author
Ma Xi Feng
The technology market can only appear in a dominant situation in its infancy. And once the "hundred schools of thought" actually represent that they have entered the golden age.
Responsible editor 丨 Shi Jie
Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics has not yet opened, and Mobileye, the former "bearer" of the automatic driving industry, has been fiercely out of the limelight.
On January 24, Intel showcased many of the new technologies it will put into the Beijing Winter Olympics. Among them, the safe travel guarantee system from its self-driving technology company Mobileye is particularly eye-catching.
According to media reports, at present, the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee and the Beijing Transportation Bureau have approved a total of 500 vehicles equipped with autonomous driving equipment from multiple companies to be put into venues and personnel transportation services. This includes buses with Mobileye 8 Connect and Mobileye Shield+ collision avoidance systems.
At that time, all these smart vehicles will work together to provide travel services during the Winter Olympics for all participating athletes, officials from various countries and invited media.
"The artificial intelligence safety system equipped with the vehicle can use computer vision technology to play the role of assisted driving. The system continuously scans the road ahead, and once a pedestrian or cyclist enters a hazardous area, the system issues visual and audible alarms in real time to remind drivers to take action. ”
▲Mobileye 8 Connect intelligent collision avoidance system
In fact, for companies like Mobileye that insist on pure visual intelligent driving, its intelligent driving system is still challenging in the face of scenarios such as snowy roads in winter. What's more, the city of Beijing has always been known for its traffic problems.
Therefore, being able to put it into use during the Beijing Winter Olympics is both an opportunity and a challenge for Mobileye.
Not only can the company turn the downward trend since the beginning of 2020, but even have the opportunity to further get a big order in the hands of the Chinese government. But if there is a major accident, then what awaits this company is probably a rather dark future.
However, for both Mobileye and Intel, this is a must-take risk, after all, just the first month of unlocking in 2022, Mobileye has already announced several major events in succession, and has reached cooperation agreements with Volkswagen, Ford and Geely Automobile (The Extreme Krypton brand).
The appearance at the Beijing Winter Olympics also means that Mobileye, which once "only covered the sky" in the intelligent driving market, has made up its mind to turn the tables at the beginning of 2022 after experiencing the tragic pain of being squeezed by the "graphics card manufacturer" NVIDIA for 2 years.
01
Once a king
At the end of 2021, Intel announced that it would promote mobileye, which is responsible for intelligent driving, to be listed independently on the New York Stock Exchange. At that time, the market valued Mobileye as high as $50 billion.
In the field of intelligent driving, Mobileye, founded in Israel in 1999, can be called a veteran enterprise. The outside world can understand its specific business from the perspective of its corporate name "Auto Eyes".
Mobileye first started with visual algorithms. The main business is the development of driver assistance related systems and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) for car companies. At the beginning of this century, Mobileye took the lead in launching the world's first intelligent driving chip, EyeQ 1. Subsequently, EyeQ went through 6 iterations and developed into an entire series.
In the field of intelligent driving, it is not an exaggeration to call Mobileye the "elder". In a way, it may not be too much to call them "ancestors". After all, many of the standard and basic functions in the current vehicle intelligent driving system, such as the front collision warning, lane departure warning, and blind spot detection function that are standard in the current mainstream ADAS systems, are successfully developed by Mobileye and defined as standards.
In the 20 years from the establishment of the company to 2019, due to the forward-looking grasp of the first wave of automobiles and artificial intelligence combined with the outlet, Mobileye used the algorithm + EyeQ series chip solution to once monopolize the entire intelligent driving market, helping many car companies to achieve the first-order intelligent driving function.
Until 2018, Mobileye actually enjoyed a de facto monopoly position in the global intelligent driving market. This de facto monopoly also lasted until NVIDIA, which "sells graphics cards", decided to enter the autonomous driving industry.
In 2020, NVIDIA launched Orin, a special chip for autonomous driving, which immediately triggered a "strong earthquake" in the industry.
Vibration comes first and foremost from the performance side. Orin chip performance is excellent, a single computing power of up to 254TOPS, and can be used together with multiple, further enhance the computing power of the system. In addition, the long-term "building graphics card" has also enabled Nvidia to master many unique skills in graphics processing.
It is obvious that once such a company decides to cross the border to mix the automatic driving business, it will inevitably have a major impact on the original industry pattern. For a time, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal, WM, Jidu, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and SAIC's Zhiji series have announced that they will use NVIDIA products. A considerable number of them have been Mobileye's partners for many years or even more than a decade.
To make matters worse, NVIDIA didn't falter because of Orin's success.
In 2021, "Leather Jacket Old Yellow" has redoubled its efforts to launch Atlan, a next-generation product with 1000 TOPS hashrate, and plans to put it on the market in 2023.
Of course, it is not only the NVIDIA that has an impact on Mobileye. In fact, Chinese technology companies, including Black Sesame, Horizon, and later Huawei, have also come up with their own powerful intelligent driving core products and supporting solutions between 2019 and 2021. Although the threat of these companies is not as great as that of NVIDIA, it does take a lot of market share from Mobileye.
Now, let's go back to Mobileye's independent listing plans. It is precisely because of the above-mentioned "ex-plot summary", so after Intel announced the listing plan, there were many voices in the market.
There are many views that the end of mobileye's cooperation with many car companies represents that the status of the former self-driving overlord has been substantially shaken. And to restore the status of the former jianghu, it seems almost impossible to complete the task at present.
Part of the reason why it is said "impossible" comes from the lack of performance of Mobileye hardware products.
Take the EyeQ 5, which achieved tape-out last year, as an example, which achieves ultra-low power consumption of only 10w with a 7nm process, and this part of the performance can be called top stream. However, in terms of computing power, EyeQ 5 only has a mere 24TOPS, which is at the bottom of the new generation of autonomous driving chips.
▲ Although "only computing power theory" is not necessary, until 2021 there are only 24TOPS, which is really excessive
Although the autonomous driving genres are heavy, relying on pure visual "heavy perception" routes to reduce the system's computing power requirements, The EyeQ 5 is sufficient for now. However, too low performance will inevitably affect the medium and long-term upgrade problem.
In addition, Mobileye's long-term software and hardware integration solution strategy is also becoming a serious constraint on the continued development of enterprises.
Because the software system provided by Mobileye to its cooperative OEMs is "closed", this means that car companies cannot modify and adjust their algorithms independently, limiting the autonomy of car companies. In contrast, companies including NVIDIA, Black Sesame, Horizon, and even Huawei provide customized algorithm adjustments.
Although Mobileye's intention to grasp the entire autonomous driving domain and maximize its own profits is understandable, it will inevitably make OEMs more inclined to consider partners who give them more autonomy when they have other options. Before, there was no choice, but now that there are so many options, why endure harsh conditions and insist on "hanging" on a tree?
02
Mobileye's "transformation"
When faced with the pressure to survive, most businesses make informed choices. Mobileye also has a full understanding of the crisis it faces and is willing to make a change.
At the 2021CES held late last year, Mobileye and Geely's Krypton brand jointly announced that the two parties will cooperate to develop pure electric intelligent vehicles with L4 level autonomous driving capabilities.
According to the information officially announced by the two sides during cess, in the development of new cars, the two companies will adopt a highly divided labor approach. The main body of the vehicle will be built based on the SEA Haohan architecture launched by Geely in September 2020, while Mobileye will be responsible for the development and integration of its intelligent driving system. It is reported that the EyeQ 5 chip will still play the leading role in this new car, and it will be equipped with as many as 6.
The cooperation project with Geely means that Mobileye is deeply involved in a "car-making" project for the first time. Previously, the company had long insisted on providing autonomous driving solutions only to OEMs.
In addition to personally participating in the "car-making" project, in the cooperation with Ford Motor, the abandonment of the complete monopoly on the program is another major change shown by Mobileye.
New energy and intelligent transformation are for Ford Motor's top priority at present. Because it has been significantly slower than European and Chinese car companies, it is Ford's top priority to develop a set of auxiliary driving systems that can solve the intelligent transformation of its models as soon as possible.
"Driving out of hand" is one of BlueCruise's goals, which means it can at least reach the L3 level
According to information released by Ford, this driver assistance system is called BlueCruise. In the current fore-mobile partnership plan, the latter will be responsible for the route planning and the realization of obstacle identification and avoidance functions.
In addition, Mobileye also revealed that the company's cooperation with Ford also includes creating an open platform for it - through which Ford can build and integrate its own research and development, and even through other channels to obtain solutions, in order to make BlueCruise more powerful in the future. But this means that Mobileye no longer insists on "packaging" the entire autonomous driving solution as in the past - that is, the OEMs can only decide whether to eat or not to eat this "package", but not what exactly it is.
It is obvious that Mobileye has actually broken its original "closed ecology" model and is determined to invest in cooperation with OEMs with a new look. Only in terms of cooperation with Ford, its attitude of serving the main engine factory can be described as full of sincerity.
In addition to the joint "car building" with Geely and the lower body to build the BlueCruise system for Ford, Mobileye's recent cooperation with Volkswagen Group on "bee swarm data" is also quite interesting.
"Swarm data" is a mapping technology that uses intelligent car external sensors and positioning devices to draw high-precision digital maps. Mobileye said the Volkswagen Group will use the technology "soon" on electric vehicles under the Volkswagen, Skoda and Seat brands.
Recently, Mobileye also announced plans to strengthen its research and development capabilities in China. Not only is it establishing a local data center to localize data in accordance with the latest regulations of the Chinese government, but it also intends to further expand the R&D team in China to support the rapid growth of the business in China.
"We've transferred personnel from within Intel and technicians from Israel to China." Erez Dagan, executive vice president of product and strategy, said in an interview.
Clearly, Mobileye has seen the future of smart cars and is determined to strengthen its presence in the world's largest market in the future.
In the past decade, a total of 27 car companies have cooperated with Mobileye. In total, there are about 15 million cars worldwide equipped with Mobileye's systems.
The huge loading volume has accumulated hundreds of millions of driving scenario information for Mobileye in different environments, different climates, and different road conditions, spanning 43 countries.
On the track of intelligent driving, it is always the first mover who has the advantage. Therefore, when this old giant is willing to put down the strong attitude of eating alone, he begins to serve major car companies with a low attitude. Then, quickly winning back most of the partnership is also a very inevitable result. After all, "familiar recipes and familiar tastes" also mean safety and security, for the most part.
At the beginning of the new year, the various changes from Mobileye seem to mean that from 2022, the autonomous driving industry will open a multi-party chaos.
The track is not very spacious in the first place. With the return of Mobileye, the "OLD GODS", NVIDIA or Huawei, which later entered the game, plus black sesame seeds, horizons, etc., in order to compete for that not much order, all parties are bound to take out their own housekeeping skills, from technology to service areas, to teach a superior.
Of course, all this is also the inevitability of the times.
After all, the technology market can only appear in a dominant situation in its infancy. And once the "hundred schools of thought" began, in fact, it represents and has entered the golden age.
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