The 31st Annual Conference and Exhibition of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China (SAECCE2024) will be held grandly at the Chongqing Science Hall from November 11th to 14th, 2024. The theme of this year's conference is "Intelligent Emergence, Entering a New Stage of Accelerated Transformation", bringing together elites in the global automotive technology field to jointly explore the future development trends and technological innovation paths of the automotive industry. As the most comprehensive academic exchange conference in the automotive field with the most complete technical system, largest scale, and richest level, SAECCE2024 not only showcases the latest achievements of China's automotive technology, but also provides an important platform for the innovative development of the global automotive industry.

SAECCE2024 adopts various forms such as "meetings," "exhibitions," and "competitions," planning more than 120 events, and is expected to attract about 5000 automotive technology workers and industry leaders from over 26 countries around the world to attend. Hou Fushen, Vice Chairman and Secretary General of the China Society of Automotive Engineers and Executive Director of the National Automotive Strategy Institute, stated at a press conference that this year's annual meeting will inject strong impetus into the technological innovation of China's automotive industry in areas such as technology trend analysis, concentrated display of the latest achievements, cultivation of young talents, construction of government industry university research cooperation platforms, and empowering local industrial and economic development.

The six highlights of this year's conference are particularly eye-catching. Firstly, driven by demand and academic guidance, we plan core topics around major innovation needs in the industry, setting up 90 special forums and 25 concurrent conferences in six major areas including "Intelligent Connected Vehicle Technology", "New Energy Vehicle Technology", and "Basic Common Technologies", covering innovation hotspots such as "Solid State Batteries", "AI Big Models", and "Flying Cars". At the same time, invite renowned scientists and technology leaders to participate deeply and share new ideas and achievements. The second is to deepen the integration of industry, academia and research, promote interaction and docking between industry and academia, accelerate the transformation of achievements, and promote the landing and aggregation of scientific and technological achievements in local cities. The third is to further strengthen international exchanges, increase the proportion of international speakers, invite international representatives to attend in groups, and for the first time, organize a global study tour for young scientists. The fourth is to focus on the theme of automotive engineering technology in the exhibition area, setting up four major themed exhibition areas with an expected exhibition area of 15000 square meters and 20000 exhibition visitors. Fifth, science popularization activities focus more on cultivating the interests of young people, inviting hundreds of young people to participate in the China Society of Automotive Engineers Youth Automotive Technology Festival. Sixth, the annual conference platform and local economy will mutually empower each other and travel in both directions. It will be held for the first time in Chongqing, attracting local key enterprises, universities, and institutions to deeply participate in the conference. It is expected to provide rich resource docking for the development of Chongqing's automobile industry economy.

Under the profound influence of the global carbon neutrality vision, the automotive industry is undergoing a new stage of comprehensive transformation and upgrading, including low-carbon integration, accelerated electrification, and intelligent evolution. The Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers has conducted in-depth analysis and judgment on the new technological trends of China's automotive industry in 2024 in a series of research results.

Hybrid power and zero carbon internal combustion engines have become important innovative directions for low-carbon integration. With the rapid development of hybrid technology, the advantages of PHEVs being both oil and electric are becoming increasingly prominent, and the market recognition of their products has greatly increased, becoming the main force driving the growth of new energy vehicle sales. At the same time, the industry is actively promoting the research and industrialization of zero carbon internal combustion engines, which will be efficiently coupled with plug-in hybrid technology in the future to help traditional internal combustion engines achieve zero carbon transformation.

Accelerate the comprehensive market-oriented development of new energy vehicles and continue to lead the global automotive industry's electrification transformation. As of 2023, China's production and sales of new energy vehicles have ranked first in the world for nine consecutive years, with market share increasing from less than 1% in 2013 to 31.6% in 2023, and reaching 38.6% in the first three quarters of this year. To further accelerate the popularization and application of new energy vehicles in all climates and scenarios, it is still necessary to further improve the safety performance and wide temperature range adaptability of the current generation of power batteries, while strengthening the layout of the next generation technology and continuously promoting power batteries towards high specific energy, high safety, all climates, and low cost.

The intelligent connected vehicle industry has entered a new stage of high-level autonomous driving applications. This year, China has successively launched pilot projects for high-level autonomous driving access and on road traffic, as well as "vehicle road cloud integration" applications. Several cities (consortia) have been selected for the relevant pilot list. To support the practical application of high-level autonomous driving, intelligent technology is showing a trend of comprehensive integration and empowerment of artificial intelligence. The new generation of artificial intelligence represented by large models can fully utilize the knowledge, technology, and experience accumulated in the automotive industry, accelerate cutting-edge technological innovation, shorten product development cycles, reconstruct lean production models, etc., and help promote the intelligence of automotive products and the digital upgrading of the entire industry chain.

SAECCE2024 has made active explorations in deepening the integration of industry, academia, and research. The annual meeting invited more important research and development platforms in the automotive field, such as laboratories, innovation centers, and engineering technology centers, to participate in speeches and technology exhibitions, directly targeting the innovation needs of the automotive industry. 40-50 automotive engineering technology innovation forums were planned. These forums not only cover various fields of the automotive industry, but also invite well-known experts and business representatives from home and abroad for in-depth exchanges and discussions, providing important ideas for the innovative development of the automotive industry.

At the same time, the annual meeting also established for the first time the "Vehicle Engineering Fund Project Innovation Achievement Production and Research Forum", selecting important forward-looking research achievements supported by automotive industry funds, and promoting their precise docking with the innovation needs of the automotive industry. This measure not only accelerates the transformation and application of technological achievements, but also promotes technological innovation and upgrading in the automotive industry.

In addition, the annual meeting also planned the 2024 Forum on Empowering the Automotive Industry Cluster with Technological Innovation, which will combine platform resources such as the China Society of Automotive Engineers Technology Achievement Transformation and Evaluation Working Committee to promote and connect high-quality scientific and technological innovation projects.