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Who can use it? Who wants to use it? Who dares to use it?
Written by: CH_ Chen Han
At the end of last month, just as Chinese people were preparing to celebrate the Spring Festival, Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the other side of the ocean was not lonely, and he claimed on his personal Twitter that "Tesla will open FSD authorization to other automakers", which made a big news.
Note: FSD refers to Full Self-Driving, which is the ability to fully autonomously drive.
As soon as the news came out, there was immediately a voice on the Internet that sang about the decline of "Wei Xiaoli" and other domestic autopilot self-research companies, saying that "Wei Xiaoli" would suffer a fatal blow, because the results of self-research for several years were not as good as directly using Tesla's FSD. As long as other car companies use Tesla's FSD, the self-driving ability can surpass those car companies that are developing themselves in minutes.
So, is this really the case?
01
How many steps do you need to use Tesla's FSD?
First of all, it should be emphasized that, unlike many melon-eating masses, "open licensing" means to collect money, not free and open, whether it is hardware or software.
In fact, this matter can be understood that Tesla will expand the autopilot business, and FSD can not only use it for its own use, but also sell it to friends. Therefore, Tesla's opening of FSD is equivalent to robbing Nvidia, Mobileye, Huawei, Baidu, Momenta and other self-driving software/hardware suppliers of jobs, and the threat to them is greater and more direct.
And using the solutions of other autopilot suppliers, other car companies want to use Tesla's FSD, the first step is definitely to develop a car that can adapt to FSD, the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture needs to be designed according to the needs of FSD. It is very likely that the model will need to be redeveloped or integrated into the original model using a plug-in system.
The second step is to purchase Tesla's autopilot hardware, including chips, sensors, etc., and most likely need to follow the hardware layout of Tesla's existing models. Buying software without buying hardware is definitely not enough.
The model is designed, and after the hardware is on the car, the last step is to open the FSD software service.
The core technology of automatic driving can be divided into three parts: perception, planning and control, perception is equivalent to people driving when looking at the road, obtaining road information, planning is equivalent to processing road information in the brain and output driving decisions, control is equivalent to people controlling hands and feet to drive.
There is no doubt that Tesla's FSD authorization will definitely use a black box model, and other manufacturers will not be able to get the underlying code. Tesla at best, like the previous Mobileye practice, opens up the permission to plan and control to other car companies, and the perception part will definitely not be open.
That is to say, other car companies may choose to leave the entire system to Tesla to do, and only do simple adaptation and testing, similar to the current cooperation model between WM and Baidu; they can also choose as long as Tesla's automatic driving architecture and perception ability, and then based on the perceived information obtained, self-developed planning and control parts, similar to the previous cooperation model between Weilai and Mobileye.
However, since they all choose to use Tesla's FSD, self-development planning and control is tantamount to getting an axe, and it is not conducive to the subsequent acquisition of Tesla's latest software OTA, so it should be a more reasonable choice to give tesla full authority.
Referring to the current Tesla FSD charging method, other car companies use FSD authorization to charge by car, and it is very likely to be divided into two charging standards: basic services (equivalent to the free AP function of Tesla models now) and advanced services (equivalent to Tesla models opening FSD).
02
Who would use Tesla's FSD?
Although Musk claimed that "considering how difficult FSD is, it may take other car companies to solve this problem in 5 years or more", he did not exaggerate, but this advantage does not easily convince other car companies to choose to use FSD.
Today, tesla FSD that insists on using pure vision solutions is still in the beta stage and has not yet achieved mass production delivery, while on the other hand, the integration scheme based on camera + lidar has gradually become the mainstream of the industry, with the help of lidar, rising stars are trying to narrow the gap with Tesla. It is too early to draw conclusions about the advantages and disadvantages of the two schemes, and ultimately depends on the performance after mass production.
Because as mentioned earlier, the use of Tesla's FSD must be redeveloped models, according to industry experience, even if a car company now decides to use Tesla's FSD authorization, it will take 2 years at the earliest for us to see the new car on the market. After 2 years, no one can guarantee whether Tesla's FSD can still maintain the lead for 5 years.
Moreover, using FSD to buy both hardware and software is equivalent to selling the body and soul at the same time. Therefore, car companies that have begun to develop self-driving on self-driving do not have to use Tesla's FSD at all, and large manufacturers such as Toyota and Volkswagen are certainly not willing to commit themselves to people unless some large-scale strategic cooperation is reached.
In summary, there are only two types of car companies that will use Tesla's FSD, one is a small factory or a new entrant who has no automatic driving research and development capabilities at all, and the use of FSD can be more competitive and save costs than self-research; the other is a car company that has reached a large-scale strategic cooperation with Tesla, and the two sides exchange resources.
Not only that, the possibility of domestic car companies using FSD is extremely small, although the use of FSD does not necessarily require the driving data to provide Tesla, but there are too many external uncertainties, it is likely to be constrained. In addition, FSD has not yet shown the ability to adapt to the complex road conditions in China, and it is better to choose domestic autonomous driving suppliers in a down-to-earth manner.
03
What is Tesla's purpose in opening up FSD?
Existing models "not available"
Car companies with self-development capabilities "do not need to use"
Traditional manufacturers "don't want to use"
Chinese car companies "dare not use"
A variety of reasons are doomed at this stage, Tesla's opening up of FSD licensing does not have much practical significance.
I know all the things, how could Elon Musk not know. The purpose of his words was obviously to play a bigger game.
On the one hand, as with the announcement of "opening all patents" in 2014, Musk is demonstrating Tesla's industry leadership and establishing an image of Tesla's efforts to promote the development of the electric vehicle industry. And this trick is really tried and tested, this is not, simply send a few tweets, someone in the country has begun to lick up.
On the other hand, Musk is also showing FSD's future profit model and profitability. When autonomous driving is truly realized, Tesla has the ability to make money selling self-driving software and hardware, further consolidating the confidence of the capital market.
Finally, it is to extend an olive branch to find allies and let other car companies know that Tesla can also be a self-driving supplier.
Of course, if one day in the future, Tesla really achieves the mass production delivery of FSD and still maintains obvious technical advantages, I have no doubt that there will be car companies that actively seek cooperation with Tesla.
But the question is, how long will it take for the FSD to be delivered in mass production?
Elon Musk said it was this year, 2022. What do you think?
(Some image source network)
Today's topic
When will autonomous driving be possible?
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