CITIC Securities: Level 4 autonomous driving shows positive changes in multiple scenarios.

CITIC Securities research report believes that Level 4 autonomous driving is showing positive changes in multiple scenarios. Among them, Robotaxi is benefiting from factors such as reduced vehicle costs and expanded operating areas, with continuous improvement in unit gross profit; autonomous driving technology is realizing cost reduction and efficiency improvement in multiple scenarios such as express delivery, mining, and ports, initiating large-scale applications. The research report believes that under the above trends, various links in the industry chain are expected to accelerate technological research and development and product deployment, and the automotive intelligent industry chain is expected to benefit. It is recommended to focus on the following investment themes: 1) fleet operations: with the continuous iteration of autonomous driving technology, fleet operators are expected to be the first to benefit from industry growth, realizing performance elasticity; 2) intelligent driving leading component suppliers; 3) intelligent driving research and development leading OEMs.