The 100 billion market of commercial autonomous mining vehicles will be opened in 2022

Therefore, there is a view that once the track matures, Oems and technology companies will quickly enter the market and erode the market. In this regard, Lin Qiao, vice president of easy control intelligent driving, does not agree. In his view, enterprises with RoboTaxi capabilities do not mean that they can quickly cover the mine scene.

Chen Tao Capital also believes that from the perspective of valuation, companies with RoboTaxi layout entering the unmanned mining vehicle market will not increase their valuation value much, and it is difficult to obtain investor recognition; From a technical point of view, companies with robotaxis generally send the "second army" to develop unmanned mining vehicles, and it is difficult to fight the "first army" with the "second Army".

The first tier of enterprises is expected to be commercialized by 2022

Central control system, autonomous mining car, other engineering vehicle coordination system. The mining vehicle autonomous driving solution in its initial stage has been clarified and is composed of the above three modules.

The central control system builds a virtual map of the mine, including loading and dumping areas and road conditions. Based on this information, the central control system assigns the driving area to the autonomous truck and controls the vehicle to comply with the corresponding control plan. The whole system works together with wireless communication networks and global positioning systems.

Similar to the technical route, the unmanned mining vehicle business model has also taken shape, and there are two main types.

One is to provide only a total solution for autonomous driving. That is, enterprises only develop autonomous driving technology, and then sell it to OEM mining car companies, which integrate the production of unmanned mining cars, and then sell to the demand side; The other is to participate in autonomous transportation services, which requires companies to operate their own fleets of autonomous mining vehicles and cooperate directly with mining sites to provide transportation services.

The former belongs to the asset-light operation, which is represented by the wisdom line and wisdom extension intelligence. The latter needs to purchase their own vehicles and provide services, and the operation is more difficult, and the main players include easy to control intelligent driving, jump salary intelligent, and tap song wisdom.

No matter what kind of business model, it is currently in the initial stage of commercial trial operation and field deployment test. According to Chen Towers Capital, from 2021 to 2022, the first echelon of enterprises will remove security officers in China, achieve large-scale operation, and is expected to achieve commercialization in 2022. "When the plan is mature, the investment can be recovered in about 1-1.5 years." The report also makes its own judgment on the likely benefits.

But there are risks as well as opportunities. Autonomous vehicles in mining areas also face certain difficulties and challenges. The first is the scene and technical challenges, poor road conditions, many unstructured obstacles, dynamic changes in the production environment, the need for other manned engineering vehicles to cooperate to complete the task; The second is the supply chain challenge, the annual output of mining trucks is limited, so the supplier's support for product adaptation or targeted development is less than that of ordinary road trucks, and the cost reduction of parts is difficult. In addition, the vehicle also faces legal and regulatory challenges, as well as the need for cooperation from mining enterprises.

"The commercialization of 2021, in addition to overcoming the above problems, will largely depend on whether the auxiliary driver can be removed from the car." Lin Qiao said that once commercialized, it means that the model has a strong replicability. And when the time comes, the opening of the 100 billion market is a natural thing.