Baidu has attracted much attention after announcing that it will build a car with Geely in March last year. A few days ago, Baidu and Geely's joint venture Jidu released the design details of the front part of the first concept car, as well as the ideas and concepts of its vehicle architecture and automatic driving system. Judging from the information released, the two lidars of the Jidu concept car are symmetrically arranged on the front cover and can be lifted and lowered.
At present, the autonomous driving perception technology route is mainly divided into two types: one is a camera-led vision scheme, represented by Tesla; the other is a multi-sensor fusion scheme dominated by lidar. Domestic car companies basically choose the second scheme, and the design scheme of lidar has also become one of the important competitive directions for car companies to be intelligent.
Jidu's design plan is the first time that domestic car companies have placed lidar on the front cover of the car, but such a new design quickly attracted a rebuttal.
A few days ago, the ideal CEO Li wanted to leave a message on Weibo, (lidar) on the roof of the car, and put two on the cover or bumper, there is no difference in performance, and even the performance of the single overhead will be better. He also said that in terms of pedestrian collisions, maintenance costs and vibration control (linking the main body), lidar is optimally designed on the roof, and the only problem is that the shape is not beautiful enough.
Li Xiang's remarks soon ushered in a reply from Jidu CEO Xia Yiping. Xia Yiping said that the field of view of a lidar on the roof is 120 degrees, while the field of view of the two cover is 180 degrees, and the extreme situations that the two can solve are not the same, and there is still a difference in product capability, experience and even safety.
A lidar industry insider told the first financial reporter that in terms of field of view, Xia Yiping's rebuttal is reasonable.
However, An auto parts company executive Lin Fang (pseudonym) pointed out to reporters that Li Xiang and Xia Yiping's remarks are not completely correct, from a professional point of view, the installation position of lidar must first ensure sufficient structural stiffness and position accuracy, retractable, or installed in the body surface stiffness of the position of the lidar program has potential problems.
Since last year, lidar, known as the "clairvoyant of smart cars," has sped up the pace of getting on the bus. According to the forecast of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, the market size of the mainland vehicle-mounted lidar industry is expected to exceed 43 billion yuan in 2026, with a large space for development. Many car companies have also given their lidar design schemes, the number of installations is basically 1-4, and the installation location is "a hundred flowers blooming".
In terms of lidar installation position, WEIO ET7 and ideally choose to be installed on the roof; the dual lidar of Xiaopeng P5 is installed under the front face headlights; the 3 lidars of the Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI edition are located in the left, middle and right positions under the front face headlights; 2 of the 4 lidars of lotus Eletre are in the front face, and 1 is each in the front and rear of the roof.
In view of the distribution location of the concentration of lidar, Lin Fang said that at present, no mass production car is equipped with a liftable lidar, and some car companies have previously adopted a liftable lidar in the prototype car, but will still adopt a fixed type when mass production. Similarly, the front cover is not suitable for lidar as a place where the surface stiffness of the body is insufficient, unless the stiffness is particularly enhanced in this position.
Li Xiang then said on Weibo that the set degree lidar will not be arranged on the front cover shown in the above picture, which should only be the placement of the test car, if the front uses 2-3 lidar, it is likely to be arranged on the bumper and fender. At this current position, the latest pedestrian collision regulations cannot be passed.
Public information shows that the ideal and set degree lidar are from the same supplier - Hesai Technology, and both use Hesai AT128 lidar, the difference is that the ideal L9 uses one, and the set degree SIMUCar 2.0 (software integration simulation prototype) is the use of two.
Previously, various car companies have competed in the number of lidar. At the Guangzhou Auto Show last November, Great Wall Motor's salon brand Mech Dragon released a poster saying, "Please don't talk about less than 4 pieces." According to some data, the Mech Dragon is equipped with 4 Huawei 96-line hybrid solid-state lidars; in addition, xiaopeng G9 is expected to be equipped with 2 sagitar juchuang lidar; WM M7 is equipped with 3 sagitar polytron semi-solid-state lidar; Zhiji L7 is equipped with 2 sagitar polytron semi-solid-state lidar.
Lin Fang told reporters that the installation of lidar by car companies can not only look at the quantity, but also look at the function and purpose of arranging multiple lidars. As we all know, lidar is expensive, and as the number of them increases, the cost, computing power and power consumption of automobiles will increase.