In the era of rapid development of electrification, digitalization and intelligence have become the "skills" that must be competed for by various car companies. The automotive industry is also undergoing a transition from L2 level intelligent driving assistance to L3 level autonomous driving. Although every traffic accident caused by intelligent driving will trigger widespread discussion and criticism of automatic driving in society, the real numbers do not lie, and automatic driving does greatly reduce the traffic accident rate.
As Germany's iconic troika – BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, what we often call the BBA – they have also recently released the latest autonomous driving technology. Today, let's take a look at the BBA and what are their different views on autonomous driving? When exactly will we be able to experience truly safe and efficient autonomous driving?
BMW Group, Qualcomm and Anzel Software collaborate
Jointly develop next-generation autonomous driving technology
So let's start with the BMW Group (in no particular order). Recently, BMW Group, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Arriver Software AB jointly announced the start of a long-term strategic partnership for the development of autonomous driving technology. The three parties have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly develop next-generation autonomous driving technology, covering L2-level advanced driver assistance systems and L3-level autonomous driving functions.
It is understood that the BMW Group has maintained high R&D investment for many years, with a total R&D investment of 6.299 billion euros in 2021, mainly for new vehicle architecture and electric product offensive related fields, as well as digital products and autonomous driving research and development. According to the BMW Group's plan, there will be 15 pure electric vehicle models for mass production and trial production in 2022; trial production of "new generation" models based on the new structure will begin in 2024 and be unveiled in 2025; by the end of 2025, the BMW Group plans to complete the delivery of 2 million pure electric vehicles worldwide; by 2030, the BMW Group plans to deliver a total of 10 million pure electric vehicles to customers. At that time, the BMW Group Rolls-Royce (the suspension of phantom and shadow we will go back to the list), BMW Motorrad urban mobility series and MINI three brands will be fully electrified.
At present, bmw group's latest BMW automatic software stack has been the first to be installed in the innovative BMW iX model. The three parties will jointly develop next-generation autonomous driving technology based on bmw group's latest BMW autonomous driving software stack. In November 2021, the three parties announced that bmw group's next-generation autonomous driving system will be based on the Snapdragon Ride Vision system-on-chip, including the Arriver visual perception system and the Snapdragon Ride platform computing controller.
It is worth mentioning that more than 1,400 technical experts from all over the world will participate in this cooperation, from Germany, China, the United States, Sweden, Romania, and the BMW Group autonomous driving test center in the Czech Republic.
The Mercedes-Benz L3 level autonomous driving system is approved
Let's take a look at the development process of Mercedes-Benz's autonomous driving. Recently, Mercedes-Benz officially released plans for future intelligent driving and automatic driving, and its L3 automatic driving system has been approved, and the L4 driverless parking system will also be pre-installed on the Mercedes-Benz S-Class model.
In order to better verify the capabilities of the L3 automatic driving system, Mercedes-Benz initially plans to use L3 autonomous driving (13,191 km in the whole territory) under the high-speed and heavy road traffic conditions in Germany. The system allows the vehicle to take over dynamic driving behavior under certain conditions, allowing users to save driving time to rest in the car or do other work. For example: communicate with colleagues through the in-car office function, use the car machine to send messages and e-mails, browse the Internet, watch movies, etc. (can I sleep without knowing?). ）。
In terms of sensors, the intelligent pilot system that can realize L3 autonomous driving is equipped with not only conventional sensors, but also additional sensors, including lidar, rear multi-function camera and microphone (used to detect the blue light of special service vehicle lights and other special signals), as well as wheel humidity sensors. The Optional Smart Navigator's Mercedes-Benz S-Class is also equipped with redundant steering, braking and on-board electronic controls, allowing the car to remain maneuverable even if any of these systems fail, ensuring that it can be safely taken over by the driver at all times.
In addition, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class will be the first mass production car in Germany to support the pre-installed "Automatic Valet Parking" system, after which the new EQS and new EQE models will also be available. In parking lots with Bosch infrastructure, the "Automatic Valet Parking" system enables self-parking and automatically maneuvers vehicles into and out of reserved parking spaces. Similarly, when leaving, the driver only needs to send a summoning command on the smartphone, and the vehicle will drive away from the parking space and reach the designated pick-up area (which is really friendly for the mall basement to find a car).
Audi CEO Dusman: We don't chase Tesla, we chase technology
Finally, let's talk about Audi, on the "track" of this self-driving car, Audi ran ahead. Audi CEO Dusman said at the Audi Group's 2022 annual media briefing that the most important decision he made in 2021 was to announce that Audi will withdraw from the sales and development of internal combustion engines and only develop electric vehicles from 2026. This makes Audi the first German high-end automaker to announce the exit route of the fuel vehicle business.
Foreign media have been comparing Tesla's autopilot with Audi's autopilot system, and Dusman also said in an interview: "I don't think we are chasing Tesla, we are chasing technology, because the spirit of the Audi brand is to use technology to enlighten the future." Dusman also added that Audi not only has traditional advantages such as quality and precision of driving control, but is also building software advantages such as the CARIAD division of the Volkswagen Group as the main driving force.
In fact, at the 2021 World Internet of Things Expo held in Wuxi in October 2021, Audi conducted the world's first public demonstration of L4 autonomous driving with road fusion V2X signals. Through 13 application scenarios on a 6.5-kilometer autonomous driving route, the entire process demonstrates how V2X technology can help autonomous vehicles optimize driving safety, comfort and traffic fluency.
On the same occasion, Audi also demonstrated for the first time its patented V2I and V2P (Vehicle-Pedestrian Communication) technologies. The former includes no-go zone warnings based on roadside units, allowing drivers to act ahead and change courses to help ease traffic congestion. The latter helps vehicles perceive the sudden crossing of the road by pedestrians and automatically slow down to avoid hitting pedestrians. These technologies will compensate for the limitations of on-board sensors in perceiving other road users, and are expected to greatly avoid or alleviate traffic accidents between vehicles and pedestrians.
In summary, whether it is BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, or other OEMs, new car-making forces, are sparing no effort to develop autonomous driving related technologies. Autonomous driving portrayed a vision of "zero casualties" for humans in early propaganda, which to some extent caused a misunderstanding among the public that there were no accidents in the era of autonomous driving. But in fact, we should look at automatic driving more rationally, and believe that in the future, automatic driving technology will be more perfect.