Toyota, Honda, Nissan three major Japanese brands have always been the leader of the fuel vehicle era, in the early process of electrification transformation, it also with a number of hybrid models in the field of new energy vehicles to gain a foothold. However, with the advent of the era of automobile intelligence, the pace of "Japanese three masters" is slightly slower, and the development of core intelligent technologies represented by automatic driving is also faltering.
On April 25, Nissan announced the latest developments in its driver assistance technology, which integrates the information perceived by the next generation of high-performance lidar (LIDAR), radar and cameras to detect the shape and distance of the target in real time and accurately, as well as the spatial structure of the area around the vehicle, and automatically perform collision avoidance operations. At the same time, the technology can also detect deceleration traffic and road obstacles in the distance, and automatically change lanes.
Such progress is good news for Nissan, but on the other hand, it also highlights the lag in the development of Nissan's self-driving technology - at present, Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng Motors and many other models have been equipped with assisted driving technology with the above functions. Not only that, there are many car companies and technology companies at home and abroad who are vigorously developing autonomous driving technology, and Nissan's progress is slightly thin.
However, Japanese car companies have always been somewhat consistent in the process of changing new technologies. Just as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan's three car companies ignore the pure electric vehicle market, resulting in weak car sales growth, their performance in the field of automatic driving is also lagging behind. Although these three car companies have previously launched L2 and L3 level autonomous driving models, they are still not a climate compared with Tesla and other new car-making forces in terms of mass production and application.
Toyota was confused
Toyota's understanding of autonomous driving technology is different from the traditional concept of "freeing the hands of human drivers" - "zero casualties in traffic accidents" is Toyota's core goal, and the use of automatic driving technology is only a means. Under this concept, Toyota chose to walk on two legs, not only to develop autonomous driving technology itself, but also to invest in many related companies to lay out autonomous driving products.
However, although Toyota began research on autonomous driving technology as early as the 1990s, the real promotion of autonomous driving technology was in 2016. This year, Toyota established toyota research institute Toyota Research Institute (TRI) in Silicon Valley, and two years later, in March, Toyota once again invested $2.8 billion in Aisin Seiki and Denso to establish Toyota Research Institute Advanced Research and Development Company (TRI-AD). To accelerate the development of artificial intelligence and autonomous driving software, respectively.
Toyota's real push for autonomous driving technology is a bit late, but that doesn't stop it from launching its first L4-level autonomous driving technology platform, e-Palette, at CES in January 2018. With a large number of sensors such as lidar and cameras, as well as high-precision 3D maps, the platform can realize low-speed autonomous driving (maximum speed of 19 km/h).
Not only that, at CES the following year, Toyota released the TRI-P4, an autonomous vehicle based on the Lexus LS500, which is equipped with 4 cameras and 8 lidars to achieve 360-degree perception coverage of the body. Thanks to this, the model not only has L2 with L2 automatic driving capabilities such as automatic cruise and lane departure correction; it also has a certain L3 and above level automatic driving capabilities, and the system can completely replace human drivers and control vehicles.
However, due to the high cost of lidar, only a few high-end models such as the Lexus LS500 can support the cost. Therefore, if you want to decentralize the tri-P4 autonomous driving system on a large scale, how to balance the cost is a big problem. Not only that, but the injury accident of the lidar-powered e-Palette model during the Olympics in Japan also cast a shadow on the safety of Toyota's autonomous driving. Even at present, Toyota's models are mainly equipped with lane keeping, cruise control and other L2 level automatic driving functions.
The high cost of the lidar solution and the fact that there are still accidents have become a problem for Toyota and even the industry to develop autonomous driving technology. In the industry's view, this may be the key reason why Toyota, which has adhered to the lidar scheme in the past, has recently issued a shift to the industry to a pure visual perception solution.
Just on April 7, Toyota Motor's autonomous driving subsidiary, Woven Planet (founded by TRI-AD), said that it would use a single visual solution to develop autonomous driving in assisted driving and higher-level autonomous driving projects. Woven Planet believes that pure visual routes can help reduce costs and obtain more driving data, which is more conducive to expanding the scale of autonomous driving applications than high-cost perception solutions such as lidar.
However, the complete abandonment of the lidar route of the past few years is not inevitable for Toyota - even if Toyota converts the overall route to a pure visual perception route, the current lidar solution on a few high-end models such as the Lexus LS500 will continue to be Toyota's main choice for developing autonomous driving until the pure visual solution matures.
The landing of self-developed technology was blocked, and Toyota began to find another way out - investment.
According to incomplete statistics, Toyota has invested more than $1.5 billion in the field of global autonomous driving in recent years, and has successively invested or acquired a number of autonomous driving business units, such as investing $500 million and $400 million in Uber and Xiaoma Zhixing respectively, and acquiring Lyft's autonomous driving division (acquisition price of $550 million), focusing on L4-level driverless taxis (Robotaxi).
Under the heavy fund, Toyota and its partners have achieved certain results, such as the recent bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District, Guangzhou, which is the first taxi business license issued to an autonomous driving enterprise in China. The winning bid notice is clear, allowing autonomous vehicles that meet the safety technical requirements of the demonstration operation of intelligent and connected vehicles in Guangzhou to provide taxi operation services.
However, on the whole, most of toyota's investment projects are still in the research and development and testing stages, and it is still difficult to achieve large-scale commercialization in the short term. In addition, Toyota's own self-driving products developed and put into use, such as the e-Palette model, have not really landed. In the eyes of the outside world, Toyota's autonomous driving development path is quite confusing. Perhaps this is only one of the means of automatic driving, and "zero casualties in traffic accidents" is the embodiment of the ultimate goal.
In this context, Toyota is not in a hurry. James Kuffner, CEO of Toyota's global research and development department, said that autonomous driving is still far from truly large-scale applications, and full autonomous driving will be achieved as soon as 2030.
Honda radical
Compared with the investment and acquisition of Toyota, the world's largest car company, Honda is much more low-key in terms of momentum. However, when it comes to autonomous driving, Honda is the most radical player in the process of legalizing self-driving cars in Japan.
Honda LEGEND, the world's first mass-produced L3-level autonomous vehicle, highlights Honda's ambitions in the field of autonomous driving. As the world's first L3 level autonomous vehicle with legal road exercise rights, LEGEND is the first step in Honda's technological challenge to its peers in the era of automotive intelligence.
Released in March 2021, LEGEND is equipped with the Honda SENSING Elite intelligent driving system, which enables autonomous driving within certain limits on certain roads.
Official information shows that the system is equipped with 12 ultrasonic radars, 2 front cameras, 5 millimeter wave radar, 5 lidar, and 3D high-precision maps and support from the global positioning satellite system GNSS, can accurately grasp the location and road conditions of their vehicles, the surrounding environment, by the main ECU controller to perceive, predict, judge, control the throttle, brake, steering.
In fact, because LEGEND only supports automatic driving in some cases (such as traffic jams), and the speed limit is limited to 50km/h, and the high cost of hardware such as radar has led to LEGEND only leasing 100 vehicles at a high price of 660,000 yuan, LEGEND's name of "the world's first mass-produced L3-level autonomous vehicle" will be questioned. However, it can also be seen that Honda is not satisfied with the traditional L2 level of assisted driving capabilities.
Even if Honda has high ambitions, at present, except for Tesla, which adopts a pure visual perception solution, no car company can truly commercialize L3 and higher-level autonomous driving models from the perspective of technology and cost. If Honda adheres to the LEGEND autonomous driving route, it is foreseeable that before the industry's high-end autonomous driving capabilities mature and the price of core components such as lidar plummets, LEGEND can only be a LEGEND (legend).
But apparently, in addition to reaching L3 level autonomous driving from the technical route, Honda is also following the path of Toyota's investment in companies in the industry. And Honda's shot is more generous than Toyota's. In Honda's investment activities, the most concerned in the industry is the investment in Cruise, a star company of General Motors' driverless cars.
In October 2018, Honda announced a $2.75 billion investment in Cruise, a self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, breaking The previous industry record for SoftBank's $2.25 billion investment in Cruise.
The investment was divided into two phases: Honda first invested $750 million in Cruise to acquire 5.7% of Cruise's stock, and then invested $2 billion over a 12-year period. With Honda's entry, the three parties will cooperate in the development of a globally deployed autonomous vehicle in the future, betting on the commercial layout of L4 level autonomous driving.
Honda's ideal is the sea of stars, and L3 and L4 are their favorites. According to Honda's plan, it will launch L4 self-driving cars in 2025. In the previous 5 years, Honda wanted to achieve the goal of L3 self-driving cars on the highway.
Not only that, on April 21, Honda also announced that it will cooperate with two large taxi companies in Japan to launch an autonomous passenger service in Tokyo, Japan in the mid-2020s. The vehicle will be jointly developed by Honda, GM and Cruise.
Nissan retardation
If Honda's plan to launch an L4 self-driving car in 2025 is somewhat "radical", then Nissan's self-driving road is too smooth, even a little delayed.
Nissan's self-driving solution, which truly allows drivers to take their hands off the steering wheel, was introduced in 2019, a system that allows both hands to take off the steering wheel and drivers can drive with both hands off the wheel on the highway. It is reported that Nissan hopes to use the ProPilot 2.0 to face off against tesla Autopilot.
Three years ago, proPilot 1.0, the initial version of the package, implemented the ACC adaptive cruise function through sensors such as the front-facing monocular camera and millimeter-wave radar, and had a certain lane-keeping capability, but the driver had to put his hand on the steering wheel when using this function.
Nissan's ProPilot 2.0 uses a combination of 5 radars (1 front + 4 angles), 12 ultrasonic radars, 7 cameras, and high-precision maps to drive without human intervention on highways, allowing drivers to take their hands off the wheel. At the same time, it can also assist the driver to overtake and change lanes during multi-lane driving on the highway until it leaves the highway according to a pre-set route.
In fact, in terms of the technical level of the package, it has reached some L3 level unmanned driving capability standards, which is also in a leading position in 2019. However, at present, this plan has no obvious advantage with "Wei Xiaoli" and even a number of traditional opponents.
Not only that, in terms of application scale, because Nissan only has a few models of ARIYA and SKYLINE equipped with ProPilot 2.0 solutions, the main models such as ALTIMA/TENNA and SYLPHY are still equipped with some L2 level auxiliary driving functions, and the automatic driving program has not yet been effectively implemented. This is even more slow than the new car-making forces known for their self-driving capabilities.
At Nissan's autonomous driving technology briefing, Nissan focused on Nissan's "road reality perception" technology, saying that it integrates the information perceived by the next generation of high-performance lidar (LIDAR), radar and cameras, which can detect the shape and distance of the target in real time and accurately, as well as the spatial structure of the surrounding area of the vehicle, so as to analyze the current situation in an instant to judge and automatically perform collision avoidance operations. At the same time, the technology can also detect deceleration traffic and road obstacles in the distance, and automatically change lanes. Importantly, in the absence of detailed map information, the technology can still provide drivers with strong driver assistance support.
Overall, Nissan's new progress plays a key role in the development of its autonomous driving technology. However, these developments are not significantly ahead of the rest of the industry. Even Nissan's current investment in autonomous driving is more like a catch-up move.
Not only that, Nissan's autonomous driving technology is even more disconnected from the industry.
Toru Iijima, director of Nissan Motor Company's AD/ADAS advanced technology research and development department, told cheyun network and other media that Nissan plans to complete the development of road reality perception technology in the mid-2020s. This technology will be implemented first on some new models and is planned to be applied to all new models by fiscal year 2030.
In the industry's view, 2030 is too far away for any car company.
Che Yun summary
In fact, since Tesla, "Wei Xiaoli" and other emerging technology companies joined and led the transformation of the automotive industry, electrification and intelligence have become obstacles that traditional car companies cannot avoid when seeking survival and development. Even if at the beginning of the change, some established car companies can still maintain good performance with long-term accumulated advantages in technology, resources and markets, but with the deepening of industry changes, the definition of automobiles is also being rewritten.
In this context, the head players of the traditional fuel vehicle era such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan are facing a major test. But at the same time, we also found that no car company chose to "sit still". On the contrary, these established car companies are also exploring new development directions, such as Toyota's vigorous research and development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, Honda's launch of the new energy brand e:NP, and the development of Nissan road reality perception.
In this process, the industry should affirm the various attempts of different types of car companies in exploring changes. However, car companies should also see that on the market side, consumers' urgent demand for green, safe and reliable automotive products is increasing.
In the period of electrification transformation of the automobile industry, the three Mainstream Japanese manufacturers are slower in the pure electric vehicle market because they only bet on hybrid models; and in the intelligent stage, the actions of the three car companies are also slightly conservative. When a number of new car-making forces have successively launched models equipped with ADAS (Advanced Assisted Driving System), the technologies such as "cruise control" and "lane keeping" possessed by some models of the three car companies are also somewhat outdated. If car companies fail to make up for market demand in time, then they are likely to lag behind their competitors. Japanese brands' insufficient investment in pure electric vehicles in the early stage of vehicle electrification development has led to limited voice in this segment, which is a lesson for the past.