Intelligent electric vehicles are based on a new electronic architecture and vehicle development mode, with the characteristics of "commonly used and always new". This iterative capability is particularly evident in the field of intelligent driving assistance, where new cars are pre-built with a large number of high-end hardware configurations when they are delivered in mass production, and then open up new features to consumers through OTAs in the form of paid software packages.
It is worth mentioning that the package of function upgrade is not a mandatory purchase item, but the hardware configuration that supports the landing of functions is packaged and sold. This new model has two sides: the vehicle's embedded high-level hardware allows users to take "regret medicine" and buy software packages at any time to enjoy the latest driver assistance systems; but conversely, consumers who only need L2-level assistance systems every day pay for those hardware configurations that are not used and are more expensive.
Is it possible that the "commonly used and constant new" of smart electric vehicles is no longer forced to package and sell hardware, but to upgrade software and hardware with changes in demand during the life cycle of the car? Self-touring NV gives a new solution.
The time difference between hardware onboarding and technology iteration
Have you ever wondered if we pay the most advanced hardware price for a smart electric car, but we don't necessarily have access to the most advanced features? This is not uncommon, and the causes of this problem are manifold.
In March 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Automobile Driving Automation Classification", which officially clarified the L0-L5 driving automation classification; in the same year, a number of high-precision map suppliers obtained qualification licenses and gradually opened high-precision maps in first- and second-tier cities across the country. With the support of objective conditions, some intelligent electric vehicles will begin to pay users for a pilot assistance driving system based on high-precision maps at the end of 2020.
But in fact, this year, the intelligent electric vehicle market has successively released the pilot driver assistance system, which relies on the hardware technology as early as 1-2 years ago. Many car companies choose the Mobileye EyeQ4 architecture, which supports L3-level driver assistance systems, and began mass production and delivery in 2018, which was the most advanced intelligent driving solution in the industry at that time. In order to match the EyeQ4 architecture, manufacturers will also choose the more high-end high-definition cameras, millimeter wave radar and other visual perception hardware of the same period.
This has the time difference we see: users can not get fully open mature technology at the moment of buying a new car, high-end hardware configurations purchased at high prices are useless; with the maturity of function development, regulatory support, users finally unlock new features through OTAs, but the smart hardware market has iterated, launched a chip with stronger computing power, cameras with better recognition effects, radar, and so on.
That is to say, the "common use and constant updating" of smart electric vehicles is limited to just a few years, and the "latest" that users can experience is often not the "latest" of technological development in this industry.
The time difference between supplier mass production and hardware on the car, and the time difference between new car mass production and function development force car companies to catch up with the rhythm of suppliers, and the initiative of iteration is not completely in the hands of car companies. At the same time, it is difficult for consumers to purchase configurations on demand as before, and in order to make the high-end hardware that is paid ahead work, they can only upgrade the latest software packages every year.
So that hardware can also be "commonly used and always new"
In order to catch up with the rapid development of the industry, the practice of many new brands is to accelerate the research and development of new cars, so that the pace of new car listing keeps up with the update rhythm of intelligent hardware. Judging from the current development of the industry, 2-3 years will experience a comprehensive iteration of chip computing power and hardware technology.
However, 2-3 years is obviously not the age and node for consumers to change new cars. To truly keep up with the technological development of the industry in terms of experience, a better way is not through software upgrades or frequent replacement of new cars, but to make a car's hardware can continue to iterate.
The new car brand Ziyoujia Automobile has made an innovative attempt on the first product, Ziyoujia NV: supporting new hardware paid upgrades.
The AAD high-level driver assistance system that will be listed this year belongs to the L2+ level, based on the Horizon Journey 2 chip and the Horizon Matrix Mono monocular visual perception scheme, this AAD system relies on 1 front-looking camera and 5 millimeter wave radars, which can include AEB (automatic emergency braking), ACC (full-speed domain adaptive cruise), LCC (lane center control), LCA (lane change assist), BSD (blind spot monitoring), 24 functions including APA (Fully Automatic Parking).
These functions have been fully open and available at the time of delivery, which is a mature solution developed from the existing hardware level of Youjia NV, and there is no problem of technical prepayment and software and hardware time difference. In fact, for most of the daily travel scenarios, the existing functions of the AAD system are fully sufficient. Just considering the technological development of smart cars and the upgrading of geek users' needs, the AAD system developed based on the Journey 2 chip cannot support higher-level driver assistance functions.
Therefore, Self-Traveling NV will launch a new upgrade plan in the third quarter of 2023: on the basis of the AAD system, the entire range of hardware paid upgrades to SuperDrive AAD, built-in two Horizon Journey 5 chips, 12 ultra-high-definition cameras, support for high-speed and urban roads pilot assistance functions, and more scenes of automatic parking.
It is worth mentioning that the upgraded Horizon Journey 5 chip provided by Youjia NV in 2023 is the latest generation of products released in July 2021 and mass production and delivery in 2023. This means that the upgrade plan of the NV is the "latest" that is truly synchronized with the industry in terms of hardware.
Of course, the significance of hardware upgradeability is that consumers who do not need a high level of intelligence on a daily basis do not have to spend more money on functions that are not used when buying a car. On-demand upgrades, commonly used and constantly new, is the purpose of intelligent car hardware upgrades.
Intelligence can grow, the future direction of development
Intelligent electric vehicles subvert the development mode of the traditional automotive industry, and standard configuration is high-end is a routine operation. We can understand this approach, for many new car brands, the early stage of development needs to be "blockbuster" in the way of high-cost technology embedding, but this path will inevitably bring some problems: either car companies build cars at a loss, or consumers overspend to buy unnecessary configurations.
In the past two years, the sales volume of new energy vehicles has changed greatly, and it is not the "smart gimmick" that affects consumers' purchase decisions, but the basic quality. As the entire industry matures, consumers' performance and intelligence of electric vehicles should also be purchased and upgraded on demand. Since the "people-oriented" concept of Youjia Car is reflected in this, the power performance can be selected on demand to extend the range hybrid or pure electricity, and the intelligent technology can also choose whether to upgrade to SuperDriveAAD on demand.
This provides a new direction for the smart automotive industry. At the beginning, new car brands will choose to pile up as much high-end hardware as possible within the scope of budget control, as a technical reserve for subsequent functional upgrades, and also allow users to have the ability to upgrade at any time. However, considering that the current regulations and supervision of the intelligent automotive industry need to be improved, the iteration of technology research and development is very rapid, and the hardware can be upgraded to be a more flexible solution.
However, if a car wants to achieve hardware upgrades at any time, there are higher requirements for the architectural design of the whole vehicle. Self-Touring NV can provide a full set of hardware upgrades for SuperDriveAAD, provided that the interface of the gigabit Ethernet communication and high-power integrated domain controller is embedded in the car. From the Journey 2 upgrade to the Journey 5 chip, the computing power performance has increased by dozens of times, and the massive data transmission and processing capabilities corresponding to 12 high-definition cameras and 5 millimeter-wave radars also require high-speed vehicle Ethernet communication.
The cooperation between Youjia NV and Horizon is very close, from AAD to SuperDriveAAD, Horizon has given a lot of technical support. Horizon intelligent solution features with open and easy to use, around this system, self-travel home NV can do a lot of scenes and functional applications combined development.
Asteron summary
In the past few years of rapid development of smart electric vehicles, consumers have learned about the ability of a car to be "commonly used and constantly new", but now most of the cars' "common use and constant new" are conditional and have a period of time. How to break through this time difference between mass production delivery and technical iteration, the hardware upgradeable solution of youjia NV is a new idea, which has the flexibility of iterating at any time in the era of smart cars, and also retains the pragmatism of on-demand purchase in the traditional car era.
As soon as the third quarter of next year, we will be able to see the full set of hardware upgrades of the SuperDriveAAD of the NV, so that a smart car is truly new and up-to-date.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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