Produced 丨 Tiger Sniff Car Group
Author 丨 Li Wenbo
Edited 丨 thoughtful
Head map丨 Movie "Let the Bullets Fly"
If you turn the clock back six months, no one would have thought that Honda, Japan's second-largest automaker, which has sold more than 1.5 million units in China's single market for four consecutive years, would issue an electrification strategy that is so rigorous that it is somewhat boring.
Honda in October 2021 said this: Officially released a new pure electric vehicle brand "e: N" to the Chinese market. Released two production cars: Dongfeng Honda e: NS1 and Guangqi Honda e: NP1, launched in the spring of 2022; released three concept cars e: N Coupe concept, e:N SUV concept and e:N GT concept, which will be launched within five years.
Putting aside the electric brand name "e: N" of the "remember to count me lose", look at these three concept cars: Coupe, SUV and GT, neither play tricks, nor pre-buried Easter eggs, just a board at a glance to the model planning, simple to make people painful, boring to make people sleepy. Compared with the new forces that are full of golden sentences and have no reverence for car building, Honda seems to be a little too much in awe of car building, and behind this kind of noun of not doing superficial kung fu and not creating concepts is the embodiment of a car company's sense of responsibility to consumers.
However, the current context of China's intelligent electric vehicles does not leave much room for the word "responsibility", and the controversy about the "Nokia moment" that traditional car companies will soon usher in is also becoming increasingly fierce. Some people believe that the old forces such as Honda have exhausted their strength, and there is no place for them in the era of electric vehicles; there are also views that Honda has only temporarily lost its strength, and when it wakes up from sleep, it begins to seriously build electric vehicles, except for Tesla.
The controversy surrounding the traditional car companies such as Honda in the end "whether they will build electric vehicles" and "whether they can build electric vehicles" has generally appeared in China after the foundation of the new car-making forces has been slightly stable. To put it more bluntly, after "Wei Xiaoli" gained a firm foothold, the traditional car company was classified overnight into the team of "can't build electric vehicles". Their tendentious evaluations of "self-contained, conformist, stagnant, and content with the status quo" began to dominate, and were eventually summarized by one word - "Nokia".
Literally, "Nokia" is not a good word. Compared with it, car companies are eagerly looking forward to becoming "car circle Apple" or "car circle Haidilao", that is, they must be closely related to "innovation" in any case. But "Nokia" in the current context, is it really useless, is becoming "Nokia" really a thing that has no technical content and is disliked?
Of course not. When more and more consumers experience and use the new power models for a period of time, they will find that the so-called "innovation logic" sometimes find excuses for the actual progress of "doing, progress 0%"; the so-called "user co-creation" is just to let the owners get together to arrange flowers, drink afternoon tea, and vote for the new car name.
It is an objective situation that there are differences in the practices of new forces and traditional car companies. The new forces should quickly get out of place, constantly emphasize "leading", but also tell stories, that is, the whole process of a car from the birth of the drawing to the final drive off the production line is told, and the cleverly arranged sense of storytelling is easy for consumers to bring themselves in, and then with the founder's personal charm, and finally pay for their car-making methods.
Traditional car companies like Honda are more accustomed to being upright and surprising, and their attitude towards new technologies is to fully verify and see the direction determined, and then make choices and investments. The only thing that can be done before the validation is insufficient is to produce the technologies and products that they consider mature in large quantities.
So, do you want to pay for a moving story, or do you want to buy a safe, reliable, and stable quality car?
Safe, secure, or safe
In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, the first weapon of the new car-making forces to conquer the field of public opinion is: automatic driving.
This kind of marketing style is beyond reproach, and in terms of the historical background, adjustment accumulation and quality control that traditional automobile companies are good at, the new forces really don't have much to talk about, and it is easy to show the stuffing when they open their mouths. On the other hand, in addition to the experience accumulated by traditional car companies based on time, in the most cutting-edge scientific and technological direction of automatic driving, can only be silent and obediently stand aside?
Other traditional car companies don't know what to think, at least Not Honda.
In March 2021, Honda released the world's first mass-produced L3 self-driving car, the Legend. After consumers buy it, they can take the lead in experiencing the L3 level automatic driving system in Japan. In the event of an accident, the liability is shared between Honda and the insurance company.
Honda's promise for the self-driving system called "Honda SENSING Elite" is that on 90% of Japan's highways, it is possible to drive away from the hand and the eyes, without holding the steering wheel in hand, without keeping the line of sight on the road, watching videos through the central control screen, and even allowing the driver to sit in the back seat, and the entire driving process is completed by the vehicle.
It fully complies with SAE International's definition of L3 level autonomous driving: that is, the car in this state, the driver does not need to drive, and when the system requires intervention, the driver switches to manual control.
Specifically, the activation process of Honda's automatic driving system is as follows: First, the driver manually opens the L2-level driver assistance system, at which time the vehicle can control the speed and direction of the vehicle by itself, and realize functions such as adaptive cruise, lane keeping, and active lane switching. The driver must look at the road and not take off his hand. When the system detects that the external traffic environment meets the L3 activation conditions, it will automatically open the function called "TJP (Traffic Jam Pilot)", and at the same time, through the sound and dashboard, remind the driver to pay attention.
At this moment, the driver can take off his hands and feet, and his eyes can leave the front and do his own thing. When the external traffic environment exceeds the L3 level activation conditions, the vehicle reminds the driver to put his hand back on the steering wheel and return to the L2 level driver assistance state. The two states cycle until the driver actively exits or stops driving. To prevent drivers from not reacting to the transition of control, Honda is equipped with features that detect driver status and automatically slow down to pull over.
In order to achieve L3 level autonomous driving, Honda directly pulled up the hardware sensors: 5 Valeo lidar, 5 continental millimeter wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars, dual current sight cameras, 1 in-car driver monitoring camera, global satellite high-precision positioning, 3D high-precision map.
If you follow the logic of "lidar quantity on heroes", the Great Wall Mech Dragon equipped with 4 lidars does not dare to squeak in front of Honda. Judging from the restrictions on the opening of the automatic driving function, compared with the "DRIVE PILOT" that Mercedes-Benz just announced and also adopts the Valeo lidar scheme, Honda's requirements for weather and light are not so harsh, and the use environment is relatively relaxed.
(Mercedes-Benz DRIVE PILOT operating domain: good light conditions, speed of less than 60 km/ h, highways with identification markings, centimeter-level high-precision map coverage, navigation data need to be approved, limited to 12800 km of highways in Germany)
For the purpose of developing this L3 system, Honda's answer is to "reduce fatigue under the premise of safety", rather than letting the vehicle take over the whole process. In fact, Honda has pulled the safety threshold of this system extremely high: First, the entire system has been developed for more than 15 years, launching the first generation in 2007, the second generation in 2016, and the third generation in 2021. Before the official launch, Honda accumulated 1.3 million kilometers of road test mileage and 10 million laboratory simulations; second, the driver had only 10 seconds to complete the takeover, not to take over, lights, shouting, tightening the seat belt in turn, and finally stopped on the side of the road to make an emergency call; third, the driver can watch the video, but eating, lying down or wearing sunglasses such as crossing the line will trigger a system warning; fourth, before the vehicle reaches the owner's hands, Honda has purchased a high amount of insurance for it. In the event of a traffic accident during L3 autonomous driving, Honda and the insurance company will be solely responsible.
Whether it is the layout of hardware sensors or the ability of software algorithms, Honda is not at all afraid to face the new forces of car manufacturing in the field of autonomous driving. Even so, Honda still only launched 100 units in Japan, and it has not been put into use on a large scale.
This conservatism is in stark contrast to the assertive practices of new domestic forces: in March 2022, the owner of the Xiaopeng P7 in Yueyang, Hunan Province, collided with a stationary rollover vehicle in front of him when the vehicle was in a state of automatic assisted driving. The explanation given by Xiaopeng Automobile is that the owner did not maintain the observation of the environment in front of the vehicle and take over the vehicle in time during the use of ACC+LCC.
In April 2022, netizen Chris said on social media that he was the first owner of the P7 double material in the country, a member of the Xiaopeng Automobile Hall of Fame, and had joined Xiaopeng out of love for Xiaopeng Motors. On March 10 this year, when using NGP assisted driving on the highway, the vehicle lost power, the battery motor lit fault lights, NGP directly exited, and the speed of the car dropped from 120 to 0 within a few seconds, completely losing power. On April 9, when the P7 was charging at the Xiaopeng supercharging station, the whole car suddenly lost power and offline, completely lost power, and the doors and trunk could not be closed, and could not leave the scene.
In August 2021, Lin Wenqin, founder of Shangshan Ruoshui Investment Management Company, founder of Yitong Tianxia Catering Management Company and founder of Meiyihao Brand Management Company, drove a NIO ES8 car to enable automatic driving function (NOP pilot), and crashed into a road construction vehicle in the Hanjiang section of Shenhai Expressway, and unfortunately passed away at the age of 31. Weilai's reply afterwards was that noP pilot was an auxiliary, not an automatic driving.
The accident exposed two possible problems in the automatic driving system: first, "front stationary rollover vehicle" and "road construction vehicle" are rare scenarios, both cases are not, artificial intelligence has not had time to learn, such a safety hazard who is responsible; second, the driver in time to take over the vehicle in the end how timely, if the driver really can not take over in time, in the case of inevitable collision, what else can the vehicle do.
Honda, which has sufficient ability but actively narrows the scope and carefully tests, is called "Nokia of the car circle", what should be called the new force of car manufacturing that pulls hundreds of thousands of car owners together on public roads to do real-time automatic driving function tests?
Honda needs a new Story from China
In the first half of China's intelligent electric vehicle war, Honda failed successfully: first, the sales of electric vehicles in the two joint ventures were miserable; second, the Honda brand image was no longer fashionable and sexy, and the characteristics were flattened.
Last year, Guangqi Honda's concept VE1 sold 2513 units, and a total of 913 units were sold in the first three months of this year, and there is a pure electric sedan concept S1, which does not even have sales figures. Another joint venture, Dongfeng Honda, is not much better, with the Siming X-NV selling 779 units last year and the M-NV selling 5561 units. The total sales of electric vehicles in China last year were 8853 units, less than 10,000.
The reason why Honda can't sell it is very clear in its heart, two aspects: First, the "oil to electricity" change is too hasty, in order to cope with the "double integral" this must-have question and grind the gun model, it is reasonable to not win the favor of Chinese consumers, especially in the face of a new generation of consumers who have long been immersed in the "Wei Xiaoli" to control the public opinion field, Honda Electric Vehicle 1.0 has not shown any determination to embrace electrification. Second, Honda's internal system is too strict, in the emphasis on small steps and fast walking, agile development at the moment, the system is not flat enough to become a shackle, limited by the boundaries of the system, model introduction, product definition, marketing methods of the right to speak is not from China, most of the staff's work is to follow the mature process system to complete the prescribed "operation" on the line, when innovation is not encouraged, do not expect to enjoy the results brought by innovation.
Electric vehicles can not be sold, Honda's image in the Chinese electric vehicle market can not be tree, because of the feelings of the purchase of Honda electric vehicles less and less consumers, Honda urgently need a new story that can be told in China, and Chinese love to hear.
So on April 25, Honda set the tone for a new story in China: reinventing EV driving fun.
"Driving fun" sounds very common, which is a word used by car companies. It is worth looking at, in fact, is "remodeling", to put it more formalistically, it is Honda reshaping the product architecture of electric vehicles in a way that adapts to the needs of Chinese consumers. Speaking of pragmatism, it is to build more Chinese special supply cars such as Lingpai and Guandao.
How to "reinvent"? Take one of the most common details as an example: How to make an electric car sit up without motion sickness?
Overly straightforward torque output that easily makes passengers feel dizzy is a common problem of many electric vehicles, and it is still one of the most urgent issues to be overcome today. Honda's approach is to use algorithmic coverage, introducing more than 20,000 control scene algorithms into the car, and reducing the feeling of vertigo by finely adjusting the pedal response and power output characteristics. The control algorithm of the general electric model is about 500 kinds, and Honda has directly expanded by 40 times.
Unlike most car companies, which let the driver adapt to the vehicle's own driving mode, Honda presets the driving algorithm for almost all possible driving scenarios, so that the car adapts to the person, rather than the person to the car.
The positive changes in the Chinese market began with the action of Japan's Honda. Japan's Honda's battle plan involves three things: spending money, changing people, and finding friends.
The first is to be willing to throw money. In April, Honda announced that it will invest 5 trillion yen ($39.1 billion) in electrification and software technology to launch 30 new energy models worldwide by 2030, with an annual production volume of more than 2 million units. This investment is in the same order of magnitude as BMW's $32 billion and GM's $35 billion, but it is still incomparable with the rich Mercedes-Benz's $64.1 billion.
The second is to know how to employ people. In April last year, Honda President Takahiro Hachigo was replaced by Toshihiro Mibu. In the automotive industry, Takahiro Yatsugo, a traditional automaker who is widely known to scoff at electric vehicles, has said that Honda has introduced electric vehicles in Europe only to comply with emissions regulations. He also believes that the technology of automotive batteries has entered a bottleneck, the infrastructure and hardware of electric vehicles are generally insurmountable problems, and the demand for electric vehicles will not increase significantly worldwide. Mibu toshihiro, a radical in the electrification transition, strongly supports Japan's goal of carbon neutrality and has repeatedly called for "throwing away the standards of the past" within the company.
Finally, there will be friends. In March, Honda announced a strategic alliance with Sony Group to jointly develop and sell electric vehicles, which will go on sale in 2025, and a month later, Honda announced that it and General Motors will jointly develop electric vehicles based on the Aoteneng platform. GM is in charge of the battery, Honda is in charge of tuning, and Sony is in charge of the cockpit, and such a "stitching monster" is exciting to think.
Of course, honda has three major concerns in China before the $39.1 billion drug is fully exerted:
First, the launch of the electrification-specific platform "Honda e: Architecture" is 2026, which is too late. The European market is supported by Honda e, and the Chinese market and the Us market are eager for the arrival of hero models. You know, in any segment of China's electric vehicle market, Honda does not have a product that can be sold.
Second, the two joint venture companies have different attitudes on the direct operation model. Guangqi Honda will launch electrified sales service stores and supermarket stores in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and other places, while Dongfeng Honda will only set up an "e:N brand zone" in its existing special stores. Dongfeng Honda's in-store area is not helpful in promoting electric vehicles, especially when the CR-V next door is making concessions, and consumers' attention can easily be diverted.
Third, for the marketing strategy of electric vehicles, Honda did not find the right rhythm. Its brand launch last year was an embarrassing card point "We Will Rock You", spending a lot of money to buy song rights, and the result was mediocre. This year, I let unknown car critics sing the protagonist, lack of observation of the real users of electric vehicles, and it is recommended to understand the ripple pattern.
It is a good thing to build a car honestly like Honda, but you can't fall into the strange circle of "honesty" and can't extricate yourself, and you can't use "honesty" as a shield for looking ahead. Reverence should be maintained, and bravery should not be hidden, especially when surrounded by Kamen Riders with slippery tongues.
Write at the end:
From Honda, we can see that the moat of traditional automobile companies: research and development strength and system advantages still exist, especially the barrier effect of the supply chain is being reflected. Chinese consumers do not appreciate Honda's ability to innovate deeply, mainly because these new technologies, such as L3 level autonomous driving, are limited by policies and laws that have not been introduced into the country.
In April 2020, the Japanese government passed an amendment to the Road Transport Vehicle Law to allow the sale and use of L3 level autonomous vehicles. In May 2021, the German Federal Council passed a draft Autonomous Driving Law that would allow L4 fully driverless cars to officially appear on public roads in Germany in 2022. In April 2022, the UK amended its transport law to allow drivers to watch TV and movies on the in-car screen while the vehicle was autonomous, and the first models hit the road later this year.
In China, autonomous vehicles can only be tested in about 50 automatic driving test bases and demonstration areas, and everyone is familiar with the Shanghai Jiading Demonstration Zone, Shanghai Lingang Demonstration Zone, Beijing Haidian Base, Yizhuang Base, Shunyi Base, Shenzhen Pingshan Base, etc. At the legal level, China's existing regulations do not allow L3 and above autonomous vehicles to drive on the road, and the development of autonomous driving technology is ahead of the legislation.
Under the corresponding national policies and legal guarantees, these traditional automobile companies have no worse scientific and technological innovation capabilities than China's new forces. It's just that many times, in the absence of foolproof technology, they prefer to lurk quietly and wait for the fighter.