When it comes to driverless research, Google's Waymo is one of the leaders. Since the establishment of the department in 2009, it has accumulated a large amount of data and experience, both in terms of software algorithms and sensor performance.
In recent years, Waymo's driverless test vehicles have been purchased directly from automakers, and the auto companies it has cooperated with include Jaguar Land Rover, Chrysler, Daimler Commercial Vehicles and so on. After purchasing, Waymo will modify it, and when it is finished, it will look like this:
Various exposed sensors are not only unsightly, but also have additional problems. The vehicle architecture is not designed exactly according to the needs of autonomous driving, and there may be compatibility issues. Sure, Waymo has a way to solve these problems, but if it could make things a little easier, why not?
Recently, Geely Holdings announced a cooperation with Waymo, and its high-end smart electric brand Krypton will provide exclusive vehicles for the Waymo One driverless fleet and put it into commercial operation in the United States.
The key word here is "exclusive", and Krypton did not sell 001 directly to Waymo, but developed a brand new model under the framework of Extreme Krypton's intelligent travel platform, Haohan-M (SEA-M), which looks like this:
In terms of appearance, it is much more pleasing to the eye than those magic models. The design of the folio sliding doors, no B-pillars, low chassis, and flat floors is also entirely for passengers. It is not difficult to imagine that it will be very suitable for the use (testing) scenario of unmanned short-distance connection.
On the other hand, the Haohan-M architecture is bound to fully optimize automatic driving in terms of electronic architecture, and compatibility and scalability will certainly have more advantages than non-customized models.
This cooperation is a win-win situation, Waymo has obtained a useful "development and testing tool", and Geely will certainly not work in white, and will inevitably gain technology and experience related to autonomous driving from cooperation. Now we can see that Geely has appeared in the partners column on Waymo's official website.
At present, in China, in addition to new energy, the competition for automatic driving is also very fierce, Baidu Apollo, Huawei Hi are all making efforts, and have cooperated with BRANDS SUCH ASD, Hongqi, WM, and Jihu.
Geely and Waymo holding hands is a very high starting point, and I hope that Geely can make new progress in the field of autonomous driving. However, given the complexity of the situation today, we also wish that this partnership will continue smoothly.
The author of this article is Ao Yifeng, a kick car gang