GM has once again injected new content into its electrification vision of "zero accidents, zero congestion, and zero emissions."
At CES 2022, which opened on Jan. 5, GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra announced a series of GM's latest achievements in its transformational progress, including the announcement that the Chevrolet Silverado pure electric pickup to compete with ford's F-50 Lightning electric pickup trucks will be delivered in batches this year and next year, and the presentation of the NewerSpace self-driving concept car, a new member of the Cadillac Halo concept series. But what caught investors' attention the most was another important decision announced by Mary Bora — GM's launch of self-driving cars for individual users around 2025.
Thanks to its bold and targeted electrification strategy over the past year and the continuous additional investment in electrification, GM's transformation plan has received positive feedback, especially in the stock market. In the past year ending Jan. 6, GM's stock price rose more than 45 percent, better than Tesla's growth of less than 44 percent, second only to Ford's record growth. In 2021, when automakers are emphasizing transformation, traditional cars such as General Motors and Ford Motors have finally begun to show the power of electrification, and they are no longer lagging behind in the confrontation with Tesla.
If GM wants to maintain its strength against Tesla for a long time, the Chinese market is the key to it. Especially in the transition to electrification, China's role will be more important than ever. In a subsequent interpretation of cess 2022, GM China President Bai Li said to the Chinese media: "There is no doubt that the Chinese market is a key force driving change. We live up to our commitment to bring the best technology and customized products to the Chinese market. ”
Judging from the technologies and products exhibited at this CES, GM has an exciting growth prospect when facing the future of transportation.
Reimagine the luxury experience
Whether it is the Chevrolet Silverado pure electric pickup exhibited at this CES, the GMC pure electric Hummer that has already begun to be delivered, or the Cadillac LYRIQ smart pure electric luxury SUV that began delivery in the Chinese market in the middle of this year, or the latest Debut Cadillac Halo concept series new member InnerSpace self-driving concept car. They all share the same characteristic – they're all based on the Aotene platform.
The Aoteneng platform is also the biggest trump card held by GM in response to the wave of electrification transformation. The platform can help GM launch a steady stream of competitive, all-electric new products at a lower cost than competitors. It is reported that GM will launch more than 30 electric vehicles around the world by 2025, of which more than two-thirds will be introduced to the Chinese market. "We will bring a wide variety of Aoteneng products, covering the Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet brands," Cutberg said. ”
In order to match the rapid launch of electric vehicles, GM is actively transforming its production lines in China, with the goal of more than half of its production capacity being used to produce electric models by 2030. Chinese pay attention to "soldiers and horses do not move grain and grass first", GM has also actively practiced this strategy from ancient times to the present - it has put into operation the first Aoteneng Gigafactory in China in the past 10 years, and the main task of the factory is to assemble battery packs for domestic electric vehicles, so as to ensure that the first pure electric car "Cadillac LYRIQ" born on the Aoteneng platform can be delivered smoothly in China.
The Cadillac brand is a pioneer in GM's electrification transformation. To this end, GM is also continuously injecting Cadillac with new luxury content that is compatible with electric vehicles.
At last year's CES, Cadillac attracted a lot of attention with two futuristic concepts, including a VTOL vertical take-off and landing vehicle that represents GM's vision of the technology and scenarios of future air mobility. At this year's event, the two InnerSpace concept cars exhibited by the Cadillac brand are closer to reality - two-seater luxury coupes and autonomous luxury cars.
The InnerSpace Concept takes advantage of cutting-edge technology designed to enhance the passenger experience and more personal time from fully autonomous mobility. "The Cadillac Halo Concept Series is designed to provide easy travel in extraordinary ways," said Bryan Nesbitt, executive director of GM's Global Advanced Design and Global Architecture Studio. "Electrification and autonomous driving will fundamentally change the role of vehicles and the customer experience of them. We're exploring the direction of these innovative concepts, viewing mobility as an ally of health, providing customers with the ultimate in luxury and more personal time than spending time. ”
The vehicle's fully autonomous capabilities mean customers can explore more of the world around and within the vehicle, with more personalized and tailored experiences, adding a new dimension to Cadillac's signature luxury experience. The basis for reconstructing the luxury experience of the Cadillac brand is the Aoteneng platform and the Ultifi software platform. With Ultifi, Cadillac engineers and authorized third parties can wirelessly add new themes and features, while the addition of the Aotene platform makes the cab spacious and serene.
GM people described the concept car that Cadillac exhibited this year as a "luxury hotel room with wheels."
To sell personal self-driving cars by the middle of this decade
One of GM's biggest bombshells at this cess was announcing that it would offer self-driving cars for individual users by the middle of this decade.
While GM did not elaborate on whether the self-driving cars sold to users will be redeveloped or derived from existing models, nor in which markets they will be sold, or the issue of liability in the event of an accident. But this move is enough to make waves in the automotive industry.
Previously, the logic of the commercialization of autonomous driving technology was generally that technology companies such as Waymo and Baidu used existing models to lay out self-driving taxi fleets to provide unmanned ride-hailing services to share high research and development costs; another way was that Tesla as the representative of the car companies have said that their vehicles can achieve automatic driving functions, but in fact, the models currently on the market are basically equipped with L2 level automatic driving functions, and I have not heard of cases of L3 and above autonomous vehicles on the road.
GM's business logic of selling self-driving cars to consumers has never been seen in the industry before. This is because the cost of mass production of self-driving cars is not controlled to an acceptable range for the public, and the current policies and regulations around the world do not allow self-driving cars on the road.
As a result, GM may still be exploring a path to commercializing autonomous driving technology. In a press release, GM said it was working with Cruise on a comprehensive path to autonomous driving, with the goal of delivering GM's first personal self-driving car as soon as mid-10 years.
Currently, the most advanced autonomous driving feature used in GM's models is "Super Cruise," an L2-level driver assistance feature. GM said that by 2023, the "Super Cruise" is expected to be used in 22 models of the GM brand, while the "Ultra Cruise", which realizes point-to-point off-the-hand driving, will be put into production in 2023, and the first model equipped with the self-driving technology is the next pure electric luxury car based on the Aoteneng platform, the Cadillac CELESTIQ.
It is reported that as an iterative technology of "Super Cruise", "Ultra Cruise" will be able to achieve off-the-hand driving in 95% of driving scenarios. However, GM still emphasizes that this is still an L2 level autonomous driving function, and the driver must always keep taking over the driving and not distracting. To this end, the "Ultra Cruise" system has specially arranged infrared cameras to monitor the status of drivers, ensuring that they still maintain their attention while using this function. This is also where GM's "Ultra Cruise" is considered safer and more reliable than Tesla's "Autopilot."
To highlight the advanced nature of the "Ultra Cruise" system, GM said it was the first company to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride platform to implement advanced driver assistance technologies. "Ultra Cruise" is software-defined by GM's in-house development, and the hardware capabilities are provided by a new 5-nanometer computing architecture jointly developed by GM and Qualcomm, which has the processing power of hundreds of personal computers, but only the size of two laptops stacked on top of each other.
In terms of hardware, the "Ultra Cruise" system is equipped with multiple cameras and millimeter-wave radar. It is worth noting that the system also integrates a lidar behind the windshield. Lidar is also considered an essential weapon for high-level assisted driving. In this way, GM has also chosen a more secure lidar route, rather than a pure visual route like Tesla.
Based on the combination of high computing power platform and powerful perception hardware provided by Qualcomm, "Ultra Cruise" can realize multiple high-level assisted driving functions - 1, the new dynamic display system actively pushes information according to the user's experience of use; 2, responds to permanent traffic control equipment; 3, follows the navigation route; 4, automatically maintains the distance and complies with the speed limit requirements; 5, supports automatic and on-demand lane changes; 6, supports automatic left and right turns; 7, supports close-range obstacle avoidance; 8, supports automatic parking 9. Support the complete 360-degree perception function around the vehicle. With Ultra Cruise, GM says, customers will be able to truly free their hands and traverse almost all roads, including city streets, subdivided streets and paved country roads, as well as highways.
"Ultra Cruise" not only has stronger software and hardware capabilities than "Super Cruise", but also has the ability to upgrade online with real-time OTA. As a result, GM's strategy is that in the coming years, "Super Cruise" and "Ultra Cruise" will remain co-existing, with the former being used for more mainstream models and the latter reserved for more advanced models.
GM has high expectations for the commercialization of advanced autonomous driving technology. In its future development strategy released in early October last year, GM said it would use Cruise to take the lead in the market in the field of autonomous driving services and strive to achieve a revenue scale of $50 billion in the segment by the end of this decade. It's not hard to explain why GM Chairman and CEO Mary Bora suddenly announced that GM is going to start selling self-driving cars for individuals in the middle of this decade.