A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is in full swing. Smart cars have become a new trend in the global automotive industry. In September of this year, at the International Motor Show Germany, one of the world’s top auto shows and Europe’s largest auto show, the latest million-pixel HALO screen developed and produced by Liaowang and the latest Avatr 12 sports car model with Avatr’s brand feature HALO welcome interactive screen jointly appeared, which can realize a series of signal interactions such as brand promotion, pedestrian courtesy, and warning prompts, and confidently show the charm of “Made in China” and China’s high-end intelligent automobiles to the world.
Such an intelligent car light that can think and understand social interaction is precisely the innovative product of the R&D of Nanning Liaowang Automotive Lamp Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Foshan Lighting. In recent years, Foshan Lighting has increased its layout in the new energy vehicle lighting market, attracting widespread attention from the industry and capital markets, and has become a vivid interpretation of Foshan Lighting’s innovation-led high-quality development.
From a small light bulb factory on the banks of the Fen River, Foshan Lighting has now become a listed company with a brand value of over 30 billion yuan. As one of the few state-owned holding industry leaders in the country, Foshan Lighting has been deeply involved in the lighting industry for 65 years. In the face of the overall slowdown in demand and overcapacity in the lighting industry, how to win fierce market competition and achieve new growth? Foshan Lighting chose to change lanes and speed up on a new track. The company’s party committee fully played the role of “setting direction, managing the overall situation, and ensuring implementation” in-depth research around optimizing industrial layout, technological innovation, etc., further consolidated the main direction of relying on the real economy and manufacturing industry, and clarified the development ideas of “stabilizing the basic plate and opening up new tracks”.
In accordance with the specific deployment of the Provincial Party Committee’s “1310”, Foshan Lighting adheres to the leadership of party building and focuses on building first-class R&D institutions, introducing first-class talents, and launching first-class products, comprehensively activating innovation power, giving full play to the advantages of Liaowang in technology, production capacity, customer channels, etc., promoting the coordinated development of the vehicle lamp lighting industry chain, supply chain, and innovation chain, accelerating the transformation of vehicle lighting electronic business to the middle and high end and the expansion of the new energy market, and realizing the transformation from light source to vehicle lamp luminaire assembly matching. In the first half of this year, the revenue of the vehicle lamp business reached 720 million yuan, accounting for 25.34% of Foshan Lighting’s total revenue, becoming the third largest pillar business after general lighting products and LED packaging and component products.
Talent is the first resource. Foshan Lighting has been building a talent highland with perseverance, and has introduced more than 650 talents in different professional and technical fields including electronics, structure, optics, ID, software and hardware, and project development in recent years, including 10 doctors and 22 masters, providing talent support for the company’s development. Last year, it invested 267 million yuan in R&D, carried out 51 high-tech R&D projects and 12 key core technology research, flexibly introduced 11 external teams, solved problems in radar sensing technology, industrial design and development, intelligent module, etc., established six core technology libraries of light, heat, machine, electricity, linkage, and industrial design, participated in the compilation of 22 international, national, industry, and group standards, obtained 335 authorized patents, and was rated as a “national intellectual property demonstration enterprise”.
As the main force of Foshan Lighting’s vehicle lighting business, how Liaowang Automotive Lamp Co., Ltd. introduces and cultivates more high-precision and cutting-edge talents, and better supports the innovative and leapfrog development of the vehicle lighting business? Foshan Lighting has given an answer with extraordinary means and efforts. More than 50 high-end R&D technical talents have been introduced in the vehicle lighting sector, including industry-leading R&D talents and their teams. A vehicle lighting research institute has been established in Shanghai to carry out vehicle lighting technology innovation research, radiating and driving the talent cultivation of the three major research centers in Foshan, Nanning, and Liuzhou. At the same time, relying on Foshan Lighting’s Guangdong Provincial Doctoral Workstation, Postdoctoral Research Workstation Branch, and other platforms, it has continuously cultivated a cross-disciplinary, compound, and innovative young talent team, and through technical marketing, driven projects with R&D, and promoted R&D with projects, providing strong support for seizing the technological commanding heights and continuously carrying out product innovation. As of now, Liaowang has 137 authorized patents, including 7 invention patents, 118 utility model patents, and 12 appearance design patents.
Through the effective transformation of talent cultivation and technological innovation, product iteration has yielded fruitful results. Last month, Liaowang exhibited some forward-looking achievements such as high-end vehicle lamp assemblies at the 18th Automotive Lighting Industry Development Technology Forum and the 9th Shanghai International Automotive Lighting Exhibition, known as the “technical wind vane of the automotive lamp industry,” attracting widespread attention from industry insiders and technical experts.
Adhering to the concept of independent research and development to promote technological iteration, Foshan Lighting is continuously promoting the transformation of vehicle lighting products from small lamps and tail lamps to headlights and upgrading to the middle and high end. The Shanghai Vehicle Lighting Research Institute adheres to the development of core technologies such as innovative lighting, system modules, signal lights, and electronic platforms that lead the market, and has developed vehicle lamp intelligent networked technology that can realize human-machine autonomous interaction of vehicle lamps, integrating radar, vision, infrared and other functions in the car, and evolving traditional vehicle lamps that are only responsible for lighting into intelligent driving neural systems with perception and feedback capabilities. LED signal light products have been upgraded from thousands of pieces to tens of thousands of pieces.
At present, some vehicle lamp products of Foshan Lighting have been successfully applied to middle and high-end new energy vehicle models such as AITO, Avatr, and IM Motors. Among them, the front courtesy light that can realize human-machine autonomous interaction of vehicle lights is a global debut. With the whole vehicle driving scene, it can build an exclusive light energy field to meet more personalized expression needs and continuously explore a new blue ocean of vehicle lighting.
Every innovation is the starting point of progress. For sixty-five years, generations of Foshan Lighting people have explored in innovation and tempered in reform, set sail with innovation, and fought in the vast sea of stars. Foshan Lighting said that in the future, it will continue to implement the specific deployment of the Provincial Party Committee’s “1310”, continuously carry out technological innovation and product iteration, and embark on a path of integrated innovation of “lighting +”, accelerating the high-quality development of enterprises.
