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

"The soil we have eaten is our barrier." Mines, because most of them are in remote areas and the working environment is harsh, the people who do mine automatic driving laugh at themselves with this sentence. It is also because of this that in recent years, the recruitment and management of mining car drivers has become more difficult. At the same time, the relatively closed environment is more suitable for the operation of autonomous vehicles, and the mine has almost become one of the scenes with the strongest need for autonomous driving, and a number of enterprises have entered the game in recent years.

What is the specific market space of unmanned mining vehicles? Which companies are at the top? What's the business model like? On March 30, Chen Tao Capital released the "Mine Autonomous Driving Track Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which responded to the above problems one by one.

"The soil we have eaten is our barrier." Mines, because most of them are in remote areas and the working environment is harsh, the people who do mine automatic driving laugh at themselves with this sentence. It is also because of this that in recent years, the recruitment and management of mining car drivers has become more difficult. At the same time, the relatively closed environment is more suitable for the operation of autonomous vehicles, and the mine has almost become one of the scenes with the strongest need for autonomous driving, and a number of enterprises have entered the game in recent years.

What is the specific market space of unmanned mining vehicles? Which companies are at the top? What's the business model like? On March 30, Chen Tao Capital released the "Mine Autonomous Driving Track Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which responded to the above problems one by one.

At the same time, mining transportation is faced with difficulties in recruiting workers, management and high safety risks. The landing and application of autonomous driving technology is tangential to these core pain points.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand what the report says: mining areas are one of the most suitable scenarios for the commercial landing of autonomous driving. After all, it is closed, slow, right-of-way free and highly mechanized. And solve the problem of driver shortage, and reduce the cost of personnel recruitment and management difficulty.

Chen Tao Capital said that because the post-80s and post-90s are not willing to do relevant work, the cost of mining car drivers in 2019 rose by 50% compared with 2016, while the cost of labor is rising, the cost of sensors is declining, and once the two reach the intersection, it will truly realize commercial operation.

The mining driverless industry is just getting started

Although there is a market, there is demand, but with foreign countries mainly by the OEM to provide autonomous driving solutions, the domestic driverless solution providers are mainly startups, participants include Tage Zhixing, Huitou intelligent, easy control intelligent driving, Xidi intelligent driving, Yue Xin intelligent, etc., the market as a whole is still in its infancy.

The reason why domestic Oems have not been deeply involved is very simple: the mine unmanned transportation solution is a complex system engineering, which not only requires automatic driving technology, but also requires scheduling and fleet management, vehicle networking communication and other technologies. Therefore, large equipment companies tend to cooperate deeply with driverless startups, and themselves focus on the research and development and testing of front-mounted autonomous vehicles, such as drive-by-wire chassis and sensor integration.

Or benefit from this, in the past five years, domestic startups have been able to quickly delve into the development and operation of mine autonomous driving solutions, and each company has begun to conduct small-scale fleet testing. From the perspective of commercialization progress and technology maturity, three head enterprises have been formed, namely Tage Zhixing, Huituo Intelligence, and easy control intelligent driving.

However, although a number of enterprises have obtained commercial orders for mining unmanned vehicles, most of them are pilot projects and have not yet participated in the normal production and operation of the mine, and the work efficiency of automatic driving can not be equal to that of manual driving, especially the night operation has not achieved normal operation.

Tage Zhixing and easy to control intelligent driving performed better, reaching the level of manual driving efficiency of 80%-90%, and conducted night driving tests. However, most startups deploy less than 35 vehicles, and there is still some distance from large-scale commercial use.

In terms of financing, the mine self-driving track did not receive much attention early on. At present, mining autonomous driving companies are mostly in the early stage of development, financing rounds are mostly A to B rounds, most companies have completed 2-3 rounds of financing from angel to Pre-A and A rounds, with the total financing ranging from tens of millions to hundreds of millions of yuan, and the head company's valuation has not exceeded 2 billion yuan.

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.