Development Trends of Intelligent Connected Vehicles and Implications for Intelligent Ships

The global automotive industry is undergoing a once-in-a-century transformation, in which the convergence of intelligence and connectivity represents not merely a technological iteration but a strategic imperative with profound implications for national industrial competitiveness, transportation system restructuring, and societal efficiency. Using systems engineering as the methodological foundation, this paper systematically examines six dimensions of transformative change in intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs), encompassing electronic/electrical architecture, development paradigms, and safety frameworks, and provides an in-depth analysis of the Vehicle-Road-Cloud Integration architecture from a cyber-physical systems (CPS) theoretical perspective. Converging evidence from both research and practice demonstrates that the linear extension of vehicle-only intelligence confronts insurmountable systemic bottlenecks in physical perception limits, diminishing returns of computing costs, and persistent long-tail safety effects. The deep integration of data-driven methods with networked collaboration thus represents not only the essential pathway to overcome these constraints, but also the fundamental direction for next-generation intelligent driving. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes a systematic framework of five foundational platforms—cloud control, high-precision mapping, on-board terminals, computing infrastructure, and cybersecurity—to support large-scale industrial deployment and open ecosystem development. As both automobiles and ships represent typical intelligent mobile platforms, the technological evolution patterns and system architecture insights discussed herein may offer useful reference for research and engineering practice in the field of ship intelligentization.