CES 2022 is nearing completion, and at the beginning of the year, the car has undoubtedly become the biggest winner. Many companies temporarily "refunded tickets" on the eve of the exhibition, but the online exhibition did not cover up the heat of car companies. A number of international car companies unveiled new products and new technologies at CES, and the discussion of science and technology is also quite a competitive situation, so which cars are there to make us shine?
Mercedes-Benz pragmatism: breaking the boundaries of electric vehicle energy efficiency
During the CES show this year, the major event in the car circle is Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz's new pure electric concept car Vision EQXX officially made its global debut. Although it's a concept car, Markus Schafer, chief technology officer at Vision EQXX, said: "Some elements of the car are close to production and there's a good chance we'll see a car actually produced in 2024." ”
It is reported that the Vision EQXX can travel more than 1,000 kilometers on a single charge; the super display in the car, using a 47.5-inch (1.2 meters long) LED display, spanning the entire dashboard, has 8K resolution; and uses an upgraded version of the MBUX operating system.
In addition to the ultra-low drag coefficient and high-density battery, the optimization of the software and the use of technologies such as neural calculations have further improved the energy efficiency of the car.
The Vision EQXX Concept is very close to a production model in terms of exterior to interior to power system. It is reported that the research and development process of this concept car uses a lot of digital tools such as virtual reality and augmented reality, from scratch to the landing of the whole vehicle, which takes only 18 months, once again using technology to break the boundary of efficiency.
BMW showmanship: the electronic ink body is stunning
Coincidentally, BMW also unveiled two models for the Chinese market on the eve of CES and brought four innovative technologies to the show. They are BMW suspension giant screen, the new My Modes theme mode and BMW electric vehicle sound wave simulation, and the appearance of color-changing cars based on electronic ink technology. These technologies are expected to be applied to more BMW electric models.
The "BMW Suspension Screen" features a 31-inch ultra-wide panoramic display with a resolution of up to 8K, integrated into the car's canopy system, extending from the canopy to the front seat back, and the giant screen opens to the car's private cinema. Four new themed modes have also been updated, namely Relax, Expressive, Digital Art, and Theatre. Coupled with the upper sound wave simulation technology, the cockpit experience is upgraded one more level.
Most notably, the "e-ink" technology, a unique technology that enables one-touch color change on the body on the innovative BMW iX. The "e-ink" contains millions of transparent microcapsules, only the thickness of a hair, each microcapsule contains a negatively charged white pigment, as well as a positively charged black pigment, which allows the desired color to appear on the body surface by controlling the electrodes on both sides of the microcapsule. Black and white changes like "venom" transformation, Hollywood filming magic will fall into the mortal world, but BMW did not disclose the use of ink technology, the current look it will be restricted by policies and other factors, this color change trick, BMW is more like a showmanship.
Universal Acceleration: Aute can power cruise advanced
Despite the temporary withdrawal of GM's offline exhibition, GM demonstrated the electrified product camp brought by the Ultium Aoteneng platform through an immersive virtual experience Exhibit Zero:
One such is the Chevrolet Silverado pure electric pickup, a pure electric pickup built from scratch, equipped with the largest Ultium battery pack, which can travel up to 644 kilometers on a single charge. According to the plan, the new car will initially only be available in the basic operation pickup truck (WT) and RST flagship models.
Cadillac has released a concept car, the InnerSpace self-driving concept car, a new member of the Halo concept series, and said it will launch self-driving cars for individual users around 2025. It also has ultra Cruise's advanced driver assistance system that enables point-to-point off-the-hand driving and Ultifi, GM's new software platform.
The Ultra Cruise Advanced Driver Assistance System will go into production in 2023, and Ultium-based Cadillac Celestiq will be the first to be equipped with the technology. GM's new software platform, Ultifi, is an "end-to-end" software platform that enables OTA updates, in-car subscription services, facial recognition, and more.
GM's electric products based on the Ultium Aotene platform include GMC pure electric Hummer, BrightDrop EV600 pure electric logistics vehicle and Cadillac LYRIQ intelligent pure electric luxury SUV. In the field of autonomous driving, it also adheres to the development path of multi-point co-development, and links with its Cruise technology, and invested $300 million in Momenta last year.
Modern Dog Walking: Patterns Open to the Future
The new products of modern cars are slightly different, not only related to cars, but also to all movable items.
Hyundai unveiled its plug-and-play PnD (Plug & Drive) modular platform at CES, a mobile device that combines in-wheel motors, steering, suspension, braking systems and environmental sensors. Hyundai Says it can create a world where everything moves by redefining object mobility and innovating traditional spatial concepts, that is, by empowering everything to become mobile robots. At present, the most practical landing scenario of PnD can be applied to short-distance transportation to solve the problem of the last kilometer.
Hyundai acquired Boston Dynamics in June 2021 and is more obsessed with the development of robots. And AT CES also brought two robots Spot and Atlas that could connect the real world and metaversics in the future. Focusing on the field of more abundant forms of robotics, modern cars have opened up the pattern.
Volvo Shines the Sword: Unregulated Autonomous Driving
Volvo Cars has released a new pure electric concept car, Concept Recharge, which adopts a new design language and a new electric platform. The same Rolls-Royce twin doors are applied. The new car will be fundamentally different from the brand's existing electric products, or it will become Volvo's next mass-produced pure electric model.
In addition, Volvo Cars also announced that it will be the first to launch an unregulated highly autonomous driving function - Ride Pilot - to users in California, USA. The Ride Pilot, launched by Volvo in partnership with Luminar, will be equipped with more than 20 sensors in terms of hardware configuration, including Luminar's latest Iris lidar.
It is reported that after the Pass of Ride Pilot's highway safety test, Volvo Cars plans to offer subscriptions on the upcoming new pure electric flagship SUV and release this new model in the second half of this year.
Stellantis Change: Amazon Support
Stellantis Group CEO Tang Weishi gave a speech on "How to Transform and Become a Sustainable Mobility Technology Company". This is also the most curious question for everyone. Subsequently, Stellantis announced a partnership with Amazon to accelerate the transformation on software. Stellantis will use Amazon Web Services as its preferred vehicle platform cloud provider to create a software product development environment called Virtual Engineering Workbench. Amazon will become the first commercial customer for the Ram brand's new ProMaster pure electric vehicle in 2023, which will further expand Amazon's sustainable delivery network. Starting in 2024, Amazon will provide software solutions for STLA SmartCockpit, The Stellantis Group's new digital cockpit platform.
The Stellantis Group has also released a technology, the Emergency Vehicle Alert System (EVAS), which can be added to the Uconnect 4/5 vehicle-machine system via a remote OTA upgrade, which is currently only available for Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat and Alfa Romeo brand vehicles in North America.
Chrysler, a subsidiary of the Company, has released an Airflow Concept pure electric concept car that uses the Stellantis Group STLA architecture, based on the STLA medium-sized platform, with a range of between 563 and 643 kilometers. The model will become Chrysler's first pure electric production model in 2025, and it is expected that in 2028, chrysler's entire product line will be transformed into a pure electric vehicle brand.
Sony's Pathfinder: Considering EV commercialization
Traditional car companies are busy showing off new skills, and technology companies are busy officially announcing car buildings.
At the CES venue, Kenichiro Yoshida, president of sony group, announced that in the spring of 2022, a new company in charge of the pure electric vehicle (EV) business will be established, named "Sony Mobility", headquartered in Japan. Sony will make full use of its experience in conducting road trials of prototype vehicles to be made public in 2020 and formally consider commercialization of EVs.
At CES 2020, Sony unveiled EV prototypes equipped with autonomous driving functions, and continuously conducted road tests in Europe and other countries. According to the Nikkei Chinese Network, President Yoshida said at the venue that "consumers have a great response to the prototype car." This year, Sony showcased a prototype of a new model, the Sony Vision-S SUV, on its product line.
According to Yoshida, "Vision-S was developed on the basis of safety, adaptability and entertainment. Safety has always been our top priority when it comes to creating comfortable mobile experiences. That didn't change when this SUV was made. A total of 40 sensors are installed inside and outside the vehicle to monitor the safety situation. ”
According to previous public information, Vision-S is based on a new pure electric platform, which is compatible with cars, coupe cars, SUVs, MPVs and other models; although the Vision-S has a body length of only 4895mm, it has a wheelbase of 3000mm.
At the same time, Vision-S uses an electric drive system from Magna, and the front/rear axles of the new car are equipped with a motor with a maximum power of 200 kW; Sony's official Vision-S accelerates from 100 km/h in only 4.8 seconds and reaches a top speed of 240 km/h.
Extreme Krypton discharge: Building cars for the self-driving giants
After the official announcement and Waymo jointly developed self-driving cars, at CES, Extreme Krypton Automobile once again announced that it will cooperate with Mobileye to develop a new consumer-grade pure electric vehicle with L4 autonomous driving capabilities. The model is a further expansion of Krypton's existing model, using Mobileye Drive technology and the open SEA Haohan architecture, and is expected to be the first to be launched in China as early as 2024.
The self-driving car will be equipped with six EyeQ 5 System Integration Chips (SoCs) to support Mobileye's True Redundancy sensing system, a driving strategy based on a responsibility-sensitive safety model (RSS), and a new model of open collaboration based on road network information management (REM) mapping technology. Based on the redundant braking, steering and power functions of geely SEA's vast architecture, the car enables efficient integration of Mobileye with Krypton software technology under the open EyeQ concept. In addition, Mobileye will strengthen its R&D capabilities in China, establish a local data center and grow Mobileye's China team to support the fast-growing China business.
This is also another time that Geely Haohan Architecture has empowered the autonomous driving giant after cooperating with Google's Waymo and Baidu's Jidu Automobile.
Che Yun summary
CES2022 has more than 200 car companies participating in the exhibition, setting a new high in the past. In the content released by car companies, electric intelligence is the theme, and cars are moving towards the focus in the development of global science and technology.
Car companies also listed the electrification product camp as the core focus of the exhibition, and AI products such as flying cars and robots also appeared on the booths of car companies. The technology relies on the concept car unveiling, and the product will really land in 2 to 3 years.
In the process of merging automobiles and technology into one, technology companies are still exploring car-making, and the power of car-making is growing.