On April 21, BYD and Horizon officially announced a fixed-point cooperation, AND will be equipped with Horizon autonomous driving chip Journey 5 on some of its models, creating a mobile and berth integration solution to achieve high-level automatic driving functions. According to the plan, BYD models equipped with Horizon Journey 5 will be available as early as mid-2023.
It is also in 2023 that Nvidia's DRIVE Orin chip will also appear on BYD's car. Next year, the high-level automatic driving function will become the core focus of BYD, and the key battle of intelligentization will be decisive.
BYD, the world's second-largest electric vehicle manufacturer, has always had contradictory characteristics: sales sell well but the brand power is insufficient, electrification is leading and intelligent is outdated?
In the once-in-a-century automotive revolution, "the first half is electric, the second half looks smart" has become a consensus, how can BYD make up for the shortcomings and break the stereotype? Looking for a number of partners, included in BYD's intelligent driving strategy.
Nowadays, the intelligent strategy of car companies is becoming clearer, basically presenting three routes, one is completely self-developed, and only Tesla has achieved it; the second is to rely on intelligent giants to provide full-stack solutions; the third is ecological win-win and multi-dimensional cooperation with various vertical suppliers.
Deeply tied to one smart driving supplier, or do you choose multiple suppliers to explore different routes? Which mode is more efficient?
BYD's "Aquaman" model, is it a sincere opening and breaking the boundary, or is it a rush to the hospital?
BYD's empathy from Baidu
Although the outside world is quite dismissive of BYD's intelligent driving ability, BYD's attention to automatic driving has a long history.
In 2015, Baidu had just established an autonomous driving business unit, and then BYD announced that it had reached a cooperation agreement with it, and BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu also served as Baidu's autonomous driving consultant.
In October 2016, BYD successively delivered driverless test vehicles modified for Baidu.
In 2018, the two sides escalated. On the spring evening of CCTV, Baidu's unmanned vehicle based on BYD's electric vehicle passed through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. This has almost become a highlight moment for BYD and Baidu in the field of autonomous driving.
On April 19, Baidu officially released Apollo version 2.5, and announced that it had officially reached a cooperation with BYD, and BYD became Apollo's 100th partner; at the Baidu AI Developer Conference in July, Baidu announced that it and BYD jointly built an open vehicle certification platform.
But after the cooperation was reached, there was no follow-up.
In 2020, BYD launched the first generation of intelligent driver assistance system, Dipilot 1.0 is using advanced driver assistance solutions provided by Bosch, when it was reported that the second generation will be based on Huawei's MDC platform, but there is no follow-up.
As the same industry leader, the same in Shenzhen Zhidi, BYD and Huawei have not directly cooperated in intelligent driving. On the contrary, it is close to Huawei's consumer business led by Yu Chengdong. BYDHan became one of the first production models to support HUAWEI HiCar.
But BYD and Huawei's MDC are still inextricably linked. Autonomous driving company Momenta has related cooperation with Huawei's MDC computing platform, and BYD has invested in Momenta, and has also jointly established a joint venture company Dipai Zhixing to create high-level intelligent driving solutions.
Momenta, a recently active self-driving startup, received the largest funding in the field last year, with many auto giants such as BYD, SAIC, GM, and Bosch becoming its investors. BYD wants to use its combination with it to quickly pull up the shortcomings of intelligent driving solutions, which is a shortcut.
However, not long after the establishment of a joint venture with Momenta, in February this year, BYD once again chose Baidu as an intelligent driving supplier to provide it with an ANP intelligent driving product and a human-machine co-driving map. It is reported that the Baidu intelligent driving team has entered the field in advance to cooperate with BYD for development, and will soon achieve mass production of cooperative models.
Invest in domestic rookies and spend money on love
In May 2021, BYD Motors, Horizon, and Momenta gathered together for a meaningful meeting. This can be said to be a watershed moment for BYD's intelligent driving.
Previously, BYD's suppliers in intelligent driving were mainly Bosch and Vinier, and the products were mainly black boxes. However, the core participants of this conference are unicorns in the field of domestic chips and autonomous driving technology.
According to BYD's past style of doing things, it is good at mastering the key technologies of the industrial chain in its own hands, but in the field of intelligent driving, it is obvious that the efficiency of self-research is lower than the efficiency of cooperation, allowing professional people to do professional things, ANDD chose the latter.
Smart driving chip, BYD chose the horizon. Before the Shanghai Auto Show last year, it completed the investment in Horizon, and then Horizon reached cooperation with SAIC, GAC, Changan, Dongfeng, Jiangqi, FAW, Geely, Chery, Great Wall, Ideal and other automakers.
BYD Semiconductor itself occupies a certain market in the industrial chain, not only in the automotive field, but also in consumer electronics and industrial manufacturing, but the research and development of intelligent driving chips is still different from power semiconductors and MCUs. Ling Kun, director of R&D at Horizon, explains, "Smart cars are another type of computing scenario and computational task, which requires a machine to understand and understand like a human, as well as to understand the world around it."
Horizon has been doing smart driving chips from the beginning, and BYD has chosen to join forces with Horizon, which can not only bring out large orders for Horizon, but also step forward riveting to intelligent driving chips.
Like the extension of the electrification industry chain, BYD has fallen one by one in the intelligent industrial chain. In December 2021, it reached a cooperation with lidar company Sagitar Juchuang, and at the annual meeting of THE CEO of BYD Investment Enterprise at the end of the year, a number of LiDAR products under Sagitar Juchuang were unveiled, including the most high-profile second-generation intelligent solid-state liDAR RS-LiDAR-M1.
At that time, the M1 had already begun to be delivered, and solid-state lidar had entered the first year of mass production. It is not difficult to see from the characteristics of several vertical manufacturers invested by BYD that they all have mass-produced products and are closely related to many car companies.
Among these rookie companies invested by BYD, from chips to sensors, BYD is trying to open up an ecological chain of intelligent driving hardware.
Hitch a ride on the International Express to lay out high-end products
In addition to sweeping the domestic rookies, BYD has set its sights on NVIDIA and announced the use of NVIDIA DRIVE Orin chips, from the first half of 2023, BYD will be equipped with NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform on some new energy vehicles to lay out the high-end market.
This way of joining hands with multiple people may reflect BYD's strategy of "leaving a hand" in laying out different products.
BYD has bigger ambitions. NVIDIA Orin chips, which are selected for a number of new models, went on sale in March and have been installed on new models such as Weilai, Ideal, Zhiji, Jidu, and Gaohe, and have become the standard equipment of high-end cars. Today, BYD's choice also shows a signal of attack on the high-end market. NVIDIA also shows in the PPT is BYD's flagship model Han and Tang.
For BYD to choose both Horizon and NVIDIA as suppliers of intelligent driving chips, Horizon believes that many car companies have chosen both Nvidia and Horizon. On the one hand, NVIDIA has a large brand influence, on the other hand, its high cost is difficult to explore the mass deployment of more than 200,000 models, and horizon openness and software capabilities can better adapt to this part of the market.
Recently, BYD also said that in 2022, it will further expand the high-end market and launch high-end brands, and the price range is expected to be more than 50-1 million yuan. The launch of high-end models coincides with the timing of choosing NVIDIA chips.
Che Yun summary
BYD's comprehensive layout in intelligent driving is like a scumbag, but sometimes, people just like scum. Life requires constant experimentation, and SO ISD.
"Aquaman" BYD is not chosen by anyone. BYD is more inclined to choose, the technology is relatively mature, there are already multiple partners of the technology provider, they have already had a successful case. BYD just needs to try it and see if it matches itself.
However, there is a lot of talk in love, and it is not necessarily possible to get married. How does BYD's intelligent driving land on the mass production car? Which scheme is it? Whose technical solutions are most in line with BYD's product positioning and user needs?
BYD, which is accustomed to doing everything by itself, will it finally abandon all suppliers and choose to do it itself? The answers to these questions are left to time to test.