[Aika Auto 2021 Shanghai Auto Show Original]
Baidu IDG chief product architect Guo Yang, during the Shanghai International Auto Show interview with Aika Motors, he said that Baidu used to be some auxiliary AI technology providers, and now has its own booth in the exhibition hall, the development of automotive intelligence is very fast, we need to develop with many partners in the industry. The following is a transcript of the conversation:
Aika Motors: Is Baidu exhibiting for the first time?
Guo Yang: Yes, the first time as an automobile manufacturer, we used to be some auxiliary AI technology providers, and today the first time was in the exhibition hall of the car, I felt that we needed a separate booth, the development of automobile intelligence is very fast, I think we need to develop with many partners in the industry, to see how the future of the car is developed, so we independently set up a booth.
Aika Motors: I heard that we have issued a total of four wisdom systems at this booth, can you help us introduce the general situation of four wisdoms?
Guo Yang: Now it is like this, the integration of Baidu's autonomous driving technology for so many years has been taken out and the car factory has done intelligent driving services, mainly smart driving, smart cabin, smart cloud and smart map. Wisdom cabin we have been equipped with a small degree of voice in the past three or four years, including some navigation maps, some car and machine service products, currently equipped with more than a million cars, so this is the fastest growing business; the second part is the map business, previously is the navigation map, now to the stage of the new smart car, there are high-definition maps, we put in a map, can have a unified good customer experience; there is also the business of intelligent driving, we have developed for three or four years, our first car has been on sale at this auto show, We are also in Shanghai today in the push of ANP can experience the scene, is the pursuit of city-level automatic driving, no need for lidar, this program will soon be in several cooperative car companies, and then partners will be mass production on them, this is our intelligent driving. Finally, there are smart cloud products, we will have a lot of cloud services, in the era of automatic driving or intelligent cars, there are a lot of data that need to be trained and integrated in the cloud, so many car manufacturers we also see that we can't do without dealing with the Internet and cloud services, so we will have related services, which are our four services. From our point of view, we are not the same as some other vendors in the industry, we will not force the packaging of our services, but we can choose, can help manufacturers build a framework platform, and at the same time can choose which part of our services are more suitable for it, called Lego-style self-driving products. You can put it together like a puzzle.
Aika Auto: Can you reveal the future development plan of the Baidu Apollo unmanned platform?
Guo Yang: Because Baidu historically started with driverless taxis, but so our current intelligent driving development will be divided into three directions, the first direction is about the intelligent driving taxi, because it will have a completely different form from the current private car, so it will develop as an independent direction; the second is the smart car, which mainly contains the general direction of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, and the third is that we are still doing smart transportation business. Because you now see for example, such as V2X such a hot concept, but you find that it will be difficult to land, when landing will find that baidu's development, but can be a good support for landing, whether it is our current robotaxi, or in the automatic driving and intelligent cockpit we are now mentioning, we will do a deep combination with V2X, you can give an example, we are now driving a Baidu map navigation car in Changsha, At the intersection of the direct contact with the V2X equipment to tell you that the green light is still 10 seconds or 15 seconds, now there are 200 meters or 100 meters in front of the road, very intelligent green wave traffic, these we can not rely on our on-board equipment, can be sent to the car through Baidu map, this smart transportation business Huigen in front of us the smart driving are put together to integrate, we are also now China's relatively large intelligent transportation service providers, like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuhan, Chongqing these big cities, including cities like Cangzhou, we are the largest local provider of smart transportation, to help a city, in addition to starting from the car, but also from the road, integration can do better.
Aika Motors: Why can Baidu Apollo intelligent transportation be favored by the city?
Guo Yang: Because this part of the investment is the local government in the investment, we hope that the target these things can really be used by the people, otherwise these investments will not have much achievements, from the mission point of view, Baidu has such a strong map of the client, there are so many autonomous vehicles, these vehicles add up to carry our cockpit program of the car, so these cars have been used, so from here to get the user use data, the government also has to rely on the data to speak, after taking the data, We are now in Baoding has been online smart traffic light dozens of intersections, the average traffic efficiency of these ports increased by more than 30%, so from this point of view, these things after half a year, a year of use, can really break out a benefit on the data, this traffic is really improved by me, so the government is willing to hand over the smart transportation project to Baidu to do, can play an effect.
Aika Automobile: I remember that in 2018, when the two sessions of the National People's Congress, Chairman Li Yanhong proposed smart transportation, and at that time he also said that with the smart traffic lights in Haidian District, the smoothness rate of traffic could be increased by more than 30%.
Guo Yang: Yes, it was achieved in 2019. We have adopted intelligent traffic lights at the company's intersection, the effect is still good, but Haidian District has not focused on investment in this area in recent years, so it has not been expanded, but now the demonstration area is placed in Yizhuang, so the entire smart traffic function of Yizhuang is done by Baidu, in fact, now there may be seven or eight intersections in Yizhuang that have all been laid, and may be next year, many of Yizhuang will lay this equipment, and the traffic effect of the entire Yizhuang will be significantly improved.
Aika Motors: There is a word called smart city, smart transportation, smart vehicles, in fact, smart city is the last wish, how do you think about the future of smart transportation, and the development of the road in coordination? Just like the previous concept, when will it land? And then what will be the direction of the future development?
Guo Yang: It seems that the landing of this thing, including automatic driving, is a bit similar, it is difficult to say that the whole country is laid at one time, it is all regional, some areas will have this demand, such as second- and third-tier cities and rural roads, the traffic itself is not congested, smart traffic only helps to reduce the accident rate, but the traffic improvement is not obvious, this thing is based on demand, when the demand of a region needs to be adjusted, we will be on this thing, when the entire city has been covered in a large area From our point of view, we believe that this process will last for a long time, with the intelligent upgrading and transformation of many cities in China, transportation is the first consideration of the city government, because it is something that involves people's livelihood. So our chairman has always had an idea, or he has always felt that there is a point that feels incredible in society, such as the mobile phone we all use, in fact, it will find that it is not the government operation, but the real establishment of three operators, in the commercial mode of base station coverage, mobile phone signal coverage, so as to better serve the people, in the traffic He also believes that this hundred years based on traffic service providers, can operate these intersections, roads, Let all the people on the road of operation can better improve the safety and efficiency of traffic, this is also a thing he wants to do, we finally think that there may be regional, or national traffic operators in the future, he is responsible for helping the government, just like the communication mechanism, this design of the national economy and people's livelihood things, we can raise this efficiency higher, maybe there will be a national operator in the future, the traffic operation of the demand scene, access to the vehicle, the people, Including large bus vehicles can do well in this process, which may be an endgame to the future development trend.
Aika Cars: Driverless, smart transportation, and then to smart cities.
Guo Yang: Yes, there may be a mix of driverless and manned driving. We are actually doing this kind of work in Baoding now, prioritizing peers, when we find fire trucks, ambulances, we will wisdom all vehicles to give up a road to pass quickly, these are things that can be achieved with a scheduling and operation system for the entire road.
Aika Auto: The system will continue to improve, as long as it does not involve safety can be adjusted, we feel that Baidu has indeed been in the forefront, including the future production of Baidu and Geely vehicles, will the Apollo system be preferred to their own use?
Guo Yang: In fact, we are open to all manufacturers, and we will not say that our own things give priority to our own homes, and I personally understand that for Jidu Automobile, we prefer to make it a benchmarking scheme. For example, like a notebook, Microsoft is doing the operating system, but it will also do the notebook, it is hoped that by doing the notebook to tell all manufacturers, all my performance and hardware combined, can achieve a kind of user experience, then I think Jidu car also bears such an expectation, is to hope that all of Baidu's AI-related technologies, are integrated in the Jidu car, is to integrate all of Baidu's most advanced technology, we will create a benchmarking program, to all OEMs to see, Baidu thinks that the intelligent car can do what degree, but this technology we will provide to all OEMs without reservation, like the LEGO-style program just mentioned, choose which technology to install on your car, we are completely open, so we will not say that these technologies are only for whom to use or not to use, we are completely open attitude.
Aika Cars: What do you think of Xiaomi Cars? They are also a kind of ecology similar to them, because we are also laying out, such as Xiaodu Audio, because I have friends who are also on Baidu, he said that the development of Xiaodu Audio has taken a lot of energy, how do you see the future like this Kind of Internet of Things, and then the combination with the car?
Guo Yang: First of all, the connection between the home and the car is definitely the direction of development in the future. From the company's point of view, I think Xiaomi makes cars and Baidu makes cars, and maybe everyone will feel that they have their own advantages. Baidu's advantages have just been said, we think Baidu's advantages are still in AI, when we do personal services in the car, including voice services, information services, entertainment services, and some order services, and even some personalized services in the future, these are Baidu's advantages, just mentioned that there are thousands of small degree devices in the sale, as well as mobile phone maps service life assistants such things, these things have accumulated a lot of data, so we will put in the car to do use, Of course, the equipment behind the ecological relationship will be connected, for Baidu, in fact, the second AI advantage, in fact, my users are using our program to enter the city, especially in Yizhuang or Changsha's new district, after these areas come in, I have been running there for four or five years, what obstacles I encountered, the behavior of each obstacle I have collected, including what signs will be on this road, when users use these products in these areas, they are actually old drivers. I have taken the data of the old driver in the city to you to use, but also the concept of AI integration, we are ready to do 30 cities in the next three years, that is to say, in these 30 cities Baidu's self-driving cars, there will be directly an old driver's behavior data, all of which can only be developed in Baidu at the end, Baidu's advantage is that I will have an integrated Baidu historical data on the old driver to help you solve the problem of driving, and all the small degrees behind the human-computer interaction program assistant design, Just like you have a professional driver in your car, there is a particularly caring secretary, they solve your driving problems, but also solve your needs in driving, this is Baidu's advantage.
Xiaomi we may understand that his advantage is the equipment that was laid before the IOT, the fusion is indeed smart, and perhaps every new car builder who comes in their ideas in this regard is based on their own advantages to do thoroughly first, and can be developed in more programs after playing out, Baidu We now think that we have accumulated so many directions in AI.
Aika Motors: There is a comparative technical question, that is, is there a relationship between the mass production of autonomous driving and the cost of lidar? Because lidar is also very popular now, and the layout of SOC chips, I want to hear you talk about the relationship between lidar and soC autonomous driving mass production.
Guo Yang: We think so, first of all, there will be some differences in the technical solution, if you rely on the lidar scheme in particular, now the taxi uses a 360-degree rotation of the lidar, the role of the lidar is to detect the object, with the vision to do a certain amount of assistance, can make the car run up relatively smoothly, the problem is the applicability, if you replace the other areas that have not been run, adaptability is necessary to have a process, this is a problem; the second lidar, 360 degrees of lidar, This we think is still good, it can be better to use to help automatic driving, but if you like to see a lot of so-called mass production programs, its lidar placed in the front of the car downside position, this position is problematic, but its detection range will be interfered with, the second is the stability of the real lidar or did not meet the requirements, we do the car for three or four years, mass production is a very strict requirement for the car, such as temperature -45 to 85 degrees between completely available, Because the lidar is installed outside the car, it has more stringent requirements for the environment, such as waterproof, dustproof, vibration, more and more electronic equipment, there will be electromagnetic interference, these are to go through strict testing and certification, so you will find a real equipment in line with safety certification and parking space certification basically takes two or three years, we now see at home and abroad, we also invest in lidar manufacturers, so we are also very familiar with lidar, At present, there is no particularly suitable for the real stage of the current stage of the lidar installed on the car, like the previous paragraph a manufacturer released a city road test video, lidar previously advertised with their own home, in fact, not their home, is another supplier, indicating that their own lidar can be developed in two or three years, until now even the car can not be installed, indicating that the maturity is not high. We do not reject the use of lidar in private cars, if when to drop to a reasonable price, there is a security certification, there is a suitable magnitude in the time, placed in the private car is appropriate, at this stage let users buy so much money to buy such expensive things unstable, we think it is not very appropriate, so now known as the price of the car with lidar is very expensive, may have to three or four hundred thousand, for a lidar to pay so much money is not appropriate? We think that at this stage, we Baidu push, can be used in more than 200,000 cars, can let more people enjoy the intelligent driving as soon as possible to bring about the improvement of safety, can have the convenience of improvement, we think this is more appropriate, after the lidar cost performance to reach, we can get on the car, Baidu does not reject the use of lidar program.
Aika Motors: There are still a lot of technology companies like the current self-driving technology, such as our domestic BAT are involved, like Google and the like, do you think Baidu's Apollo system, the future is mature, can play a role 100%, what position can it occupy in the world? Will it become an Apple system? Will it become an Android system?
Guo Yang: In fact, from Baidu to do automatic driving, to now there are seven or eight years, these seven or eight years in the difficult to have a unified evaluation standard, we use third-party evaluation data, even in foreign countries our report is also the first place, but the main problem is that the area we test is not the same, we are in other regions of California, there will be differences between regions, but our technology has actually been leading in the first, we are now more in the process of saying that our technology is converted into mass production, How many car companies can we serve, we first talked about Baidu at this stage when it entered the Internet of Vehicles three years ago, when zebras like SAIC, or other car networking manufacturers accounted for a large market share, after three years of development of our Baidu Internet of Vehicles frontload is more than one million vehicles, our intelligent driving system is also doing mass production, this year we W6 has begun to sell, we will also be on the GAC New Energy at the end of this year, including the Great Wall of Haval and WEY models will be on the intelligent driving system, And then there are many partners in 2022, 2023 will be mass production, we held a press conference in the afternoon, we invited four of our real cooperation with the most in-depth manufacturers to tell us together, the back will use mass production engines with us, this time manufacturers include GAC, BAIC and Ford Motor, they are president level to come and announce this matter, and then our vice president also announced, we will start from the second half of 2021, equipped with our intelligent system of the car, Every year, a car is put on the market. We believe that we can serve the most car companies in the future.
Aika Motors: Do you think that the automatic driving system or the Internet of Vehicles system will become the key to the victory of the differentiation stage of intelligent electric vehicles in the future?
Guo Yang: We think it will, but it is not so shallow now, the supplier gives you what you give to the user, we think that the future of the car company to build is a platform, the car itself has become a platform, you have a variety of suppliers to provide you with a variety of functions and services or modules, hardware and other things, how to combine to provide good service to your car owners, this is the future car companies to do things, we often take the parking we do for example, my current parking for car companies, The basic functions are consistent, can let you directly take the mobile phone to summon to find a parking space, how to provide services to users when each car factory uses it, which determines the difference of each car brand, for example, we have car factories that will do so when we cooperate with us, and will link with underground parking plants and car wash shops, because the general large car factories have car wash shops below, we have this function, we will let the car go directly to the car wash shop queue, to this car will issue an authorized electronic key to this little brother, he will help you wash, After washing, drive the car out, automatically find a parking space to stop, they are responsible for opening up with the car industry, so that his owner can enjoy not only the function of summoning and parking, but really based on such a service in life, so we have many car factories, will use our AEP function to cooperate with Carrefour, usually you go to the supermarket to buy things, may have to go up to eat, watch movies or something, you take a lot of things to go to the car first, put things after many people think it is okay, gone. After you buy something, you can throw these things here after you have a small ticket, and they will have a fixed release point, and the car will go to this release point by itself to open the trunk and throw it up. So in the process the user knows that your stuff is being put in, you don't have to carry the stuff to the garage, you just watch the movie. Such a service needs car companies to do, as a supplier we certainly can't do it, we don't connect users, don't know where the user is, and don't know where the user's demand point is, so that for car companies and suppliers, the relationship is very smooth, car companies provide a car as a platform, in front of the waiting service users. The role of the supplier is to help them enhance this service, and this relationship is a good cooperative relationship, so the differentiation is in this area for car companies.
Aika Motors: Will there be services like Apollo in the future, and OEMs will provide hardware?
Guo Yang: There will be such a, like the function of parking or to do docking, at this time let a car company to talk about too wasteful, so there will be a third-party State Grid such as charging piles, just say that in their self-built experience will be better, like parking services will also be like this, you can not let every car factory talk about such services, there must be third-party suppliers to integrate well, to access, so there will be such a service provider, but not necessarily occupy all the services.
Aika Motors: I think that providing services is also a good voice, because like Tesla, I opened this service, I charge a certain fee, you can do it yourself or package this thing, give it to the manufacturer so that it can operate, how to price, what kind of demand to provide.
Guo Yang: This is possible, and in fact, in addition to the kind of services you just talked about, we also have data services, which also need to be done by suppliers, such as services like our automatic driving HD map, you encounter a lane such as being blocked by a cone, when building a road, the first car may pass from this side, and when the second and third cars in the back, you can directly get the information to change lanes in advance through the data uploaded by the first car, and will not be blocked here, so some services. In fact, relying on a single depot to do, making it is not necessarily limited, if the integration of third-party platforms to help you go together, just like the current navigation map to provide road conditions, it will definitely make a good service content.
Aika Motors: Thank you Mr. Guo!