Volkswagen, Toyota, Daimler, Ideal, Xiaopeng and other OEMs are developing their own middleware. Even, there are some "self-developed operating systems" in the context of OEMs, which actually refer to "self-developed middleware".
Of course, there is a controversy about whether the oem has to develop middleware by itself. In addition, in the main engine factory that chooses self-developed middleware, the degree of self-research is not the same.
One. Supplier: OEMs do not need to develop themselves
Suppliers generally believe that OEMs only need to buy middleware from them, and there is no need to develop themselves. The main reason is that in the eyes of these suppliers, middleware is a relatively general product, not the focus of OEMs to achieve differentiated competition.
Bi Xiaopeng, co-founder of Huayutong Soft, said: "The underlying technology of middleware can help OEMs reduce the development difficulty of developing upper-level software and improve development efficiency, but end users do not pay attention to what kind of technology is used at the bottom of automatic driving, they pay more attention to the application layer." ”
Therefore, Bi Xiaopeng believes that OEMs should also focus more on those matters that can show their competitiveness to consumers - such as upper-level application software, which is tangible and visible to ordinary consumers.
Cao Bin, general manager of Neusoft Ruichi, also said in a conversation with Zhao Fuquan some time ago: "Middleware will become more and more mature, and eventually it will form a set of widely used standardized software, combined with corresponding management tools and adaptation services." Middleware is a general component, which should be widely used in many models of many OEMs, and the more widely used, the better. ”
Cao Bin's view is that middleware should be developed by some independent vendors. "This is not only because the independent supplier has stronger professional capabilities, but also because the independent supplier is more likely to cooperate with multiple OEMs, thereby expanding the scope and scenarios of software applications."
Cao Bin admitted that there will also be OEMs that, in order to achieve more thorough differences, hope that the basic components of the underlying generalization will also be done by themselves. But he argues that it's not really necessary, "because the input-output ratio of this strategy is so low that it's tantamount to doing most of the generalized software all over again to achieve some small differences in the product." ”
However, in that dialogue, Zhao Fuquan threw a question to Cao Bin: If Neusoft Ruichi did the same thing for many OEMs, would it eventually lead to the homogenization of the products of these enterprises?
In this regard, Cao Bin's answer is: for the vast majority of models, these basic functions do not need to be differentiated, but must be generalized; at the same time, they must be able to maintain long-term stability and reliability, so as to play their due role. Otherwise, the vehicle will have problems.
Behind this controversy, it actually points to the question: Can a basic technology such as middleware become a competitive barrier for an OEM?
In October 2021, Horizon founder and CEO Yu Kai said in a conversation with Zhao Fuquan:
"According to my personal observation, no company has ever been able to rely on a new technology to form a long-term competitive barrier or moat, because valuable new technologies, no matter how tortuous the application process, will eventually achieve industrialization and popularization." Moreover, the best user of a certain technology is often not its inventor, for example, the tank was invented by the British, but the Germans used it better and became the core of the 'Blitzkrieg'.
"Of course, technology inventors have a first-mover advantage, and companies hope to be able to seize the market by virtue of the first-mover advantage." However, whether this first-mover advantage can be brought into play depends on whether the purpose of the enterprise is clear. In fact, if the company understands the relationship between products, brands and users, it is not the inventor of the technology who can also find technical resources to apply; and if it does not want to understand, even if it has the advantage of technology first-mover, it cannot be reflected. ”
For the basic, platform, and common technologies, Yu Kai's view is similar to Cao Bin's: the main engine factory does not need to do it itself, and the best solution is to use external ecological acquisition to achieve the effect of "four or two thousand pounds".
Two. Most OEMs: It is necessary to develop it yourself
In addition to suppliers, in the camp of OEMs, there are also people who think that OEMs do not need to develop middleware.
For example, the head of a domain controller of a second-line car-making new force said: "A law in the software development industry is to avoid repeated wheel building, which is also applicable to automotive software development." OEMs to master the self-development capabilities of automatic driving, the core is not how to achieve the details of middleware, if there is a mature, reliable, stable, highly cohesive commercial middleware module, external acquisition is a better choice. ”
However, most people in OEMs do not agree with the view that "middleware is a general-purpose product, so there is no need to develop it yourself".
The director of the perception algorithm of a new car-making force said: "The function and quality of middleware have a great impact on development. For example, whether the video of the perception link can be returned perfectly depends on whether the middleware supports playback functions; for example, if the middleware functions are incomplete or occupy too many memory resources, it will also bring a lot of additional burdens to development. ”
The person in charge of the autonomous driving domain controller of another new car-making force said: "There is no unified standard for middleware at present, and each one is customized, so why do you say 'no need to develop it yourself'?" ”
The person in charge of autonomous driving at a joint venture OEMs said: "I think middleware is an important means to achieve SOA (service-oriented architecture), and SOA needs to achieve thousands of functions, in order to meet this demand of SOA, middleware naturally needs to make differentiation." Therefore, self-research is necessary. ”
The chief scientist of the autonomous driving subsidiary of an independent brand OEMs said: "The data communication, resource management and task scheduling of middleware have a very large impact on automatic driving, and the scenarios faced by each automatic driving system and the speed that need to be achieved are very different, so the demand for middleware will also have many differences." ”
Although it is precise that because the middleware itself has the function of "software and hardware decoupling", it will not be "strongly bound" to the application scenario, after all, the complexity of different scenarios is different, and the requirements for middleware will still be very different.
Specifically, even on the same car, the three scenarios of high-speed, urban roads and autonomous parking have different requirements for data throughput capacity and time extension of middleware due to different data scales and different speeds. Taking communication middleware DDS as an example, the QoS (service policy) required for the above three different scenarios is obviously different.
Previously, Zhang Renjie, CEO of Volkswagen QNX Greater China, said in an interview with the author: "The difference and advanced technology of an OEM compared to another OEM depends to a large extent on your overall framework, and the framework depends on the combination of OS middleware, and various different middleware finally constitute your basic framework." ”
In addition to the main engine factory, there are also some upstream suppliers who believe that middleware is important to enhance the competitiveness of the main engine factory, so it is worth paying attention to.
For example, the marketing director of a domain controller manufacturer said: "The middleware is done well to help complete the adaptation of a variety of hardware in the lower layer, and if it is necessary to switch the lower hardware in some cases, the workload of the upper layer application changes will be very small." In the long run, for OEMs, good middleware means that the cost is more controllable. ”
According to the views of these people, for OEMs or autonomous driving companies, self-developed middleware is not optional, but mandatory.
Three. Even if it is really necessary, it is difficult for the main engine factory to develop itself
However, due to the difficulties of personnel training, team integration, and R&D cycle, self-developed middleware is not an easy task, especially for traditional OEMs.
The challenges of team integration and organizational culture are easy to underestimate, but traditional OEMs have come from the last era, and the contradiction between software and hardware and new and old things is inevitable. This contradiction can easily make software talents scrupulous.
The CTO of an autonomous driving company once told the author: "Some time ago, the autonomous driving subsidiary of an oem factory invited me to join. I asked the question, 'What is the relationship between you and XX Institute?' XX Research Institute is doing autonomous driving, is it because they didn't do it, and you started another stove? Why didn't they do it? Is it a systemic problem? Will your system be better? The other person didn't know how to answer me, so I didn't go. ”
Mentioning the lack of software thinking in the management of some traditional OEMs, the idea of doing things is still "piling people", the CEO of a head autonomous driving company said: "If I hear which OEM says that it wants to recruit 10,000 software engineers, the first reaction is 'no play'." ”
On the one hand, to do software, if you don't figure out the know-how inside, no matter how many people in the heap, it is useless; on the other hand, the number of people in the heap means that the management cost will rise geometrically, and whether the hardware gene company has the ability to coordinate large-scale software talent resources is a big question.
Of course, the development of middleware does not require thousands of software talents, but if the thinking of the main engine factory management does not keep up with the requirements of the software-defined automobile era, even if the number of software talents is small, it is difficult for them to give full play to the value of these talents.
In a conversation with Zhao Fuquan, Neusoft Ruichi Cao Bin said:
"Our main business is to develop software, we have worked with more than a dozen OEMs and hundreds of suppliers before, and over the years, we have experienced many 'pitfalls' and verified many complex scenarios, and our experience is definitely much more than that of an OEM." Even so, we still find developing automotive software a challenging endeavor.
"In contrast, it is difficult to let the OEMs with limited experience and the main business not on generalized software rely solely on their own strength to solve various problems and output software with excellent results and high reliability."
The person in charge of automatic driving of a new force of head car manufacturing also said: "The ecology of software is still relatively important, and it is difficult for the main engine factory to complete it by fighting alone." ”
In addition, according to Dan O'Dowd, CEO of Green Hill, a manufacturer of in-vehicle operating systems, in January, the original version of Tesla's Autopilot was developed using their own software. According to the interpretation of the founder of a domestic middleware manufacturer, what Qingshan Software provided to Tesla at that time was OS and middleware. If even a powerful player like Tesla has to rely on suppliers to provide middleware in the initial stage, then the difficulty of ordinary OEMs' self-development can be imagined.
Many industry insiders pointed out in the process of interviewing Jiuzhang Intelligent Driving that only a very few organizational cultures meet the needs of software talents and have strong OEMs have the ability to develop middleware by themselves.
In Cao Bin's view, even if the main engine factory has the ability to self-research, self-research is not the optimal solution. "You develop it, others may not be willing to use it", and only your own use not only means that the cost of research and development cannot be amortized, but also means that the feedback received will be very small, and the iteration will be slower.
Bi Xiaopeng, co-founder of HuayutongSoft, said: "From the perspective of development, the differentiation of upper-level applications and rapid iteration according to market demand are the core competitiveness that OEMs need to firmly grasp in the software field in the future, and the choice of 'full-stack self-research' will reduce OEM software innovation ability and product iteration efficiency." ”
In early December 2021, Huang Shaotang, CTO and assistant to the president of Jiangling Motors, raised another "more serious consequence" at a forum: the main engine factory developed too many things, which can easily cause "inbreeding" and "not far away". Huang Shaotang also cited a counterexample and said that the reason why GM, Ford and Toyota stripped delPhi, Visteon and Denso out was to avoid "inbreeding".
In fact, the vertical integration model of "full-stack self-development" is often suitable for those companies that were born in the early days of the industry.
In the early days of the industry, the supply chain was not mature, many technologies could not be supported from existing suppliers, self-research was often forced; and once self-research was completed, it was also possible to establish competitive barriers with "I have it, others don't". But when the industry is gradually maturing, the cost performance of "full-stack self-research" is not so high - the biggest drawback is that it cannot enjoy the dividends of industrial division of labor.
Four. Joint development with middleware vendors
"Since middleware has too strong OS-like attributes and is one of the infrastructure for the development of automatic driving, is it possible that in the future, an influential manufacturer will open source middleware for free, and each OEM will decorate its own customized solutions on the basis of this infrastructure, but the bottom layer is connected?" This is a question thrown by a chip manufacturer.
In fact, in the previous interview of Nine Chapters Smart Drive, a number of middleware manufacturers have mentioned the possibility of open source middleware in the future. Dr. Duan Bobo, co-founder of Yingchi Technology, also mentioned in an interview with Zos some time ago that "Yingchi Technology will also launch an open source plan to encourage more enterprises to use our middleware software platform."
However, leaving aside the problem of how manufacturers solve the problem of profitability after the middleware is open source, whether the main engine manufacturer is willing to use it, and how to use the open source middleware is a big problem.
The head of a middleware vendor said: "The reliability of products built on open source software is a big challenge. We have communicated with some self-driving system developers and OEMs, they also go to develop their own architecture, the underlying communication uses open source DDS, but they are facing unreliable problems, such as more than a dozen nodes running at the same time and then crashing. ”
Many times, the technology that is not so familiar with himself, the main engine factory still needs a supplier to give him a bottom (especially after an accident to help carry the pot), and the use of free and open source middleware means that no one helps him to help him, at this time, the main engine factory may not dare to use it.
The chief architect of a middleware vendor said: Middleware open source is feasible in business model, but technically difficult for users. "We can give the source code to the other person, but the other party may not understand why I am writing this place, and how to use it to achieve optimal performance."
For OEMs, the more feasible path is to cooperate with professional middleware manufacturers to ensure that the personalized software they develop can be smoothly combined with generalized software. In fact, at this stage, the "self-developed middleware" in the mouth of many OEMs is in practice, that is, cooperation with suppliers.
Suppliers are also willing to provide semi-customized services for OEMs on the basis of standard products.
For example, Huayutongsoft's communication middleware "Swift" is a platform-based standard product, but due to the different chips and OS cores used by different OMEs, Huayutongsoft also needs to do some customized development of Swift; even, the product is used in AVP scenarios or high-speed scenarios, and the QoS that need to be configured is also very different.
Bi Xiaopeng mentioned that for example, different oss may be running on different cores of heterogeneous soCs, can communication between these OSes be carried out through shared memory? In all these areas, they need to provide customized services tailored to the needs of their customers.
Mao Haiyan, director of Neusoft Ruichi's business line and general manager of global sales in Europe and the United States, said that in cooperation with car companies, they have explored a way that both sides can accept: the part of the general standard is done by Neusoft Ruichi; the part of the car company's standard customization, the car company's demand and review, the joint development of the two sides, and the sharing of intellectual property rights. In this way, car companies can agree to accept it.
In a conversation with Zhao Fuquan, Cao Bin mentioned: "While providing generalized basic software for OEMs, Neusoft Ruichi can also output architects, and it is a team of architects to help OEMs analyze and determine architecture design schemes, basic software interfaces, and reserve development space. On this basis, we can also assist OEMs in a very efficient way to complete the integration of personalized software and generalized software. ”
In response to the "homogenization risk" mentioned by the outside world, Cao Bin said: Since the choice of horizontal width and vertical depth of each OEM will definitely be different, if the OEM can be deeply bound with software partners, it can create differentiated software with the help of the latter.
In a previous interview, the author asked Wang Haowei, chief architect of Zoomlion Wisdom Bank: What is the proportion of the standardized part and the customized part of the middleware developed by suppliers in cooperation with OEMs? Wang Haowei said: It depends on the development trend of the EE architecture in the future.
Conclusion: What is the "soul" of the main engine factory?
In the first two parts of this article, the views of suppliers and OEMs on "whether OEMs are necessary to develop their own middleware" are almost completely opposite, but is this just because "the ass determines the head"? Not necessarily. The essence of this question is actually "is middleware the 'soul' of the OEM"? If so, it is necessary to study it yourself; if not, it is not necessary.
Obviously, the management of OEMs generally believes that middleware counts as their soul. Or, at the very least, the middleware will have an impact on them in building their own souls.
So, in the eyes of suppliers, what is the real soul of the main engine factory?
In June last year, Yu Kai said at a forum organized by the Automotive Business Review:
"For OEMs, the core of the future should be user-oriented products and brand definition capabilities, which is the ability at the strategic level." In contrast, technology is only a tactical level of capability.
"What is the goal of the business? It comes down to launching products and branding to meet user needs, and everything else serves this core goal. If you start from this point of view, whether some technologies are self-developed or purchased, it is not difficult for enterprises to make judgments. ”
Cao Bin also mentioned in his dialogue with Zhao Fuquan that in the future-oriented competition, the three most important capabilities that OEMs should have are:
Strong product definition capabilities;
System integration capabilities;
Build the ability to differentiate.
What is the understanding of "differentiation ability" here? Cao Bin said:
"This implementation of differentiation does not require changing the underlying components of commonality, but requires OEMs to complete a unique set of software designs based on pre-defined interfaces and boundaries in the over-provisioning of the software architecture.
"On this basis, some OEMs will continue to polish for application scenarios, travel modes or aspects of human-vehicle interaction to form more and more refined and strong product characteristics; some OEMs will focus on vertical integration, such as from application software to chips, sensors and other key hardware, through better integration effects to achieve product differentiation; and some OEMs will focus on horizontal extension, through a wider range of specialized customization and services to meet the personalized needs of consumers."
Of course, in the short and medium term, no matter how much suppliers emphasize "what is the real soul of the OEMs", they cannot stop the ambition of those enterprising OEMs from "full stack self-development".
At this stage, we can't yet determine who is right and who is wrong, but perhaps, the "full-stack self-research" emphasized by OEMs at this stage is just testing where their capability boundaries are. After a few years, they have tried to figure out that they are "dead- hearted" about their abilities in some aspects, and perhaps they will "converge" on the scope of self-research?
Resources:
Middleware scenarios for service-oriented architectures
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/430655313
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