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At present, the high-precision market has an overheating tendency, and it will not find out who is swimming naked until the tide of the wind outlet recedes.
Written by | Tabornet one light-year
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When intelligence has become the main theme of the car track, automatic driving urgently needs a pair of sky eyes to lead it through the crowd. High-precision maps are one of them.
Previously, the US Consumer Report published a comparison of GM Super Cruise and Tesla's Autopilot review. Judging from the test score, GM's Super Cruise's autopilot function performance in various scenarios has surpassed Tesla's Autopilot, and GM's Super Cruise relies on a high-precision map.
As one of the souls of autonomous driving, the role played by THE HD map has gradually become clear. With the popularity of autonomous driving, high-precision maps will undoubtedly show a high growth trend.
Is the era of high-precision maps coming?
"Automated cartography technology becomes the biggest challenge"
In the past year, legislation related to autonomous driving at all levels has entered the fast lane.
In April 2021, with the issuance of the first "Intelligent Connected Vehicle Application Demonstration Notice", the autonomous driving manned application demonstration was first carried out in Shenzhen. Since then, autonomous driving has gradually become popular with the public and is no longer seen as a fantasy to subvert the industry.
Subsequently, the "Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft)" and the "Road Traffic Safety Law (Revised Proposal)" were successively released, the Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Strengthening the Management of Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Manufacturers and Product Access, and the "Several Regulations on the Safety Management of Automobile Data (Trial)" were successively introduced, the recommended national standards of GB/T 40429-2021 "Automobile Driving Automation Classification") were officially announced, and the "Management Specifications for Road Testing of Intelligent and Connected Vehicles" was revised again.
Favorable policies in the field of intelligent driving continue to be favorable, and high-precision maps have also ushered in a new period of growth and outbreak.
"At present, there are two main scenarios for the commercialization of high-precision maps, one is commercial vehicles, and the other is passenger cars." Wang Chuang, executive director of Quandao Technology, introduced it to the author.
"At present, commercial vehicles are basically L4 level autonomous driving applications, such as unmanned distribution of terminal logistics, JD.com, Meituan, Ali, JD.com, etc.; followed by closed scenarios such as ports, airports, mining areas, and autonomous logistics trucks on high speeds."
"In the field of passenger cars, Tesla and the new forces of domestic head car manufacturing are moving faster. First of all, in order to meet the needs of high-speed NOA and parking lots, it is expected that assisted driving will be gradually realized on commuting routes in the future, and then expand more large-scale urban roads. ”
In the field of unmanned distribution, many new players in the field of high-precision maps are concentrated, including Meituan, SF, JD.com, Quandao Technology, etc. According to capital market estimates, the scale of China's terminal unmanned distribution market will exceed 84 billion yuan in the future.
Jingdong Logistics unmanned delivery vehicle
In September last year, Lite Space reached a cooperation with self-driving company Xiaoma Zhixing Company to provide high-precision autonomous driving road data services, and NavInfo's Zhonghuan Satellite targeted the heavy-duty truck market. According to official sources, Zhonghuan Satellite has reached cooperation with 9 of the top 10 domestic heavy-duty truck factories in terms of vehicle networking platform, hardware, software, integration and other aspects, providing high-precision maps and road network matching and other location services; recently, Baidu invested in driverless truck developer Qianhang Technology, which also includes Xiaopeng and SF among its shareholders.
HIGH-precision map companies have also opened an intensive order-taking model, NavInfo turned a profit in 2021, Tencent delivered 358,000 kilometers of high-precision data across the country, and Baidu officially predicted that by 2023, the number of Apollo high-precision maps will exceed 1 million.
Wang Chuang believes that due to the specificity of the scene, the landing speed of high-precision maps in commercial vehicles is faster: "Commercial vehicles in specific scenarios go first, and passenger cars are gradually increased." ”
With the rapid development of autonomous driving, high-precision map companies will also face more complex market demand.
"The biggest challenge for the industry is first and foremost the technology of automated cartography." Wang Chuang said, "The traditional navigation map is a labor-intensive industry, in its development of one or two decades, most of the accumulation through manual operations; but the rapid development of automatic driving, high-precision map output speed is also faster, therefore, the mapping process can only rely on the output of automation technology." ”
Wang Chuang believes that under the historical opportunity of the rapid development of intelligence, the industry is also facing many opportunities for technological change, and only by breaking through the core technical barriers can we ensure the timeliness of large-scale production.
In this regard, NavInfo's new vice president Zhang Jianping has a similar view: "In view of the freshness and quality demands of the automatic driving system on high-precision maps, the map production line must complete the transformation from the cyclical production rhythm of the traditional version of the map to the flow production line, supporting the rapid update and maintenance of data." ”
"The autonomous driving system has an almost perfect quality pursuit for high-precision data, which requires a special process flow to ensure data accuracy and quality, and at the same time needs to create a high-precision data source and crowdsourcing update capabilities." Reducing the cost of data updates is the core competitiveness of the high-precision map era. ”
Zhang Jianping said bluntly that in order to respond to the demands of automatic driving for data quality, high-precision maps need to change from passive static maps to active dynamic maps, from the previous cycle updated version of the map to the live map that is constantly updated in real time.
Landing passenger cars, 2025 is an important node
According to the Notice on Strengthening the Production Testing and Application Management of Autonomous Driving Maps issued by the State Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation on February 3, 2016, autonomous driving maps (high-precision maps) belong to a new type and important part of navigation electronic maps, and their data collection, editing, processing and production must be undertaken by units with navigation electronic map production and mapping qualifications.
In China, only manufacturers who have obtained the Grade A qualification for navigation electronic map production can produce and sell high-precision maps.
In 2020, the approval of the long-dormant navigation electronic map production (Grade A) surveying and mapping qualification accelerated, breaking the long-established pattern of map quotients.
According to incomplete statistics, as of now, more than 30 domestic enterprises have obtained The Grade A surveying and mapping qualifications for navigation electronic map production.
Although Grade A qualifications are difficult to find, in the face of the trillion-dollar market of autonomous driving, the high-precision market has also shown a spurt of growth, and many new players have entered the market hoping to share a piece of the pie.
Last year, Xiaopeng acquired Zhitu Technology for 250 million yuan, which was one of the earliest new car-making forces to solve the qualification of map data collection in automatic driving, and also provided convenience for its research and development of high-precision maps and high-end automatic driving functions.
Previously, some insiders said that the market development method of relying on qualifications and scale in the past has changed, there are more players, and the way of playing has also changed.
In this regard, Zhang Jianping, vice president of NavInfo, believes that as a generally recognized necessary component of autonomous driving, the entry threshold of HD Map is still high.
"In the era of high-precision maps, qualification and scale are the threshold of players rather than commercial moats, and the circle of horses is the data entrance rather than the customer exit. For the test of the graph provider is more comprehensive, it is necessary to establish an ecology with customers, open up data links, continuously upgrade processes, and improve efficiency. ”
Zhang Jianping frankly said that at present, the high-precision market has an overheating tendency, and it will be found out who is swimming naked until the tide of the wind outlet recedes.
Quandao Technology Wang Chuang brings a new perspective, he believes that more players will promote the innovation of the model.
"In our opinion, more new players coming in is a good sign. In addition to the application scenarios of automatic driving, GAO MAP also has other application areas, such as future smart transportation, smart city, and the blossoming of various enterprises will bring about some model innovation, stimulate the production of new technologies, and thus drive the entire industry change. ”
As autonomous driving gradually ushers in its commercial era, the high-precision map market will also enter the harvest period.
Earlier, it was argued that according to the automatic driving planning and industrial research announced by major car companies, 2021 is the first year of mass production of L3-level autonomous vehicles. According to the practice of car companies purchasing maps two years in advance, 2019 is a key time window for the landing of high-precision maps.
So, how far is it from the landing of the high-precision map scale?
Wang Chuang said: "For commercial vehicles, it has actually crossed the verification stage of the early technology business model, and is currently in the process of gradually scaling up the volume. For passenger cars, the industry time point will be around 2025, when the high-precision map will go through the technical verification stage to achieve landing; from 2025 to 2030, gradually scale up, and the market will be relatively mature by 2030. ”
Zhang Jianping, vice president of NavInfo, has a similar view: "It is expected that by 2025, the penetration rate of PA (partial automatic driving) and CA (conditional automatic driving) level intelligent networked vehicles will rise rapidly, with a market share of more than 50%, and the passenger car market will usher in explosive growth on the high-precision map." ”
While optimistic about the prospects of landing on the high-precision map, he also raised his own concerns.
Zhang Jianping said that under the market acceptance and legal and regulatory restrictions, the coverage of automatic driving functions above L3 still needs a long time to land, and in the short term, it may still occupy the mainstream with L2+ pilot assisted driving and enhanced IVI rendering of human-computer interaction rendering maps.
"HD data needs 'dimensionality reduction' services to enhance lane-level navigation products rendered by IVI, and the installed capacity corresponding to HD data will increase greatly." He said.
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