Visiting Nantong, Jiangsu: Why Did the Shanghai Putuo District Government Visit This Local Enterprise?

Original article reprinted from Tongshanghui.

On the morning of February 24, a delegation from Putuo District of Shanghai visited Nantong. The governments of Nantong and Putuo signed a memorandum of understanding for the Shanghai-Nanjing Collaborative Innovation Urban Alliance. Party Secretary and Mayor Zhang Tong of Nantong met with the delegation led by Party Secretary and District Head Xiao Wengao of Putuo.

During their visit, the delegation toured the Beigao Development Zone and Nantong Innovation Zone, inspecting Jiangsu Hanchen Automotive Electronics Co., Ltd., Nantong Planning Exhibition Hall, and the Institute of光电 Science, North China University in the Yangtze River Delta.

Why did the Putuo District delegation choose to visit Jiangsu Hanchen Automotive Electronics Co., Ltd.? What is the background of this company? This article from Tongshanghui will provide insights.

Leading the Field in Automotive Electronics

Jiangsu Hanchen is a wholly-owned subsidiary of HIRAIN (Weijing Hengrun), a pioneer in intelligent driving controller design and manufacturing. HIRAIN is a Science and Technology Innovation Board-listed company on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

While lesser-known to the general public compared to new energy vehicle manufacturers like BYD and NIO, HIRAIN holds a top position in the industry. Its product lines include a ground-breaking domestic ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System).

Founded in 2003, HIRAIN is one of the earliest Chinese companies to successfully develop this system. It provides electronic products, R&D services, and advanced intelligent driving solutions for global automotive and unmanned transportation customers.

With headquarters in Beijing and R&D centers and modern factories in Tianjin, Nantong, and Malaysia, HIRAIN has a complete R&D, production, marketing, and service system. Guided by the principle of "value innovation and customer service," HIRAIN focuses on professional fields, maintains technological leadership, and pursues platform-based development. It aims to become a world-class comprehensive electronic system technology service provider, an intelligent connected vehicle full-stack solution supplier, and a leader in high-level intelligent driving MaaS solutions.

ADAS, consisting of perception, processing, and control functions, is like the "eyes," "brain," and "feet" of a vehicle. In emergencies, it can act before the driver reacts, providing preventive and assistive functions. In the era of intelligent vehicles, ADAS, focused on safety and user experience, has become a trend and standard in the industry.

In 2012, HIRAIN entered the ADAS track and started independent R&D. After six years of efforts, in 2016, it integrated Israel's Mobileye autonomous driving chip and successfully mass-produced a cost-effective ADAS system for SAIC Roewe RX5, breaking the decades-long monopoly of foreign giants. In 2020, HIRAIN supplied ADAS products to 178,000 new passenger vehicles, with a market share of 3.6%, making it the only domestic enterprise in the top ten suppliers of new passenger vehicle forward-looking systems in China, and a leader in this field.

HIRAIN supplies well-known domestic and international vehicle manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers with various automotive electronics products, including intelligent driving, connected vehicles, body and comfort domain, chassis control, and new energy power systems. It also offers customized development services for automotive electronics products based on the needs of new vehicle models from whole vehicle enterprises, serving customers like FAW Group, SAIC Group, BAIC Group, Jiangling Motors, and BorgWarner.

Based on its integrated technology and product capabilities in the intelligent driving field covering "perception-decision-making-control," HIRAIN has developed solutions for single-vehicle intelligence, intelligent fleet operation and management, and vehicle-cloud data centers to commercialize its high-level intelligent driving system MaaS solution. Currently, its unmanned intelligent container trucks operate without safety officers in Tangshan Port and Rizhao Port.

Settling in Nantong

In 2017, HIRAIN decided to set up a production base. After evaluation, it chose Beigao, Chongchuan, to establish Jiangsu Hanchen Automotive Electronics Co., Ltd. With policy support from both municipal and district governments, HIRAIN acquired 105 mu of land in Beigao Development Zone. The factory was completed in 2018 and began production in March 2019.

In the first half of 2022, the company launched the second phase of its Nantong automotive electronics production base, with a total investment of 2.2 billion yuan, aiming to expand production capacity, enhance intelligence, and automation levels. The project officially completed construction and entered operation in March 2024. The company now has 300 employees, with 20% in R&D, aiming to become a leading automotive electronics production base in China and contribute to the high-quality development of Nantong's manufacturing industry.

Since its establishment in Nantong, Jiangsu Hanchen has developed and mass-produced various products, including ADAS, millimeter-wave radar, and AR-HUD. With a product line of over 50 production lines, including 16 general-purpose lines covering new energy, assisted driving, braking transmission, body control, and other fields, its products are sold to well-known domestic and international vehicle manufacturers such as FAW, GAC, SAIC, Geely, and Jiangling. The second phase of Jiangsu Hanchen Automotive Electronics officially entered operation in July 2024, with an estimated annual production of 25 million sets of automotive electronics supporting products and annual taxable sales of 4 billion yuan.

HIRAIN's independently developed 92-inch AR-HUD entered mass production in August 2023, offering immersive driving experiences for intelligent vehicles with high contrast, brightness, and pixel resolution. The large 92-inch screen provides users with a theater-like viewing experience and advanced multi-lane navigation. HIRAIN's AR-HUD products have been installed in multiple models of a high-end domestic brand, with cumulative shipments exceeding 50,000 units. According to the AR-HUD industry ranking released by Gao Gong Intelligent Auto in August 2024, HIRAIN ranked in the top five suppliers of passenger vehicle factory-installed standard AR-HUD in the Chinese market (excluding imports) from January to June 2024.

In early August 2024, Jiangsu Provincial Industry and Information Technology Department announced the list of intelligent manufacturing workshops in Jiangsu Province for 2024. After strict evaluation and assessment by provincial experts, Jiangsu Hanchen successfully made the list, marking an important step in HIRAIN's intelligent development.

Cross-Regional Collaborative Innovation

Jiangsu Hanchen's ability to attract the attention of the Putuo District delegation is closely related to its outstanding performance in emerging technology fields. In recent years, the automotive electronics industry has undergone revolutionary changes, with intelligence, connectivity, and electrification becoming the main trends. As a pioneer in intelligent driving controller design and manufacturing, Jiangsu Hanchen has gained a foothold in cutting-edge technologies such as autonomous driving, connected vehicles, and smart cockpits. These technologies are not only hotspots of current technological innovation but also the core competitiveness of the future automotive industry.

Xiao Wengao said at the symposium that the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor, as one of the most economically active, open, and innovative areas in the Yangtze River Delta and even nationwide, is of great concern to the state, highly valued by provincial and municipal governments, and has frequent exchanges among all parties. He expressed hopes that Putuo and Nantong would strengthen communication, deepen cooperation, focus on industrial needs, leverage comparative advantages, jointly build a new highland of technological innovation, cultivate new industrial development spaces, and establish new platforms for collaborative development. This would explore more cross-regional collaborative innovation paths to better support the high-quality integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Shanghai, as a national highland of technological innovation, has always been highly sensitive to emerging technologies and has a forward-looking layout. The delegation's visit, on the one hand, may be due to Nantong's geographical proximity to Shanghai and the advanced technology and industrial potential of Hanchen Automotive Electronics. Jiangsu Hanchen can form an upstream and downstream industrial synergy with Shanghai's whole vehicle enterprises and research institutions. This technological advantage is precisely the "hard power" that Shanghai urgently needs in promoting the integration of the Yangtze River Delta and building a global scientific and technological innovation center.

On the other hand, it is also an in-depth exploration of Nantong's automotive industry and the collaborative development of the Yangtze River Delta region.

As early as the 1990s, Nantong gradually introduced the automotive manufacturing industry. With the continuous expansion of market demand, the government and enterprises have increased investment in the automotive industry. After nearly three decades of cultivation, Nantong has formed a certain scale of automotive industry chain, including whole vehicle manufacturing, parts production, and automotive electronics. With new energy vehicles becoming one of the key points of future automotive industry development, Nantong has also introduced the "Nantong New Energy Vehicle Industry Development Plan," listing new energy and new energy vehicles as one of the key "3+3+N" industries promoted by the Municipal Committee and Municipal Government, and accelerating the cultivation of characteristic and competitive new energy vehicle industry clusters.

Nantong is accelerating the construction of its automotive industry ecosystem, and Hanchen Automotive Electronics, as a key part of it, is undoubtedly a "star enterprise" in this ecosystem. Driven by technological innovation and market demand, it is believed that Nantong will have the opportunity to occupy an important position in future automotive technology competition. We also look forward to Nantong and Shanghai Putuo District taking this signing as a new starting point, focusing on the construction of the Yangtze River Estuary Industrial Innovation Green Development Collaborative Zone, and further strengthening exchanges and cooperation to achieve practical results.