Focus on CES 2022丨 Automatic driving sing the main tune, intelligent cockpit to the future

21st Century Business Herald reporter Du Qiaomei reported that on January 7, the 2022 North American Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will usher in the end of the year. According to data provided by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), more than 2,200 companies from 160 countries and regions participated in this year's CES.

As a high-profile technology exhibition, CES has always represented the vane of global forward-looking technology. This year's CES is still divided into digital health, vehicle technology, smart city, smart home and other sectors. However, it is worth noting that with the continuous evolution of intelligence, the automobile has gradually become a new mobile terminal for communication technology and life services, and the landing scene of many cutting-edge technologies such as automatic driving, lidar, VR/AR and many other cutting-edge technologies, CES has also become a show for major car companies and technology giants.

Although under the influence of the epidemic, a number of car companies including Daimler, BMW, General Motors, Stellantis, as well as technology companies such as Panasonic, IBM, Intel, AMD, Google, T-Mobile, Lenovo, Amazon, Meta, Waymo and other technology companies have successively announced that they will abandon offline exhibitions and announce their products online, according to the Consumer Technology Association of the United States, compared with 2020, the 2022 CES offline exhibition still has 20% more space for displaying automotive technology.

At the same time, from the total number of exhibitors online and offline, compared with 2020, CES's vehicle technology-related exhibitors increased by 12% in 2022, and more than 175 related companies participated in the exhibition.

In addition, compared with previous CESs, at this CES, whether it is car companies, technology giants or parts suppliers, they have targeted the field of automatic driving and intelligent cockpits, and launched vehicle products including chips, lidar, intelligent platforms and future-oriented travel.

From the intelligent cockpit to the intelligent driving to the creation of future travel modes, countless manufacturers are relying on their technical advantages to break the boundaries and pour into them, waiting for the outbreak of the market.

Self-driving is racing

After the accumulation of technology in the past two years, hardware technology for L4\L5 autonomous driving has re-emerged. If you summarize the highlights of this CES in one sentence, it is undoubtedly the chip giant's soaring, and lidar accelerates on the car.

At this CES, many chip giants such as Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Intel have released large-scale computing chips to support high-level automatic driving.

Among them, Intel subsidiary Mobileye launched three chips in a row at this CES. Among them, EyeQ Ultra is a system integration chip specially built for automatic driving, with the help of the 5nm process process, EyeQ Ultra can meet all the needs and application scenarios of L4 autonomous driving, while avoiding the additional energy consumption and cost of combining multiple system integration chips. Mobileye announced that the EyeQ Ultra system integration chip is expected to be available by the end of 2023 and fully realize vehicle-grade mass production in 2025.

At the same time, Mobileye released two integrated chips, EyeQ 6L and EyeQ 6H for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which will be in mass production in mid-2023 and late 2024, respectively.

It is worth noting that Mobileye and Geely's smart pure electric brand Extreme Kr jointly announced that the two sides will cooperate in the development of new consumer-grade pure electric vehicles with L4 autonomous driving capabilities, which are expected to be launched in China as early as 2024.

Nvidia brings the DRIVE Concierge for AI assistants and the DRIVE Chauffeur for autonomous driving. In terms of autonomous driving, Nvidia released the eighth generation of the DRIVE Hyperion autonomous driving platform, which is equipped with 12 external surround cameras, 3 internal cameras, 9 millimeter wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars and 1 lidar. The two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips, each with a hash rate of up to 254TOPS, can complete 25.4 billion operations per second.

Qualcomm showed its technology "Family Barrel" at this CES, showing its achievements in the field of smart cars. These include snapdragon ride platform, Snapdragon cockpit platform, Snapdragon car-to-cloud service and so on. In addition, Qualcomm debuted the Snapdragon Ride vision system, which uses its subsidiary Veoneer's Arriver technology and will begin mass production in 2024.

BMW's next-generation ADAS and autonomous driving systems will use Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride platform, which includes a central computing chip (SoC), computer vision SoC and Snapdragon car-to-cloud services; Volvo's upcoming pure electric SUV model and Polestarar 3 model will use Qualcomm's next-generation Snapdragon cockpit platform and its full suite of wireless technologies.

In addition to the automatic driving platform and high computing chip, domestic lidar companies such as RoboSense, Hesai Technology, Innovusion, and foreign lidar companies such as Velodyne, Luminar, Ibeo, and Aeva have released the latest products.

On January 5, Hesai Technology publicly exhibited the automotive-grade semi-solid-state lidar AT128 equipped with a new generation of self-developed chips for the first time, and released the new close-range ultra-wide-angle lidar QT128.

Among them, Hesai AT128 has obtained more than millions of OEMs around the world, including ideal, set, gaohe, lotus, and will be fully mass-produced in the second half of this year. The QT128 is a blindness-filling radar for autonomous driving applications such as L4-level robotaxi and robotruck, with an ultra-wide vertical field of view of 105° that clearly identifies people and objects at close range around the body, and will be delivered in series production in the first quarter of 2023.

In addition, the new generation of RS-LiDAR-M1 released by Sagitar Juchuang is the only solid-state lidar in the world to achieve mass production delivery of vehicle specifications; valeo's third-generation SCALA lidar will be available in 2024.

Fisker, a new car manufacturer, exhibited the world's first mass-produced vehicle equipped with digital radar, the Fisker Ocean SUV, at this year's CES. According to reports, Fisker Ocean is equipped with an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) with multiple sensors, including 5 Fisker digital radars.

Smart cockpits are headed for the future

In addition to the "battle" of autonomous driving, future-oriented intelligent cockpits and digital services have become another important area of competition between car companies and technology giants at this CES.

Among them, Panasonic released a new AR-HUD 2.0 system, which includes AI (artificial intelligence) and AR (augmented reality) technology. Its goal is to go beyond the standard HUD and turn the windshield into a video game user interface. From the published information, Panasonic's AR-HUD system includes information such as navigation routes, bicycle detection, speed, underground passage measurements, and street speed limits.

BMW brings an immersive smart cockpit experience. It is understood that BMW released the "cinema mode" future in-car entertainment system for the first time at this CES. Under the "Cinema Mode", BMW will create an exclusive private theater through the "BMW Theatre Screen" (BMW Theatre Screen), through the adjustment of lighting and sun blinds, 5G interconnection high-speed and smooth playback, to create an in-car entertainment experience for users.

In terms of hardware, the "BMW Floating Giant Screen" consists of a 31-inch ultra-wide panoramic display with a resolution of up to 8K integrated in the car's canopy system, which extends from the canopy to the front seat backrest. On-screen entertainment content can be played in 16:9, 21:9 and even 32:9 formats, supplemented by The Bowers & Wilkins 4D Diamond Surround Sound System; in terms of content, BMW and Amazon Fire TV provide users with a wealth of cutting-edge entertainment content.

Based on the advantages of the Chinese market in the field of digitalization and intelligence, in the future, BMW will also cooperate with local Suppliers in China to provide an in-car entertainment experience that meets the preferences of Chinese users.

In addition, in terms of digital cockpit experience, BMW also released four new My Modes theme modes of "Relax Mode", "Expressive Mode", "Digital Art Mode" and "Theater Mode" to create a full-sensory immersive experience for users. Among them, "Relax Mode" and "Expressive Mode" will be launched in the second half of 2022, when users can get a new theme mode through OTA remote upgrades.

It is worth noting that in addition to providing BMW with cutting-edge entertainment content, Amazon is accelerating its entry into the automotive field.

Back at CES 2020, Amazon announced expansion of in-vehicle integration of its Alexa Auto voice assistant. Its voice assistant can be used in the products of several car manufacturers, and Lamborghini became the first car brand in the world to carry Alexa.

Amazon is planning to become a key player in the field of autonomous vehicles, connected cars, electric vehicles, and the massive data management generated by automakers and drivers, of which cloud computing and data management services AWS will be at the heart of Amazon's strategy.

On January 6, local time, Stellantis Group announced that Amazon and Stellantis Group will cooperate from 2024 to provide software solutions for Stellantis Group's new digital cockpit platform STLA SmartCockpit.

According to the plan, starting in 2024, STLA SmartCockpit will run on millions of Stellantis Group vehicles worldwide. The software-defined platform will seamlessly connect with customers' digital lives, delivering intelligent cockpit experiences through AI-enhanced entertainment applications and services such as navigation, vehicle maintenance, e-commerce platforms, and payments empowered by Alexa voice assistants.

In addition, Amazon will become the first commercial customer of the ProMaster pure electric model of the Ram brand of the Stellantis Group, which will be launched in 2023, and Amazon will invest and deploy the above delivery vehicles throughout the United States.

Traditional giants accelerate their transformation

While technology giants and forward-looking technologies are gradually attracting consumers' attention, traditional car companies have not stopped the pace of transformation, and the speed of their transformation is beyond imagination.

On January 4, on the eve of the opening of CES, the vision EQXX, a new pure electric concept car under Mercedes-Benz, was officially launched in the world. According to reports, Mercedes-AMG High Performance PowerTrain Co., Ltd. has developed a new battery pack for the VISION EQXX concept car, through the development ideas and professional mechanical design of formula 1 racing cars, through advanced anode chemical process and highly integrated battery pack, to achieve an energy density of nearly 400 watt-hours / liter, its battery volume is only 50% of the new EQS, the weight is 30% lighter, and the single charge mileage can exceed 1000 kilometers.

In addition, the VISION EQXX Concept is powered by the brand's first fully seamless 47.5-inch slim all-in-one screen, introducing a game engine and a fully optimized user interface. The R&D team developed the first 3D real-time navigation system compatible with this size of screen, which can zoom in on satellite images to a height of 10 meters in the 3D city view, outlining a new digital world.

In addition to a series of digital forward-looking technologies, BMW brought the innovative BMW iX M60, the high-performance flagship model of the BMW iX family, and announced a price of 996,900 yuan in the Chinese automotive market.

At this year's CES, Mary Barra, chairman and CEO of GM, showed off the Chevrolet Silverado pure electric pickup truck, a model that competes with the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup, and announced that it will be delivered in batches this year and next year, along with the InnerSpace self-driving concept car, a new member of the Cadillac Halo concept series.

In the face of the future of mobile transportation, some technology companies have not stopped exploring.

At this CES, the pure electric prototype Vision-SUV brought by Sony was officially unveiled, which is the first electric vehicle after Sony released the Vision-S concept car at CES 2020.

At the same time, Sony also announced that it will set up Sony Mobility Inc., an operating company for mobility, and plans to set up an electric vehicle company in the spring of 2022, hoping to take a piece of the fast-growing green mobility market.