As the fourth industrial revolution sweeps the world, China's auto industry is undergoing a historic transformation from "market for technology" to "technology for brand". As the leader of this transformation, Great Wall Motors has established a unique innovation coordinate system in the fields of intelligent driving, new energy technology, and global layout with its strategic determination for 20 years. While people are still discussing the possibility of "overtaking on a curve", Great Wall Motors has already written a new narrative of high-quality development of China's auto industry with its breakthrough in intelligent driving technology from "parking space to parking space", technological upgrade of Hi4 hybrid system, and industrial accumulation of the Chongqing Yongchuan million-vehicle production base.
On February 26, 2025, Wei Jianjun, Chairman of Great Wall Motors, and Wei-branded Alpine completed an epic technical verification in Chongqing, known as the "smart driving college entrance examination venue". Facing 12 three-dimensional traffic mazes such as Xingguang Interchange and Panlong Interchange, as well as three-story underground parking lots, unprotected left turns, narrow road encounters and other extreme scenarios, the Coffee Pilot Ultra system equipped in the new Alpine achieved a seamless operation from getting on the car to parking. This breakthrough not only marks the entry of the "parking space to parking space" function into the practical stage, but also reveals the evolutionary logic of China's smart driving technology from the laboratory to the user scenario.
Technological innovation: Reaching new heights of intelligent driving in the 8D Magic Mountain City
Chongqing's complex road conditions are a touchstone for global intelligent driving technology. This mountain city is famous for its 8D magic overpass. The overlapping and staggered Panlong overpass forms a "Chinese knot"-style traffic maze, and the five-layer three-dimensional structure makes traditional navigation systems daunting; the Nanshan hairpin bend has a large curvature of nearly 180 degrees, with an extreme scene density of 3.8 sharp turns and 2.6 steep slopes per kilometer, which puts a severe test on the vehicle's global path planning and real-time decision-making capabilities. What is even more breathtaking is the high-frequency game with the "yellow Ferrari", with an average of 1.2 close overtaking and lane changes per minute, requiring the intelligent driving system to have the prediction and reaction capabilities of human-like driving.
In this hellish challenge, Great Wall's technological breakthroughs demonstrated multi-dimensional innovation. In terms of perception, the 360-degree all-around perception network constructed by 27 sensors increased the density of the LiDAR point cloud to 2,000 points per square meter, making even 10-centimeter-level moving objects invisible.
In terms of decision-making capabilities, the SEE end-to-end large model compresses the decision delay to 80 milliseconds. In the gate passage scenario, the vehicle completes the entire process from identity recognition, path planning to precise passage in just 2 seconds.
In terms of control accuracy, the 150-meter beyond-visual-range prediction capability based on BEV perception increases the steering success rate to 95%, and the lateral control error on large-curvature curves is less than 5 centimeters, comparable to the operating level of professional drivers.
This technological breakthrough directly translates into user value. Whether it is shuttling through the three-story underground parking lot or dealing with the continuous curves of the cross-river bridge, users do not need to take over the steering wheel frequently, truly realizing the "relax as soon as you get in the car" travel experience.
In terms of safety, the intelligent intervention of the four-wheel drive system reduces the accident rate by 50%, and the fatigue monitoring system can warn of potential risks 15 seconds in advance, building an active safety moat.
The more profound significance lies in that the full-series standard configuration strategy means that MPV users do not need to pay an extra premium for smart driving functions, promoting the transformation of smart driving from a "technological luxury" to a "travel necessity", and making technology accessibility a real reality.
In the race of intelligent driving, the choice of technology route often determines the fate of a company. Five years ago, when most companies were obsessed with building digital sieges with high-precision maps, Great Wall Motors foresaw the revolutionary value of the map-free solution as early as 2019. This strategic vision that goes beyond short-term technological dividends has been fully verified in actual combat in Chongqing - in the urban road network with frequent construction and renovation, the pain point of lagging traditional high-precision map updates has been magnified, and the Great Wall map-free solution maintains the map freshness at the "second level" through real-time topology reconstruction, better adapting to the ever-changing traffic changes in Chinese cities.
Technological awakening: from strategic prediction to system reconstruction
Behind the technological awakening is the systematic capability built up with a cumulative R&D investment of over 30 billion yuan. Under the data flywheel effect, the DriveGPT model trained with millions of real-car data enables the system to have experience transfer capabilities, and the learning efficiency of new scenarios is improved by 300%.
The M100 series MCU chip independently developed by Great Wall has compressed the perception-decision-control link delay to 120 milliseconds, reaching the industry-leading level.
Through vertical integration from silicon-based chips to optical components, and from control algorithms to energy management, Great Wall Motors is building an indestructible technological moat.
Technology for Good: Humanistic Theory of Intelligent Evolution
Today, as autonomous driving technology becomes a major trend, the relationship between human driving and autonomous driving is not a black-and-white one. From a higher perspective, Great Wall Motors adheres to the concept of "human-car co-driving" and hopes to build a new relationship of collaborative progress between humans and machines during the rapid development of technology.
When Great Wall Motors reduces the accident rate by 50% by using the intervention of the four-wheel drive system, and when the intelligent cockpit can accurately identify the driver's fatigue state, technology is no longer a cold code, but a warm barrier to protect life. This value orientation of "technology serving people" is perfectly interpreted in the actual test of Chongqing's mountain roads. The system does not mechanically execute the algorithm, but makes humanistic decisions and judgments on sharp bends and steep slopes like experienced local drivers.
Manufacturing upgrade: a sample of industrial transformation in the hinterland of Southwest China
In the wave of a century of change in the automobile industry, Great Wall Motors has moved from the stage of capacity expansion and technological breakthroughs to a full industrial chain reconstruction movement with "intelligence, ecology, and coordination" as the core.
From the "zero-distance supply chain" of the Tianjin Mande project to the "digital twin factory" of the Chongqing Yongchuan base, this company is reshaping the underlying competitiveness of China's manufacturing with a systems engineering mindset.
At the Chongqing Yongchuan production base, the 98% welding automation rate is only a superficial phenomenon. The deeper change lies in the reconstruction of the manufacturing process by data flow. Relying on the "53211 digital transformation strategy", Great Wall Motors will feed back the perception big model and DriveGPT cognitive big model accumulated in the research and development of intelligent driving into the manufacturing field, and build a closed loop of intelligent manufacturing covering "perception-decision-execution".
For example, the AI quality inspection system in the stamping workshop can complete a 360-degree defect scan of parts in 0.8 seconds with micron-level accuracy through 3D NeRF cloud reconstruction technology; the digital twin system of the general assembly line maps the data flow of 3,000 assembly nodes in real time, shortening the order delivery cycle by 30%. This reverse empowerment of migrating intelligent capabilities from the consumer end to the manufacturing end is breaking the traditional boundaries between R&D and production.
The rise of the Chongqing Yongchuan production base is a microcosm of the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing industry.
The Hi4 performance hybrid system equipped in the Alpine series has a stable performance in an extremely cold environment of -30℃, which is not only a strong response to the quality prejudice of "Made in China", but also a positive response to the country's dual-carbon strategy. This practice of deeply integrating industrial layout with the economic development of the southwest region is reshaping the landscape of China's automobile industry. The launch of the new Wei brand Alpine has pushed this manufacturing dimension to a new level.
at last
At that time, the establishment of Tesla's Shanghai Super Factory was regarded as an industry warning of "the wolf is coming", but Great Wall Motors completed the role transformation from student to rival in five years. The Coffee 01 that amazed European media at the Munich Motor Show and the ORA series that topped the sales list of new energy SUVs in the ASEAN market, behind these global layouts, is the qualitative change in the ability to output technical standards.
When TÜV Rheinland issued Certificate No. 001 to Great Wall's battery safety technology and the United Nations Development Program listed Great Wall as a strategic hydrogen energy partner, it meant that Chinese auto companies began to have the right to define technical rules. This transition from product output to standard output is a reflection of the position change of "Made in China" in the international industrial division of labor.
Looking back from the historical perspective of the century-long changes in the automobile industry, Great Wall Motors' path to breakthrough coincides with the pulse of the times for China's manufacturing transformation and upgrading.
At present, intelligent driving has begun to reshape human travel civilization, and new energy technologies have reconstructed the global energy landscape. The story of Great Wall Motors has surpassed the growth narrative of a single company and has become an excellent sample for observing China's new industrialization process.