[Introduction: In 2021, lidar, which was once regarded as unattainable, has appeared on a number of newly listed models. With the continuous maturity of technology and the continuous decline in costs, it seems that it has become inevitable for new domestic cars to be equipped with lidar. Even if the SAIC Zhiji L7, although it will not be equipped with lidar in the first batch of delivered models, it also reserves an interface for customers to upgrade to a lidar configuration in the later stage. The increasing number of lidar subtly makes the Chinese people think that the more the number of lidar, the better, but is this really the case? In 2022, whether it is a new force car company or an independent brand, whether the lidar anxiety can be alleviated may become another major attraction. 】
Written by He Cong| and edited by | Hezi
Domestic car companies in the field of driving assistance / automatic driving, compared with foreign car companies, indeed have a relatively obvious advantage. In particular, car companies such as Weilai and Xiaopeng have long had the point-to-point navigation function of the highway, which can bring consumers a completely different driving experience than before. In contrast, among foreign car companies, neither Volkswagen nor Toyota has been able to land a pilot function in China. Even if it is a general use that holds Cruise, the SuperCruise deployed in China is relatively limited. Building its own leading edge in the field of autonomous driving has become an important starting point for new forces/independent brands to surpass traditional multinational car giants.
The lidar inner roll that can't stop
Starting with the two solid-state lidars on the Xiaopeng P5, the NIO ET7/ET5 and WM M7 and then the first model of the Great Wall Motor's high-end electric vehicle brand Sharon Zhixing, which was unveiled at the Guangzhou Auto Show, were equipped with four lidars. The new electric vehicle models of domestic independent brands are listed, and whether to deploy lidar and several lidars has become an important indicator for people to evaluate the level of automatic driving of this model. And Huawei AITO's first model, the M5, because there is no lidar, even the manufacturers themselves do not take automatic driving / driving assistance as their own selling point for external publicity.
Previously, many models, including Tesla, that were not equipped with lidar, had many traffic accidents caused by failures to identify stationary obstacles in front of them, so domestic consumers regarded lidar as the key to solving the important problem of automatic driving/driver assistance. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the competition of independent brands in the new generation of intelligent electric vehicles is not limited to the three-electric system and the intelligent cockpit, and lidar has become one of the important indicators for the Chinese to judge the level of automatic driving/driver assistance of this model. The insubordination of the number of lidars that cannot be stopped is the best note for anxiety that you will fall behind in this new round of competition.
Lidar is not a panacea
Compared with the pure visual peripheral situational awareness scheme, lidar can undoubtedly better compensate for the lack of pure visual technology solutions in identifying static obstacles in front. Before the use of lidar, mainly because of the high cost of mechanical rotary lidar represented by Velodyne at that time, and it was difficult to meet the requirements of the vehicle standard level. With the continuous maturity of solid-state lidar technology and the continuous reduction of costs, lidar has become a solution for many domestic independent brand autonomous driving systems.
In fact, from the consensus reached by all parties, before V2X is fully rolled out, it is difficult for high-level automatic driving to cover all car use scenarios in the short term. Only highways with relatively simple working conditions and ports, mines, and parks that can drive at low speeds are likely to be the first areas of unmanned vehicles to be launched. In addition, Robotaxi, which is currently in full swing in China and the United States, will also be another important use scenario for autonomous driving. Therefore, for ordinary consumers, even if lidar is installed, most of the current vehicles still require consumers to maintain a high degree of concentration in the process of driving, and are ready to take over the vehicle at any time. In fact, strictly speaking, the current driving assistance/autonomous driving in the market can only improve the safety performance of vehicles, but there is still a long way to go before fully autonomous driving.
Software will never play a smaller role than hardware in determining autonomous driving/driver assistance functions. That's why Tesla's electric cars don't carry lidar, but they are far ahead of models equipped with lidar, including the Xiaopeng P5, in terms of sales. In addition, several electric vehicles such as BYD Han also do not have lidar, and they are far behind in terms of sales. Even the P7, which is also a subsidiary of Xiaopeng, although it is not equipped with lidar, it is more than P5 in terms of sales, which is the protagonist of Xiaopeng Automobile's current well-deserved sales. Therefore, lidar is not the only factor that determines the sales volume of car companies, and the comprehensive ability of the vehicle configuration, the level of the three-electric system, the cost performance and even the business model behind each brand is the most important factor that determines whether this model can sell well. The ability to drive itself, or lidar, is, at best, just one factor.
Lidar anxiety is not necessary
Behind the lidar inner roll, the major OEMs hope to fill the hardware gap in the shortest possible time, so that their new high-end sub-brands do not have the weakness of being used by competitors to directly attack. At present, the domestic intelligent electric vehicle market competition is very fierce. Among them, there are not only new car manufacturers such as Wei Xiaoli, who are familiar with us, but also almost every mainstream independent brand has launched a high-end electric vehicle sub-brand. In the relatively limited electric vehicle market, so many new brands have poured in at once, especially in the case of relatively obvious homogenization of models and technologies of all parties, if you want to highlight the siege, you must not let yourself have obvious shortcomings and deficiencies. Along this logic, it has become the background of various domestic brands have launched lidar.
Starting from Tesla AutoPilot, the world's major car companies have also developed autonomous driving for a long time. At the moment when OTA technology is gradually popularized, it should be a more reasonable technical route to determine an autonomous driving hardware technology solution for the current model, and to help consumers unlock more use scenarios through continuous upgrading and optimization in the later stage, and constantly approach L4 level automatic driving. Therefore, whether there is lidar or not, it is not only necessary to look at the deployment of competitors, but also needs to be closely integrated with its own hardware technology route. It cannot be carried in order to carry lidar, which will not only push up the cost of the whole vehicle, but also make consumers no longer trust the brand's autonomous driving technology once there is a related traffic accident in the later stage. After all, even if the light radar is used, there will still be traffic accidents, and this perception is really too bad.
Comments
Lidar is a symptom, behind the lidar inner volume is that car companies hope to seize the domestic intelligent electric vehicle market share. Whether it is from the sales level or from the market value level, they have let themselves occupy a favorable position. However, lidar is only a piece of hardware, and there will be more and more models equipped with lidar in the future, so in addition to considering lidar on the car, OEMs continue to optimize algorithms and unlock more high-level automatic driving use scenarios, which is the key to ensuring their competitiveness. Therefore, visible lidar is important, and the consumer reputation formed by the invisible automatic driving software platform is the key to determining whether this model can sell well with the configuration of automatic driving in the future.
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