A sudden pandemic has paused the entire automotive industry in China and brought changes across R&D and sales for this market.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the current pace of China’s automotive market, there is hope for the future. It is more important than ever to accelerate the internal transformation of enterprises and strengthen the competitive advantages of products than to focus solely on adapting to unpredictable external emergencies.

New technologies are emerging that help employees work and live virtually, as we have seen an uptake in e-commerce shops, online streaming, remote meeting hosts, and online courses that make daily life easier to run from behind a screen. The coronavirus outbreak has brought new opportunities to come forth for the virtual revolution.

Take auto retail as an example: we have witnessed a variety of manufacturing factories and dealerships adapting online retail solutions, including virtual reality tours, and live streaming products. The outbreak is accelerating the integration of online and offline channels for the auto industry to build a new retail model that enhances their digital marketing capability.

Many startups are creating solutions across two main topics: in-car health and online sales.

In-Car Health

Re-fresh

Re-fresh focuses on non-invasive continuous monitoring products and solutions with their self-developed chips and sensory technology. Their current products include in-vehicle health monitoring systems, sweat sensors, and gas sensors.

Case Study:

Re-fresh establishes a multi-dimensional sensing system for drivers and passengers to monitor their real-time health conditions in vehicles. Re-Fresh integrates health parameters into vehicle data to provide a revolutionary health monitoring experience. Such technology offers solutions for health crisis detection, DUI detection, and the sensor-driven monitoring of physiological parameters.

Wenxin Tech

Wenxin Tech is a wearable health tech company that focuses on developing medical wearable sensors along with network analysis services supported by big data. Wenxin Tech has expertise in the research and development of wearable non-invasive heart detection devices.

Case Study:

The technology of Wenxin Tech is applied to the automotive industry by turning a car into an accurate and real-time health monitoring platform. WenXin's technology allows vehicles to monitor and detect physiological parameters, including heart rates of both drivers and passengers in real-time. Emotions and even fatigue will be detected.

IDM Technology

IDM Technology is a smart gas sensor developer. Their products include airflow sensors, and sensor modules. IDM has developed a variety of gas sensor chips along with monitoring modules dedicated to detecting toxic air in real-time.

With their smart gas sensors, low-voltage sensors, and in-vehicle modules, IDM Technology has expertise in the automated detection of toxic gas including formaldehyde, ethanol, carbon monoxide, methane, ammonia, acetone, nitrogen dioxide, and more.

Online Sales

VX Entertainment 

VX Entertainment develops creative content by integrating cutting-edge visual technology, including holographic projection. Projection mapping, MR, AR, VR, motion capture, and many others to generate exclusive and immersive interactive experiences for the audience.

Case Study:

VX Entertainment applies its holographic projection technology to the automotive industry by virtually showing the structure and details of different vehicles both inside and outside. Holographic projection technology can be applied to smart retail scenarios such as 360-degree exhibition booths during auto shows.

车巡IMS

车巡IMS is an integrated digital retail and marketing platform that provides digital communication and CRM solutions for OEMs and automobile dealerships.

Case Study:

车巡IMS builds a smart retail management platform for automotive dealerships that integrates offline and online activities. IMS creates a new retail ecosystem that digitalizes the communication process between dealerships and manufacturing factories, which mainly improves service efficiency.

ActionTech

ActionTech provides multimedia virtual integration solutions with AR, VR, and holographic projection. Their content production has been successfully applied to AR glasses, mobile AR devices, and sensory AR devices.

Case Study:

ActionTech creates a smart marketing system integrated with Augmented Reality technology that improves customer experience during the pre-sale and post-sale of the entire vehicle purchase process. Their method combines augmented display AR technology with a variety of digital information to achieve functions such as customized design, vehicle preview, and virtual tours.

一隅千象 Archifiction

Archifiction Inc is a technology company committed to delivering naked eye immersive mixed reality products and solutions that implement the virtual world in limited physical space, redefining the conception of space by unlocking infinite possibilities and indefinite space. 

Case Study:

Archifiction developed n'Space - a projector-based platform product consists of perception and real-time rendering modules. With the use of proprietary algorithms for each of the modules, the perception module performs real-time tracking and recognition. This unique technical solution provides an immersive virtual environment without any wearable devices on the users. The product may be equipped with peripherals such as joysticks, tablets, mobile phones, and screens. Customized solutions are provided based on customer demand.

5. Carota

Carota provides cutting-edge OTA solutions for the cloud and end-users. They help auto manufacturing factories achieve a one-stop integration with OTA technologies while designing IoV systems.

Case Study:

Through their OTA technology, in-vehicle infotainment systems and online software can be upgraded virtually. Car owners do not need to leave their homes to have their vehicle maintenance. By upgrading their software online, bugs will be fixed in distance, which mainly improves customer experience.