The 2022 CES officially began on January 5, local time in Las Vegas. As the world's most well-known international electronics and technology trade fair, CES has always been the best display platform for electronic products in the past, and even a bellwether for future technological development, but in recent years, I have found that the proportion of forward-looking technologies related to automobiles at CES is increasing. It is understood that more than 200 companies from the transportation and vehicle technology industry participated in THE CES 2022, including bmw, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, Waymo and other well-known giants.
In fact, it's nothing new for the auto industry to play a leading role at CES, and over the past few years, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has become the preferred location for automakers to showcase high-tech products, such as at CES 2020, hyundai and Uber jointly showcased the envisioned flying carpooling network.
As for the reason, I think that with the development of science and technology, the boundaries of automobiles, electronic products and various types of high-tech have long been blurred, and even sent to the point where they can be shared. Most importantly, compared to mobile phones and TVs, cars are undoubtedly a better display platform, so it is not difficult to understand that so many car manufacturers will invariably display their high-tech products at CES.
Since CES is regarded as a vane for future technological development, what are the forward-looking technologies of CES 2022 that can be seen with you soon? Different from the past era of internal combustion engines, with the advent of the new energy era and the consensus of countries to develop autonomous driving technology, we can see that most of the high-tech products on display are around intelligent driving and unmanned development. It can even be said that at this CES, all the technology is to solve the problem of how to build a better smart car. It is worth mentioning that compared with the past, many high-tech products stayed in a state of imagination, at this CES, many high-tech products are close to the state of mass production. Today I'm going to find you some new technologies that I'll meet with you soon.
Magneti Marelli showcases next-generation automotive solutions
At CES, automotive supplier Marelli showcased its next-generation automotive solutions, including lighting, sensing, electronics, interiors and electrification solutions.
According to Magneti Marelli, in terms of sensors, Magneti Marelli has worked with solid-state LiDAR developer Xenomatix to develop the world's smallest, reliable and flexible sensors that can be reused many times and are easy to integrate. In addition, since 2017, Magneti Marelli has begun to use vehicle headlamps and taillights for a unique approach to sensor integration, and at CES, Magneti Marelli brought headlamps with integrated radars and illuminated front panels.
In terms of electronic architecture management, Magneti Marelli has launched its Cockpit Domain Controller (CDC) to support the evolution of vehicle electronic architectures, a suite of cockpit domain controllers with a flexible DYNA-View 24" wide cd-ROM with CDC to manage two operating systems and four displays, further simplifying technologies that simplify the management of complex electronic architectures. In terms of charging technology, Magneti Marelli has the technology to manage, control and optimize the flow of heat and electricity, including 800V motors.
Comments: It is said that building a car is not only difficult but also very expensive, Li Bin once said that there is no 20 billion yuan not to build a car, and recently Li Bin even said in an interview that the car should start at 40 billion, which shows that at the capital level, it scares many people who intend to enter the car. Although Li Bin's words are not alarmist, with the development of technology, car building has begun to become less difficult, for example, magneti Marelli's next-generation car solutions demonstrated at CES provide a good car building solution for many people who still want to enter the car-making outlet.
In this set of automotive solutions presented by Magneti Marelli, we can see that from the most basic sensors to the electrical architecture control management system to the charging technology, the complete complete solution makes it no longer difficult to build a car. Most importantly, through this automotive solution, the new car you build will not be inferior to other mainstream new energy vehicles in terms of hardware foundation, electrification architecture and charging technology.
Qualcomm shows smart car "family barrel"
At CES, in addition to the traditional car giants such as BMW and GM, technology giants like Qualcomm are not absent. At this CES, Qualcomm demonstrated the "family bucket" prepared for smart cars, including digital chassis, advanced driver assistance systems, car connectivity services, and automotive cloud services.
As a preferred technology provider with more than 20 years of deep experience in providing technical solutions to the automotive industry, Qualcomm Technology has reached in-depth cooperation with many automakers around the world, including BMW, Ford, Audi, Tesla, Volkswagen, Honda and other well-known car companies.
It is understood that the Snapdragon digital chassis brought by Qualcomm this time consists of a complete set of open and scalable cloud connection platforms, which can use a unified architecture to bring higher security and immersive digital experience, and can also support the function upgrades of next-generation cars throughout their lifecycle. That is to say, car companies can choose to adopt any or all of the platforms covered by Snapdragon's digital chassis in their product lines, and provide a highly customized experience for their products through continuous upgrades in the cloud.
The Snapdragon Ride platform is an open, programmable platform that can meet the full range of needs from new vehicle evaluation specifications (NCAP) to L2+/L3 level driver assistance and autonomous driving (AD). In addition, Qualcomm offers a scalable portfolio of system-on-chip (SoC) processors and accelerators that enable automakers and Tier 1 suppliers to leverage The Arriver Driving Strategy Solution to build their driving strategies, parking or driver monitoring software stacks, and advanced navigation capabilities. In addition, the platform provides full support for advanced features, functional safety/expected functional safety (SOTIF), and system architecture capabilities.
In addition to the Snapdragon digital chassis and Snapdragon Ride platform, Qualcomm's Snapdragon cockpit platform can be a set of highly customizable and always-connected SoC and virtualization software solutions that can create multi-display, multi-camera, top-of-the-line audio, video and multimedia experiences, while the Snapdragon Automotive Connect platform fully supports the secure connection between the car and the cloud, other vehicles and the surrounding environment, meeting the growing demand for a safer and more immersive driving experience. As for the final Snapdragon vs. cloud service, the aim is to provide automakers with a flexible feature mix and performance upgrades as well as new features.
Comments: As we all know, a series of technologies involving electrification, such as the intelligent cockpit and automatic driving system of new energy vehicles, are the core secrets of car companies, and most of them need to be self-developed by car companies. With the release of the smart car "family barrel" solution this time, the intelligent cockpit and automatic driving system of the car company obviously have a good solution, and Huawei's direct and deep involvement is different, the current Qualcomm smart car "family barrel" is to support the car companies to carry out in-depth customization on it, that is to say, the car companies themselves can create their own "soul" on it, which has great attraction for some car companies with weak research and development capabilities.
If Magneti Marelli's next-generation car solution reduces the difficulty of car building for people who intend to build cars, then Qualcomm's family barrel gives the "soul" to the smart cars it builds, and with its existence, the cost of building smart cars will be rapidly reduced. It can even be said that with Qualcomm's family barrel, even if it is a new car builder, in the context of no deep automobile research and development team, it can quickly close the gap with giants such as Tesla and Xiaopeng.
Panasonic releases AR-HUD with eye tracking
At this CES, Panasonic launched an AR-HUD 2.0 system with a patent for eye tracking. It is understood that through this function, the AR image can be more accurately focused on the real world in front of the driver's eyes, improving the realism and presence of the image in the driver's field of vision.
According to Panasonic, the AR-HUD 2.0 system is based on ETS technology and is implemented by an infrared camera encapsulated together by AR-HUD and optics, eliminating the need for a separate driver-facing camera. By identifying the driver's head position and head movement through ETS technology, the image in the field of view can be dynamically adjusted and compensated, which means that the driver can see the icons superimposed in the AR-HUD without moving the head and changing the line of sight.
It is worth mentioning that this AR-HUD 2.0 system can project large images at a distance of up to 10 meters, and can also identify objects in front of the car and warn the driver by displaying alarms in the HUD. In addition, the system supports driver monitoring functions such as fatigue monitoring and distraction monitoring.
Comments: HUD technology has long been not a new technology, as early as more than 10 years ago on the luxury car began to be equipped, but in the past, most of the car HUD technology is based on indiscriminate charging, the display of information is not much. In recent years, with the development of technology, AR-HUD has begun to enter the field of vision, but there are not many applications, and the most well-known to outsiders is the AR augmented reality function applied on the new S-class. Compared with the Panasonic AR-HUD 2.0 system, which packages the AR-HUD and optics together, the AR-HUD augmented reality function used in the new S-class still requires additional eye-tracking cameras for assistance, which can be seen that Panasonic's AR-HUD 2.0 system is more integrated. If we can solve the cost problem and carry out mass production, I believe that this technology will soon be widely available on entry-level models.
BMW unveils a color-changing car paint scheme
At this CES, BMW brought a number of innovative digital achievements, including four new theme modes (My Modes), BMW Suspended Giant Screen (BMW Theatre Screen), BMW IconicSounds Electric and the "color change car paint" car color change scheme that attracted great attention in the past two days.
As the most eye-catching "color-changing car paint", many people are very much looking forward to when BMW can land this technology. According to BMW, the "color-changing car paint" car color-changing scheme is based on the "electronic ink" technology (E-ink), which contains millions of transparent microcapsules, the diameter of only one hair, each microcapsule contains a negatively charged white pigment, as well as a positive black pigment, by controlling the electrodes on both sides of the microcapsule, the desired color can appear on the body surface.
Not only that, according to BMW, this technology can also make different sizes of "electronic ink" according to the pattern and the curvature of the car surface, and then fix it on the car, and finally achieve a key color change through the electrode change.
Comments: As a new technology, the "color-changing car paint" car color-changing scheme brought by BMW is not only very cool, consumers are also very much looking forward to it can be landed as soon as possible, after all, most people have the idea of changing the color of their cars, if BMW's color-changing car paint program can be quickly promoted, I believe it can get a response from many car companies.
For BMW, it may not be too far from the launch of this car discoloration scheme, but there are many difficulties in front of it that need to be solved urgently, of which the first is whether to meet the relevant laws and regulations. Taking China as an example, if you change the color of your car, you need to go to the relevant agencies for the record, and BMW's plan is obviously unable to meet the domestic regulations, so even if it is finally landed, this technology may be based on static display.
In addition, cost is also an issue, not only manufacturing costs, but also maintenance costs also need to be taken into account. As a new technology, whether the maintenance of color-changing paint can be popularized in 4S stores on a large scale is also an important factor, otherwise it is not only high maintenance costs, but also may not be repairable.
Summary: AS a global technology vane CES does give us a lot of enlightenment, intelligent driving has been an unstoppable trend, and most of the technologies displayed by various car companies and suppliers are currently for intelligent driving. It is undeniable that as more and more suppliers join the automotive field, there are many complete solutions that allow people to build cars from scratch. While the benefits are obvious, it's that building a car is easier, but it also brings a reflection. With the lowering of the threshold for smart cars, will some people who fish in muddy waters join the ranks of car building?