Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: "This is the best of times and the worst of times. "With the vigorous development of the automotive industry, it has created both opportunities and challenges.
For traditional automakers, the rapid rise of the new energy + intelligent industry has put pressure on their own development, but for new entrants, this is obviously an excellent period to enter the automotive industry, which is bound to change the car from the essence.
Such changes, thanks to the gradual upgrading of cars to intelligence, will not only change the attributes of the car, but also change the relationship between people and cars, and even quietly change the competitive landscape of the automobile industry.
From December 17 to 19, 2021, the third "Horizon Cup" China Intelligent Automobile Annual Model Evaluation Test and Evaluation Conference sponsored by the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute was held in Beijing, and the selection activity was sponsored by Horizon Company, and after layers of selection, 20 models stood out from the 106 shortlisted models and accepted the strict evaluation of experts at the professional intelligent network test site.
When automotive products gradually haunt the "intelligent" atmosphere, cars often no longer use a single data as a evaluation standard, on the contrary, under the blessing of Moore's Law and continuous innovation, multi-dimensional data and sensory evaluation can highlight the authenticity and reliability of its intelligence. In the selection activity, Li Qingwen, president of the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute, talked about his real feelings during the selection process.
Li Qingwen, president of the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute
Intelligence brings disruptive innovation to the automotive industry
At present, the development trend of the automobile industry towards the "new four modernizations" is obviously unquestionable, of which electrification and intelligence as an important part of it can be described as the most core competitiveness in the automobile industry.
The development trend of electrification has received great attention from the automotive industry in recent years, among which the emergence of pure electric vehicles has brought great innovation to the automotive industry. In contrast, intelligence is a long-term strategic innovation in the global automotive industry in the future. Li Qingwen, president of the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute, said bluntly: "The emergence of smart cars will not only subversive innovation in the automotive industry, but also bring synergy to other industries. “
It is undeniable that smart cars and electric vehicles are mutually reinforcing and mutually reinforcing. Nowadays, people focus on electric vehicles, but in fact, electric vehicles only change the power system of the car, and do not make the car undergo essential changes. The intelligent car has become an indispensable and important part, which makes the car no longer just a car, and even turns the original means of transportation into an intelligent terminal, making the car a mechanical product into a smart product, making the car more humane. It is precisely because of the arrival of intelligence that the car becomes very smart, the car becomes a partner of people, becomes a small secretary of people, becomes an intelligent tool that people cannot leave, and the car will be connected with everything.
In a sense, electric vehicles create a precondition for the development of smart cars. With the transformation and development of the automobile industry to electrification, it is more necessary to use intelligence as a strong support. At the same time, because the vehicle has a large number of intelligent functions, it is only because of the blessing of electric vehicles that electric vehicles can be favored by the younger generation of consumers, and the two can be described as complementary. "Electric vehicles create prerequisites for smart cars, and smart cars make electric cars more attractive to young people, and this is the relationship between them." Dean Li Qingwen said.
Dean Li Qingwen further explained: "Some people say that intelligent cars are the core of artificial intelligence innovation, a breakthrough in the development of artificial intelligence, the best entry point for artificial intelligence, and even the pearl on the neck of artificial intelligence. This shows that when intelligent cars achieve innovative breakthroughs, human society will enter the era of intelligence, and its lifestyle will undergo earth-shaking changes. ”
Based on this premise, the Automotive Evaluation Research Institute looks at the development of China's annual intelligent vehicles from the height of history and the height of the times, and intends to predict the development trend of intelligent vehicles through objective and professional "China Intelligent Vehicle Annual Model Evaluation Real Vehicle Test", study the development direction of intelligent vehicles, and play a positive role in promoting the upward development of the automobile industry.
China's first, the world's first, expert subjective experience evaluation to create an industry vane
In fact, the Horizon Cup China Intelligent Car Annual Model Evaluation Activity is an evaluation activity based on the subjective experience of experts. The reason for using this method, Dean Li Qingwen explained: "Now in the industry and society, it is generally the only criterion for using equipment and data as the only criterion for objective evaluation, and from a certain point of view, it can be said to be 'equipment evaluation'. By using expert immersive experience as a way of evaluation, the upgrading of automotive products, guiding consumers' consumption behavior, and even the development of the automotive industry have different significance. Dean Li Qingwen said frankly that this should be a topic that deserves serious attention and heated discussion by industry insiders.
Dean Li Qingwen believes that "the relationship between equipment evaluation and expert experiential evaluation is mutually promoting, complementary and mutually effective. ”
The Automotive Evaluation Research Institute takes the subjective experience of experts as the main judgment basis, and the key to its evaluation lies in the feelings, experiences and needs of consumers. This shows that in the evaluation process, everything revolves around the real demands of consumers as the basis for judging, and finally determines the system and form of their evaluation. At the same time, the evaluation system relies on the subjective experience of experts. These industry experts have both professional knowledge and professional skills in automobiles and intelligence, and at the same time have another identity, that is, a consumer with a high level of professional knowledge, professional experience, professional skills, even the most discerning consumer, but also a most rational consumer, but also a consumer with the most consumer experience. It is precisely because of their multiple identities as representatives that the cars with intelligent functions they evaluate will be more valuable in the Chinese market in 2021.
"The annual model selection of China's intelligent vehicles can be said to be the vane of the industry, the vane of the market, and even the vane of consumers." Dean Li Qingwen said bluntly, "In this sense, the subjective experiential evaluation of experts is the best reference value and the best reference textbook for consumers in the process of purchasing a car, as long as you read our textbook well, you can buy the most intimate, most desirable, and most secure smart models. ”
It is worth noting that this kind of subjective experiential evaluation of experts is theoretical and standard, not arbitrary, nor blind. Through the driving experience of old drivers + professionals, it is more convincing to set evaluation indicators and evaluation standards. "This evaluation will also provide the market and consumers with the most valuable opinions on car purchase, and it can become a car purchase guide for Chinese car consumers." President Li Qingwen said.
The evaluation system based on professionalism and experience created by the Automobile Evaluation Institute can be described as the first in China and the first in the world. "We have not seen any country or region in the world have such a systematic, comprehensive and professional subjective evaluation theory and subjective evaluation standards, and we have carried out three consecutive years this year, in the process of these three years, our subjective evaluation system is improving, technology is improving, and our experience is getting richer and richer." It is believed that China will certainly create a new standard for subjective experiential intelligent car evaluation. Dean Li Qingwen said.
Such an evaluation system will also play a role in promoting the development of China's intelligent automobile industry, so that enterprises can truly improve and upgrade their own technology through objective and standard evaluation, improve their own products, so that their models and technologies are closer to consumers and more able to meet the needs of consumers.
The intelligent development of China's automobiles has achieved overtaking in curves
After three years of "China Intelligent Car Annual Model Selection", after continuous upgrading and improvement, it has a set of professional evaluation standards. In the course of these three years of evaluation, the Automotive Evaluation Institute has also witnessed the rapid development of intelligent vehicles and the changes in the intelligent industry.
The first is the intelligent realization of the Chinese brand overtaking in curves. As Dean Li Qingwen said, "Through the evaluation, we have seen the excellence of Chinese automobile brands and joint venture car brands in the intelligent car track. This makes me feel very pleased that the performance of Chinese car brands on the smart car track can be said to be better than and better than that of joint venture brands. This is the proudest thing in our Chinese automotive industry and the biggest change in the Chinese automotive market. ”
For many years, Chinese automobiles have been following as the main feature, but since entering the new century, especially in the past five or six years, because china's automobile industry has seized the new opportunities of global automobile industry reform, seized the development in the direction of electric vehicles and intelligence, through its own continuous efforts and pictures, has made great progress, the momentum of development is very rapid, and finally achieved curve overtaking.
It can be said that whether it is in technology development, model innovation, especially in the application of artificial intelligence technology, big data, cloud computing, these emerging technologies, to achieve forge ahead, positive progress, to achieve today's achievements.
Secondly, the development of intelligence shows an unbalanced state. Dean Li Qingwen believes that the current intelligent vehicles can be divided into three categories: one is the level of middle school students, the second is the level of high school students, and the third is the level of college students. Through the evaluation, it can be seen that some car companies and some models are still at the level of junior high school students, that is to say, they have just begun to enter the intelligent track; some have begun to enter the college entrance examination, entered the third year of high school, are sprinting, and even enter the university stage to learn; there are also some advanced enterprises that have the level of college students. "Smart cars are smarter than which model, if from the perspective of the most familiar and easy to understand, through our evaluation, we can easily distinguish the level of junior high school students, high school students, and college students." Dean Li Qingwen said.
Overall, in the current smart car, junior high school students, high school students, college students account for 1/3 each, that is, 1/3 of the models are still junior high school students level, 1/3 of the models are high school students level, and 1/3 is college students level. "We haven't seen models that have reached master's and doctoral levels. But we believe that in the future evaluation process, we will certainly be able to see the emergence of doctoral-level models. Dean Li Qingwen said bluntly.
Third, the performance of new car-making forces and traditional car companies on the intelligent track is different. Dean Li Qingwen said: "Overall, the performance of the new car-making forces on the track of smart cars is better than that of traditional car companies, but there are good students and college students in traditional car companies, such as Great Wall Motors, their WEY brand has such models; the same Changan Automobile also has such models, with college student-level models. ”
The independent research and development strength has leapt to a new height, and China's intelligent technology has made rapid progress
"In our evaluation process, we noticed a gratifying phenomenon, that is, most of our models use automatic driving chips from abroad, but this time there are 2 companies using domestic chips, one is Changan Automobile, and the other is an ideal car." Dean Li Qingwen said, "These two companies use our own horizon chips in China, and their product performance is very good, which makes us satisfied, not inferior to models equipped with foreign chips." ”
In such a selection of models, the 2021 Ideal ONE uses two dedicated chips for Horizon's latest Journey 3 autonomous driving. Ideal Auto CEO Li Xiang mentioned in his 2022 speech that thanks to the full-stack self-development of intelligent driving using the Horizon Journey 3 chip, the 2021 Ideal ONE delivered the basic ADAS and basic AEB functions in June 2021. In December, it delivered NOA navigation assisted driving and complete AEB functions (active safety), becoming the third brand in the world with complete NOA and AEB full-stack self-development capabilities.
In the field of chips, Horizon has been adhering to the principle of steady and steady development, and in the first two years of its establishment, the team focused on technology accumulation and product research and development. Today, Horizon Journey chip shipments have exceeded 1 million pieces, and more than 40 front-loading mass production projects have been fixed.
In the era of traditional automobile manufacturing, automobile evaluation is basically monopolized by Western developed automobile countries in the world, but with the rise of China's innovative forces, we usher in unprecedented opportunities, fully capable of breaking the monopoly, China will also create a world-class automobile evaluation brand in the new industrial change, and the annual model evaluation of China's intelligent cars in the Horizon Cup will strive unremittingly towards this goal.