Author / Carlos
Recently, the black box technology carried by aircraft has become a hot topic of public concern. On the other hand, the installation of the "black box" of the car has once again become a hot topic.
From the previous Tesla "brake door" rights protection incident to the recent "assisted driving brake failure" encountered by Xiaopeng car owners, the importance of driving data has gradually become known to the public.
In fact, according to the "Motor Vehicle Operation Safety Technical Conditions" National Standard No. 2 amendment order issued by the Ministry of Public Security last year, from January 1, 2021, all newly produced vehicles in the mainland should be equipped with an event data recording system (EDR), or equipped with an on-board video driving recording system that meets the provisions of GB/T 38892, which is also in line with the development of automobile intelligence. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the landing time of the new regulations has been postponed by one year.
EDR, also commonly known as "black box", refers to a type of equipment used to record real-time data on its operation and has high damage resistance, which is often used for the investigation and analysis of the cause of accidents. In the car, EDR is required to record the speed, ABS status, steering angle of the steering wheel, airbag status, braking status and other data key data during the vehicle collision, which can effectively restore the real state before and after the accident.
Since the transformation of automobiles to electrification and intelligence, the dispute over the attribution of responsibility after the accident has continued to intensify. The introduction of the EDR specification may become a turning point in the Rashomon event such as "brake door" and "acceleration door".
In this regard, Zhong Shi, a senior analyst in the automotive industry, told Auto Byte: "The EDR can effectively eliminate controversy, and the car black box can effectively reveal the facts by displaying clear and comprehensive data."
In the era of smart cars, EDR has become indispensable
Although the "black box" previously generally referred to the flight data recorder (FDR) and the pilot language recorder (CVR), the car EDR was not much different in nature, but it was changed to record some of the operation data of the car. Its functionality is closer to FDR and basically does not involve user privacy. For example, car EDRs do not have the similar functions of aircraft CVR, will not record the whole process, and the data of some intelligent systems is not mandatory to record.
(The plane "black box" is not black, but a very conspicuous orange-red color)
The emergence of mandatory standard car EDR regulations is actually related to the transformation of vehicle electrification and intelligence. Unlike the mechanical operating mechanisms of the fuel era, the acceleration/brake pedals of electric vehicles are not directly connected to the actuator device and are only used to identify the driver's operating signals. Therefore, when an accident occurs, many people also question the result of system failure.
In this case, automotive EDR becomes very meaningful. In a report on EDR, Zos Production Research pointed out that in order to scientifically analyze and collect evidence on the causes of collision events, a complete and effective vehicle collision event data recording system is needed to record the relevant data of the vehicle at the time of the collision event.
In this way, on the one hand, it is possible to objectively judge the causes of collisions, ensure judicial fairness and protect the public interest; on the other hand, it can provide a basis for improving the vehicle safety system, avoid the occurrence of similar collisions, and improve vehicle safety.
At present, the relevant regulations on the mandatory EDR of automobiles have become the consensus of many countries. The CFR563 regulation, which originated in the United States in 2006, put forward requirements for collision event data loggers, and in 2014 introduced mandatory installation documents that required all domestically sold vehicles to be equipped with EDRs.
South Korea has also required EDR to be installed compulsorily on all vehicles, including stock vehicles, since December 2015. Slightly later in the EU than in China, new cars will be mandatory in March 2022, and stock cars sold from March 2024 will also be refilled. Japan also has a separate EDR standard, but does not require mandatory installation.
EDR needs to be mandatory to standardize the introduction of standards
Although the United States and South Korea and other countries have previously introduced mandatory EDR specifications, Tesla, Weilai and other car companies are also taking the initiative to give their models standard EDR, but the lack of unified discipline norms, some car companies to use encrypted data and other issues, but also led to consumers can not agree with the EDR records released by car companies, as well as the accident analysis structure based on this.
Among them, Tesla, which has been most questioned, is the owner of the car who is dissatisfied with its response of denying "sudden acceleration" and "brake failure", believing that it is covering up the facts and shirking responsibility.
At the beginning of 2020, Tesla owners in the United States even made a petition to ask the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to conduct a formal investigation into the report of the sudden and unexpected acceleration of Tesla's electric vehicles, and asked Tesla to recall 500,000 vehicles with hidden dangers.
However, NHTSA's survey results of 246 accidents released on January 8, 2021, are different from those reserved by many people, and the report shows that all accidents with data have evidence that the accidental acceleration is caused by accidentally stepping on the accelerator pedal; there is no evidence that Tesla's accelerator pedal, motor control system or braking system has any failures that cause the accident; and there is no evidence that Tesla has design defects that can easily induce accidental acceleration pedaling.
The report also pointed out that in 90% of the investigated accidents, the owner did not step on the brake pedal, and the remaining 10% stepped on the brake pedal within 1 second before the collision; 97% of the investigated accidents, the owner stepped on the accelerator pedal, and even stepped on the accelerator pedal to 85%-97% in 2 seconds at the time of the accident; in all accidents, about 51% of the parties, driving a Tesla for less than 6 months, almost all accidents occurred very quickly, from "accidental acceleration" to collision, the whole process was less than 3 seconds.
While NHTSA's findings prove Tesla's innocence, it doesn't change the fact that it deliberately withheld some of its accident EDR data. In the Tesla "brake door" incident, which has become a hot spot at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show in China, its subsequent EDR data has also been pointed out to be incomplete, lacking core data such as brake pedal displacement, which is also one of the key information to determine whether the brakes fail.
The Dutch Forensic Science Association (NFI), a forensic laboratory affiliated with the Dutch government, also publicly stated during the accident investigation that although Tesla had complied with the Dutch authorities' data requests, it had deliberately omitted more useful data. Moreover, after cracking the driving data storage system that was closely protected by Tesla, NFI also found a large amount of data information related to the car accident that was concealed by Tesla, which may help the car accident investigation.
China's EDR regulations will enable data transparency and data trust
Zhong Shi told Auto Byte that the implementation of domestic mandatory regulations is expected to change this situation: "In recent years, the new models launched by major new energy vehicle companies have consciously installed EDR-like devices, but the data inside can only be extracted and analyzed by the car manufacturers themselves, which lacks good credibility." This time, the state has forced the installation of "black boxes", which means that from the level of regulations, it will specify in detail what data automakers should record and in what format. In this way, it is believed that consumer confidence in smart cars can be increased."
According to the requirements of GB 7258-2017 "Technical Conditions for The Safety of Motor Vehicle Operation", the data that needs to be recorded in China's EDR regulations are divided into A and B levels, and implemented sequentially according to the stage.
Among them, the vehicle data required to be recorded by the A level is relatively small, including longitudinal acceleration, anti-lock braking system status, real vehicle speed, etc.; B level data also has more detailed recording requirements for the vehicle device, such as the missing brake pedal position of tesla brake door is also included, as well as steering angle, roll angle, horizontal angle, AEB and cruise system status and a total of 50 data.
At present, after the national standard No. 2 amendment order extends the overall implementation time of EDR by one year, the time has come: from 2022, new application models must be equipped with EDR for A-class data recording and reading; from 2024, all models on sale must be equipped with EDR for A-class data recording and reading, and new application models must also have the function of recording and reading class B.
Although China requires that EDRs must provide reading capabilities, Zhong said it makes little sense for car owners to actively read information. The key to this feature is that law enforcement can get the data smoothly, so that accidents can be handled clearly and transparently.
On the other hand, the high cost of reading devices will also increase the burden on consumers. The US CFR563 regulations require the data reading scheme to use commercially available tools, but the starter version of the tool costs $7,100 a set, and the professional version is as high as $18,000, and an additional $1,000 per year is paid for software upgrades. Hyundai-Kia, Subaru, Mitsubishi and other car companies are also selling related tools, but the price is generally 6,000-7,000 US dollars.
In fact, Before the EDR regulations, China also issued the "Technical Specifications for Remote Service and Management Systems for Electric Vehicles", which requires that dynamic information such as vehicle status, charging status, and system operation status of new energy vehicles be uploaded to enterprise and government public platforms. From a functional point of view, EDR and cloud platforms are both tools for recording data, and it is not difficult to expand the EDR function on the basis of the latter, and it is more economical.
At present, the cloud of aircraft black boxes is also a commonly mentioned development direction, but because the antenna cannot meet the communication requirements of the air-ground link, data may be lost in an emergency, and the cost is too high, resulting in the inability to promote. However, Honeywell and Curtiss-Wright are already working together to develop the HCR-25 interconnect recorder, which uses a secure satellite communications system to connect aircraft to ground data centers around the clock, making data accessible to airlines or other users at any time.
But Zhong Shi said that cars are different from airplanes as public transportation, EDR records data privacy is higher, vehicle trajectory, driving time, parking time and other information may be recorded, upload will involve privacy, and who has access to the question. Moreover, the significance of EDR is to analyze the responsibility of the accident or restore the situation, then it should be an independent source of information.
In addition, Zhong Shi also mentioned the authenticity of the data that is currently more concerned, he said that there is no feasibility, and car companies will not have real motives. On the one hand, it is technically impossible to completely erase the traces, on the other hand, the manpower used by car companies during this period may become exposed or leaked in the future, and car companies cannot afford this cost.
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