When talking about the strength of R&D of automotive industry in Taiwan, the first one to highlight is the ARTC. ARTC, which has enormous resources of R&D and related testing facilities, is located in Changhua Coastal Park, Lukang, Changhua. In the afternoon of July 4th, editors of Auto Future came to the stronghold of automotive technology development in Taiwan - ARTC, which covers an area of 129 hectares, to interview Mr. Long-Zhou Huang (Joe), who was in charge of the general manager position since 2000, then was promoted to chairman in 2019, to discuss about ARTC’s development in the past 20 years and the R&D blueprint toward the new century of the automotive future.
Chairman Huang introduces ARTC by the timeline starting from the establishment 32 years ago, and every phase reflects the situation of automotive industry in Taiwan at the same period of time…
- After moving from Hukou to the newly built site in the Changhua Coastal Park in 2000, ARTC then began building fundamental infrastructures of experiment labs and verification facilities. That time period is the start of accumulating capabilities of R&D and testing, which is called “The first stage of environment establishment”. The investment project of key fundamental infrastructures including high-speed track (commonly known as the bowl-shaped track), real car crash test lab, EMC lab, etc., were finished successively in the years after. As these constructions were finished, the test lab teams of ARTC began seeking for the certification from international carmakers and the cooperation with international verification institutions, so as to help domestic supply chains of automotive industry to enter the global market directly. This one-stop service for automotive industry from synergic design, transferring of technologies, testing and verification, homologation of exports, etc., had increased the value of ARTC to the level of the counselor of the industry. These “two feet” including the construction of fundamental infrastructures and the cooperation system of international certification has gained a foothold during the period of the first stage at that time.
- In 2006, in order to respond to the “Whole-vehicle locally Independent Technology Build-up Project” proposed by the MoEA, Chairman Huang, the general manager at that time, formed the dept. of R&D to kickoff the development plan of key technologies. The R&D works that helps upgrading the industry including optical design, analysis of engineering, and automotive electronics, etc., In 2011, ARTC began the three-year construction of “The second stage of environment establishment” to go all in on building up the capabilities of testing and verification of intelligent BEVs. In the next coming years, ARTC provided extensive and substantial help for the supply chain in Taiwan in the fields of intellectualization and electrification, including motors, batteries, BMS, charging ports, wireless charging of BEVs, and ADAS-related ACC, AEB, etc., had substantial achievements of commercialization. As for the comprehensive testing infrastructures of power batteries, it’s currently under construction by the BSMI, MoEA in Tongluo, Miaoli, which needs another 2 years until the start of operation.
- In 2015, ARTC noticed that the future of automotive new technology will move toward fully-autonomous driving that combines 3 major key technologies (connected, electrified, and intelligent oriented), so they integrate all related R&D achievements and companies to establish “The league of autonomous driving industry” in 2018, and then built the all-new steering-wheel-less electric autonomous driving bus – the WinBus, with the local R&D resources that accounts for 80% local content rate. Chairman Huang pointed out that everything on the WinBus excluding LiDAR and ACC feature was completed by members in the league independently, including the autonomous driving AI algorithm, HD maps, batteries, motor, chassis, HMI, design and production of interior and exterior. By the way… after the interview with Chairman Huang, we took a ride on the WinBus in the site with the companion of ARTC’s personnel, and it shows that it has the outstanding potential to be further developed into mass-produced product. The design of WinBus impressed us by it’s fully symmetrical in both front and rear end, the circular seats arrangement (there’s no driver seat anymore), and the stable autonomous driving performance. Due to the birth of this car, the fundamental development platform of autonomous driving system of Taiwan has been well-prepared; Lio Ho Machine Works is currently transferring the technologies from this platform to develop its own autonomous driving vehicles with different body style , and CMC is also utilizing the resources from this platform to develop the autonomous driving features on their logistic vehicles. Another startup company named Optimal Mobility Intelligence will be a joint-venture of ARTC and USA’s Optimal-EV (low-floor electric bus manufacturer) that begin operating in August in Detroit, and they will also establish a branch office in Wuri, Taichung. ARTC plays a role of technology share, so they will utilize the experience of the WinBus development to help conducting the transferring of technologies and patents; they will promote the local supply chain of autonomous driving during the process of commercialization, and there are some companies had been listed in the new models developing project including Chimei Motor and so on. ARTC is about to complete the second WinBus, and they will start the R&D works on platooning with 2 cars, which shows the exclusive benefits of autonomous driving vehicles on public transportation, and it might be the first mass-produced application of technologies for Optimal Mobility Intelligence.
- Due to the potentials of development in “trio electrics”, all-in-one power control systems, smart cockpits, OTA, etc., of Taiwan, and the successful experience of the cooperation with Novatek to develop image processing chips many years ago (undreds of thousands chips sold annually in the car market in China), ARTC cooperates with companies including ELAN Microelectronics, AUO, etc., to form the “League of Automotive AI chips” this March, which focuses on the business opportunities in upstream/midstream/ downstream image processing chips and smart cockpits. At the same time, ARTC started another three-year construction of “The third stage of environment establishment” to establish the capabilities of research, testing and verification of automotive electronics for the next-generation intelligent cars, including the “capabilities of verification for all-in-one power driving and control systems”, “infrastructures of verification for next-generation smart cockpits”, and “full-speed closed verification field for all type of cars” (including the tests for autonomous driving vehicles), so that the “third feet” will be completed. Therefore, ARTC can steadily help traditional automotive industry and new technology companies in Taiwan march to the new century of automotive to seize more business opportunities.
In the end of the interview, I asked Chairman Huang about his opinion on the trend of development of automotive in the future… Chairman Huang assumed that 2030 and 2035 must be the key moment for new energy cars selling up to more than half of new car sales, but “new energy cars” aren’t necessarily all BEVs; because of the technology threshold of the energy density of batteries, hydrogen fuel cell batteries might be another appropriate option. In addition, for local car assembly factories, it’s the essential first step to strive for the authorization of producing new BEVs from OEMs; And the supply chains promoted by Foxconn’s BEV business will be led to car manufacturing factories overseas to form new business opportunities. As for key components of new technology including the “trio electrics”, chips, etc., Chairman Huang also suggests the government to provide incentive schemes to encourage companies to develop locally to keep achievements in Taiwan so that the upgrade and transformation of the whole industry can be accelerated.