event, the RAO BIN Medal of China Automobile Industry will be awarded. This award is given to entrepreneurs who have contributed to the development of the Chinese automobile industry. “The establishment of RAO BIN Medal aims to set up a role model within the automobile industry, to encourage the hard work of Chinese automotive insiders to fight for the independent and advanced development of the industry, so as to enhance the improvement of China automobile industry in all sectors including strategy, technology, management and culture,” says the China-SAE.

The RAO BIN Medal is hosted by SAE-China with special support from Beijing China Automobile Culture Foundation. In 2015 when the Award was first launched, it received extensive attention from all walks of the society. By soliciting opinions extensively from former leaders of the previous national Ministry of Machinery Industry, experts from organizations including SAE-China, China Association Of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC), Automotive Industry Committee of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, China Automotive News and China Auto Talents Society, the organizing committee has conducted thorough discussions on the candidates of this award, and the laureates were selected carefully according to the procedures.

Automotive Industries spoke to Zhang Jinhua, Executive Vice Chairman and Secretary General of China Society of Automotive Engineers（China SAE）

AI: What are some of the major breakthroughs from Chinese automotive manufacturers in the field of ‘green’ technologies?

Thank you for your question. In 2016, commissioned by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of PRC and led by SAE-China, over a thousand experts of the automobile industry were organized to prepare the Route Map of Energy Conservation and New Energy Vehicle Technology (hereinafter referred to as Route Map). The Route Map, attracting extensive attention from domestic and foreign automobile industry and related industries when it was released, clarifies 7 routes including energy conservation automobile, BEV and PHEV, HFCV, ICV, automobile manufacturing, power battery and lightweight of vehicles. These technological routes all highlight and enhance the position and significance of “green” technology in automobile manufacturing to varying degrees. They also indicate from another aspect that China pays close attention to “green” technology and sustainable development of the automobile industry in 7 fields above.

In addition, SAE-China has organized experts this year to revise the first edition of the Route Map, with the aim to adjust and improve the goals and plans proposed in the first edition and extend the 7 routes to 9 routes in the second edition of the Route Map. The second edition will be issued in early 2020.

AI: Similarly, what kind of impetus has autonomous and connected car technologies received in China?

In China, we prefer to call self-driving and connected vehicle ICV (intelligent and connected vehicle). In terms of the development of ICV in China, I personally think there are some innate advantages. China’s Internet technology, 5G communication technology and map positioning technology are in the leading position worldwide, which provides a good market application environment for the application and promotion of ICV technologies in China; vehicle and parts enterprises in China such as DFM, SAIC, GAC, Geely and many other independent brand car enterprises attach great importance to the development and application of the Intelligent networking technologies. In recent years, all of their models on the market are equipped with ADAS or L2-level of ICV technologies, enjoying a fast promotion speed of industrialization; in addition, the Chinese government is also very supportive of the development and settlement of ICV technologies, firstly approved the establishment of Beijing ICV Industry Innovation Center, positioning it as the National ICV Innovation Center, focusing on the national strategic needs and the basic and common problems leading the development of the industry, and providing basic modules and common platforms for China ICV to build a new industrial ecological innovation system. At the same time, it has given great support to the development of ICV technologies at the policy level, including setting up closed demonstration zones and public testing roads in multiple areas.

AI: How do you predict the Chinese auto industry will be positioned in terms of the cars of the future?

At present, the production, sales and holding volume of new energy vehicles in China account for more than half of the total worldwide, making it a genuine vehicle giant in the world. Since July last year, influenced by the macroeconomic environment and other factors, the production and sales of vehicles have declined for the first time in 28 years. Although the decline has slowed down in the last two months, the industry as a whole is still under great pressure. Everyone knows that 2019 is a challenging year for the global vehicle market. Of course, this is also the only way for the development of the industry, from quantitative change to qualitative change.

China’s automobile industry pays more attention to the R&D of and investments in core technologies. Especially in the field of new energy vehicles and ICV, all automobile enterprises and automotive part enterprises have invested a lot of energy, manpower and financial resources in their research and development. In the future, China’s automobile industry and the international automobile industry will be closely connected with each other. China’s automobile market is also the world’s market. China and the world will be interconnected in terms of the technology, talents, output and sales in automobile industry. They will learn from each other and promote each other in different areas of technology. In the future, China’s automobile market will be a more open and active international stage.

AI: What kind of participation is the 2019 China-SAE expected to attract?

SAECCE has been successfully held for 25 sessions since 1963. The expected scale of SAECCE this year is as follows:

• 1 academician forum; 2 top interviews; 2 closed-door summits;
• 3 plenary meeting (including C-end media salon);
• 5 academicians of the industry; 20+ CTOs of automobile enterprise; 20+ CTOs of automotive part enterprises;
• 21 technical sessions, 52 special sessions, 500+ technical seminars;
• 80+ professional media will be attracted to report (including CCTV, People.cn, China Automotive News and Autohome);
• More than 3,000 technical professionals from automobile industries and the related industries will attend.
• A technology exhibition of 30,000 square meters, more than 20,000 professional visitors.

AI: Tell us a little about the highlights of this year’s event.
In this annual meeting, we will be committed to the industrial and positioning technologies all while preparing and planning diversified activities aforementioned. Concretely,

iTAC has invited numerous CTOs and CEOs from world-renowned OEMs and components companies, as well as heads of industrial organizations and research institutes like FISITA to attend the meeting, through which iTAC has endeavored to develop a think-tank platform with worldwide tech pundits as the core to contribute central advice to the development of the automobile industry in China and across the globe.

Since 2009, the Closed-door Chinese Technical Leaders （CTO） Summit has invited directors of the technology centers of main finished automobile & components enterprises to get involved. On the summit, attendees have discussed the thorny problems encountered in the development of China’s automobile industry and of individual enterprises, and eventually released the technology declaration. Therefore, the summit has been functioning as a platform for domestic automotive technology leaders to exchange ideas.

On the Opening Ceremony, we have invited industrial academicians, CTOs from automobile enterprises, energy enterprises, transportation service providers and suppliers of intelligent networking technology to deliver their keynote speeches and perform interactive discussions on new energy, intelligent networking and shared transportation, which are expected to inspire some suggestions and opinions for the future development of the industry.

On the Academician Forum, industrial academicians and enterprise seniors have been invited to make their keynote speeches on “collaborative innovation and industrial integration”

The press conference on automobile aims to give play to the media advantage, so as to close the gap between finished automobile enterprise and customers, and promote the connection between technology and demand.