Abstract: In order to avoid the Chinese smartphone industry being stuck in the operating system, Fang Yunzhou suggested that we should seize the opportunity to build a smart car operating system so as not to be subject to people in the future
Wen | Guo Huaiyi Guo Yu
Editor| Zhao Cheng
The birth of a new idea is not from the sky, behind which there are countless efforts and collisions of chance.
In the 1990s, when Musk was studying at the University of Pennsylvania, he wrote several course papers that made him more aware of the three areas he most wanted to dabble in: the Internet, clean energy, and aviation.
In the 1910s, when Fang Yunzhou was studying at Tsinghua University, he made three models: information Internet, energy Internet, transportation Internet (smart city Internet), how to combine the three at the same time on the car, he took inspiration from smart phones, and proposed the concept of intelligent car operating system in 2015.
Now, just as Musk's two papers during his time at Wharton foreshadowed the future of Tesla, Fang Yunzhou pinned his thoughts on Nezha Automobile, a car brand that sold 7,117 cars in February, ranking second in the monthly sales list of new car-making forces.
During the "two sessions" of the national government in 2022, the reporter of Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche) met Fang Yunzhou in Beijing, and his identity at this time was not only the founder and chairman of Nezha Automobile, but also a deputy to the National People's Congress. This is also the second time that Fang Yunzhou has proposed a bill on the automobile operating system at the two sessions.
▲ Fang Yunzhou, deputy to the National People's Congress and founder and chairman of Nezha Automobile
During the national "two sessions" in 2021, Fang Yunzhou suggested that it is necessary to concentrate on technical research, strengthen the real-time and reliability of the automotive operating system, establish virtualization and management technology for multi-core computing resources, strengthen the functions of the operating system and information security mechanisms, and so on. Compared with the more specific technical proposals proposed last year, Fang Yunzhou's proposal this year is more macroscopic, emphasizing the establishment of the automotive operating system ecosystem and the connection of the ecological chain.
In Fang Yunzhou's view, in the process of developing from new energy vehicles to intelligent vehicles, Chinese car companies are now at the forefront, "If the intelligent car operating system is not built at this time, once the car companies in other countries make it, and The Chinese car companies continue to use other people's things, then the future development will be subject to people." ”
Fang Yunzhou liked to quote some of the aphorisms he believed in in his answers. When talking about the idea of Nezha Automobile becoming a platform, he said that he was "not afraid of problems, afraid that he would not be able to find problems." When talking about finding like-minded partners, he said, "Only by opening your own heart first and letting others come to your heart can the two hearts interact." ”
The interview, which was supposed to be half an hour, was luckily extended by 20 minutes, and we also asked about his first car and the company he admired the most. Chery Automobile is his first car in life and one of his favorite car companies, the other two car companies are BYD and Tesla. As for the reason, it is in the dialogue below. The listing plan was also asked, but it was still not asked, otherwise it would definitely appear in the title to make it exclusive.
▲ Image source network
Talking about automotive operating systems:
Do Android in the car
Caijingqiche (ID: Caijingqiche): Why did you propose to build an ecosystem with China's intelligent car operating system as the core in the npc bill?
Fang Yunzhou: In the process of developing from new energy vehicles to intelligent vehicles, Chinese auto companies are leading, especially in the forefront of intelligence. If the intelligent car operating system is not built at this time, once the car companies in other countries make it, and the Chinese car companies continue to use others, then the future development will be subject to people.
Caijingqiche:Software will define the cars of the future, what software do you think can define cars? Operating system?
Ark: The operating system is the core, but not the only one. The future car has three cores, the first is the ability to define the task scenario; the second is the algorithm capability; and the third is the operating system.
Nezha Automobile planned its own operating system very early, at present, all car companies may be developing their own operating system. For example, Xiaopeng Motors in China and Tesla in the United States. Tesla, for example, has a more operating system that is more like Apple's, a closed system. The system that Nezha Automobile wants to make is open source, open, and can be shared with the entire industry. Nezha wants to build an Android system for smart cars.
Caijingqiche(ID:caijingqiche): Meaning that after our software architecture is built, it will also be open to the public?
Fang Yunzhou: It must be like this, otherwise it is difficult to become an operating system, it can only become a platform. So I suggested to the NPC from last year and this year that the state should take the lead, because there can be no more than a dozen operating systems, and the world can't do a few.
Whether it was before or now, automotive innovation is that automotive people are doing innovation. After having the operating system, the whole society can participate, so that the smart car can have a big development, otherwise it is still closed in a small circle, and it cannot be like a smart phone, producing a strong vitality and ecology. Smartphones have generated so much energy, and if new energy vehicles have also produced such changes, the impact will be incalculable.
Caijingqiche:How is Nezha's software R&D team doing so far?
Fang Yunzhou: By the end of this year, we expect that Nezha Automobile's intelligent research institute will have about 1,000 people. Mainly two aspects and three cores. The two main aspects are intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit. The three cores are system architecture, core algorithms and big data management, and manufacturing standardized hardware that matches the operating system, which is mainly in cooperation with Huawei.
At present, Nezha Automobile has an operating system NETA OS on the Shanhai platform, but NETA OS is still only a prototype of an operating system, a system software architecture, and it is not a real operating system.
Talking about Nezha Car:
"You have to do everything, you're going to make mistakes"
Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche): In the construction of automotive software ecology, Nezha Automobile and Huawei, 360, etc. have cooperation, how to coordinate self-research and cooperation?
Fang Yunzhou: The operating system is the most basic link in the entire software system architecture, so in this regard, Nezha Automobile should adhere to self-research, otherwise it will be difficult to truly develop into intelligent cars, and even lose its independence, so it is difficult to have its own right to speak in the future intelligent car competition pattern.
The operating system is a very large project, our current idea is to first realize the self-development of the domain controller, then to the central controller, and finally to the operating system self-research.
Our current cooperation with Huawei is mainly focused on hardware, such as chips, sensors and lidar. This aspect must be done by professional companies, one is that car companies are not mature to do this, and the other is that even if they have the ability to do it, the user group is too small. Only publicization, generalization or standardization can produce the greatest value. Cooperation with 360 is mainly in the field of information security. We're working with Horizon and some sensor manufacturers as well.
Caijing Automobile (ID: caijingqiche): Now in new energy, whether it is hardware or software competition is very fierce, our main direction of attack is ecology, then we have enough funds in hand to support this matter?
Fang Yunzhou: Ecology is not supported by funds, that is called cultivation. Now is to find out what suits him, and at the same time can guide him to slowly form a standardized thing, and finally can be done by multiple people, which is called ecology.
Specific to the hardware, if there is a suitable supplier in the industry, Nezha will not repeat it. Because the division of labor is more fine than the mobile phone, if you do everything, you need huge funds, and even make a lot of mistakes. Whether it is a company or a person, it cannot be a panacea, so the resource sharing in the industry also needs to be done in the car, and we also need his hardware. But it should be emphasized that Nezha will grasp the three cores, otherwise there will be no soul in the future, or there will be no future iteration ability and the ability to define user scenarios.
Caijingqiche (ID: caijingqiche): Recently, the price of battery raw materials has soared, how about the cost pressure of Nezha automobile?
Fang Yunzhou: There is definitely cost pressure, but the terminal price of Nezha Car is only a small float.
Caijingqiche:What about the impact of chips?
Fang Yunzhou: It is expected that by the second half of this year, the supply of chips will be better. There are a lot of black swan events that have an impact on the industry as a whole. But the auto industry is a long-term industry, and 10 years is a short one. If you look back 5 years from now, it's just a fluctuation in the middle. Therefore, as an enterprise, do not care about temporary fluctuations, temporary fluctuations cannot affect the development of corporate strategy, and the strategy cannot fluctuate.
Talk about individuals:
Everything about the car
Caijingqiche(ID:caijingqiche): Who has had the greatest influence on you in your entrepreneurial process?
Fang Yunzhou: I think Academician Ouyang Minggao is the person who has the deepest influence on me. First, do things in a low-key manner; second, keep learning. Academician Ouyang still insists on learning, we have a group, every week he takes students to hold academic seminars, before it was offline, now online.
The second is the influence of the fathers. My father used to say to me: think about yourself in the first half of the night, think about others in the second half of the night. It is to let me think more empathy and look at the problem from the perspective of the other party. After all, I came out of the countryside, and I still do things for the sake of society and the public, especially the original intention of Nezha Automobile, to build cars for the people.
Caijingqiche(ID:caijingqiche): Do you have any car companies that you admire?
Fang Yunzhou: There are several, or to self-innovation or guide the automotive industry revolution of this category. Chery is one, it brings the car into the family, really makes the brand, in a period of time is more obvious; BYD has done a good job in technological innovation. To do business, one must be innovative, and the second should be adhered to. There is also Tesla, although Tesla does a closed system, but many are advanced layout and advanced thinking.
Caijingqiche: What was your first car remember? What car are you driving now?
Fang Yunzhou: The first car was Chery. The car is just a means of transportation, generally far away I take the high-speed rail, do not like to drive, do not like the driver to drive. Now driving Nezha U, driving yourself knows which parts of the car need to be improved, and others tell you that it is different from your own experience.
Caijngqiche: What are your goals for the coming year?
Fang Yunzhou: I don't set a goal for the next 1 year, I usually set a long goal of 3 or 5 years. At that time, I thought that I could really make Nezha cars become smart cars, just like smart phones, which are completely different from today's cars.
One is that the chassis architecture is different. Future cars can't collide if they want to. In October last year, I chatted in the office of Academician Ouyang for more than three hours, deducing what will happen to the car in 10 years, it is possible that the body and chassis will be integrated, and after the chassis carries the driving function, the car will not collide. Because of the exchange of various information, in this case, the car can appear multiple body and become truly intelligent. Second, the innovation of the car must let the public innovate in the car, so that the vitality of the car is infinitely huge. A small mobile phone has generated so much energy, if the whole society is involved in the car to do innovation, then the car will not only be a car.