In the field of intelligent driving, there is no shortage of top players in the market, and there is a steady stream of new stories.
On February 25, it was reported that BYD chose Baidu as its autonomous driving supplier, and the two sides reached a cooperation, and Baidu will provide BYD with ANP intelligent driving products and human-machine co-driving maps. It is reported that Baidu has begun to cooperate with BYD for development, and will release a mass production version of the cooperative model soon.
As soon as the news came out, it once again aroused the industry's attention to BYD's self-driving business.
BYD's strength in the new energy vehicle market is not low, in January, BYD won the domestic new energy vehicle sales championship with monthly sales of more than 90,000 vehicles, and this is also the eighth consecutive month that BYD has become the champion of new energy vehicle sales.
In contrast, BYD has much less vocal volume in the field of intelligent driving.
Is the short board difficult to make up or low-key charging?
BYD's layout of automatic driving is not as big as its electrification strategy, and in the eyes of the industry, it even believes that intelligence is its shortcoming.
However, BYD's self-driving technology is not without accumulation. As early as 2013, BYD signed a cooperation agreement with Beijing Institute of Technology to jointly develop autonomous driving technology, and the test car developed by the two sides based on Speed Sharp tried to be equipped with lidar and won the first place in the automatic driving competition that year.
In 2014, BYD partnered with the Institute of Communications Research (I2R) of the Singapore Bureau of Science, Technology and Research to develop autonomous driving and intelligent transportation technologies.
Cooperation with Baidu is no stranger to BYD. In 2015, when Baidu's driverless business unit was established, BYD took the lead in reaching cooperation with it, and BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu was also appointed as Baidu's autonomous driving consultant at the inaugural meeting. Subsequently, BYD cooperated with Baidu to develop driverless test vehicles and became a partner of Baidu Apollo. In 2018, BYD disclosed the latest cooperation progress with Baidu and said that Baidu will provide a complete solution for BYD's L3-level intelligent driving.
In the current camp of traditional car companies, there are two differences in the layout of the field of automatic driving, that is, internal research and development of enterprises and cooperation with industry-leading technology companies, and the point of disagreement is whether enterprises should fake the core autonomous driving technology.
In addition to the many cooperation mentioned above, in fact, Wang Chuanfu also mentioned that BYD has carried out autonomous driving research and development internally, which was revealed when BYD first contacted and cooperated with Baidu. However, the industry believes that BYD did not set up an independent automatic driving team and department, the analysis believes that according to the division of BYD at that time, the fifteenth business department is responsible for the research and development and production of on-board electronics, body electronics, and safety electronics, and if there is automatic driving research and development, the probability is also responsible for the department.
Judging from the research and development results, BYD has also exported many patents for automatic driving. Relevant data show that as of June 2021, IND ranked tenth in China's autopilot patent rankings, second only to Geely and Chery in traditional OEMs.
However, despite several years of layout accumulation, BYD's autonomous driving business development status is still questioned by the industry, after all, the DiPilot intelligent driving assistance system currently installed on BYD's flagship model Han has not achieved the expected effect, and the current head car companies have landed L4 level automatic driving.
In 2019, Yang Dongsheng, president of the Product Planning and Automotive New Technology Research Institute of BYD Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., was asked in an interview with the media how BYD exerted its strength in automatic driving, and Yang Dongsheng's answer at that time was: "Autonomous driving has a professional division of labor, since there is a division of labor, it should be, do something and do nothing." ”
Yang Dongsheng mentioned that in the future, BYD will be equipped with functions provided by external suppliers, and the next step is to achieve L3-level automatic driving through cooperation with Baidu. What BYD has to do is to do a good job of controlling the car, and this demarcation is very clear.
This sentence inevitably reveals BYD's tendency towards the autonomous driving strategy at that time, and self-research is obviously not the main direction of the company.
Preparing for the second half of intelligence?
In September last year, Wang Chuanfu talked about intelligent transformation at the 2021 Lenovo Innovation and Technology Conference, he said: "At present, it has entered an era of intelligent change, new IT is becoming a new engine of intelligent change, at the same time, the big change in the automotive industry, electrification is the first half, intelligence is the second half. BYD is accelerating the digital and intelligent transformation of the manufacturing industry, and will grasp intelligence as a leading project. ”
From the perspective of BYD's new energy development, this car company has its achievements in the electrification process, according to Wang Chuanfu, the next step, the center of gravity or will be inclined to the direction of intelligence.
Since last year, BYD has begun to make frequent moves in the field of intelligent driving.
In February 2021, BYD completed its strategic investment in the artificial intelligence chip company Horizon, in early March, Horizon and BYD held a strategic cooperation signing ceremony at BYD's Shenzhen headquarters, according to the agreement, in the future, BYD and Horizon will cooperate in the basic technology platform composed of "chip + algorithm + tool chain", including intelligent driving AI processor, intelligent driving computing platform, visual perception algorithm, multimodal interaction and other aspects.
In December of the same year, BYD and the autonomous driving company Momenta officially announced the establishment of Shenzhen Dipai Zhixing Technology Co., Ltd. Officials said that Dipai Zhixing will rely on BYD's intelligent technology accumulation and vertical integration capabilities, as well as Momenta's years of intelligent driving technology accumulation, to overcome relevant technical difficulties and create future-oriented high-level intelligent driving solutions. The day before the establishment of Dipai Zhixing, BYD also reached a strategic cooperation with LiDAR company Sagitar Juchuang.
Although BYD is not afraid to promote vigorous cooperation with companies such as Baidu, relying on technology companies is not a foolproof solution. In addition to cooperation, BYD seems to have also begun to build a new autonomous driving research and development team. Some netizens broke the news that BYD is suspected of starting to build an autonomous driving research and development center a few days ago, or will settle in Shanghai, and held a special talent recruitment fair for this purpose, including all aspects of automatic driving.
In the past ten years of development, BYD Wang Chuanfu has the title of "technology maniac", with the concept and persistence of "buying foreign is not as good as making it yourself", BYD has established an industrial chain including motors, electronic controls, batteries and semiconductors, which basically covers most of the production of fuel vehicles and new energy.
When the proportion of intelligent driving in automotive products is increasing, whether this "technology maniac" will continue to play a "madman spirit" in the field of automatic driving, or continue to clear boundaries, the industry is looking forward to BYD's answer.