Intelligent second half Baidu's mass production plan
Author|In the continent
The concept of autonomous driving is halfway through, and car companies seem to be beginning to contradict. The strategy of trying to produce miracles through large computing power, crazy piling of materials but not much effect, and cooperating with technology companies but trembling for fear of losing their souls.
What if you want both a soul and a body?
This morning, Baidu Apollo released the "Baidu Intelligent Driving Open White Paper", opening up the four key capabilities, and launched corresponding enabling training, joint product committees and other services and mechanisms.
In this way, car companies do not need full-stack self-research, and at the same time can achieve full-stack controllability.
"It's a good thing."
Chu Ruisong, vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of the intelligent vehicle business unit, said at the scene that some car companies that had tried self-research before gradually realized that full-stack self-research required huge investment, and it was not their area of expertise. "So the 'self-research fever' in the industry is ebbing, and everyone is more rational."
Lantu Automobile CEO Lu Fang also went to the scene to stand for Baidu Apollo, and according to the plan, the new Lantu Free equipped with Baidu's Apollo system will be officially unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show. Next, Lantu will also cooperate with Baidu in terms of marketing.
From the previous soul theory to Baidu's expanding circle of friends, the attitude of car companies to automatic driving has really begun to change.
What capabilities are open?
The reason why car companies are worried about losing their souls is that compared with the traditional system based on mechanical parts, the intelligent system is a large-scale dynamic system with hardware as the carrier and driven by algorithm software.
Once these software and hardware are controlled by other companies, OEMs will be very passive.
However, this system is very large and complex, whether it is for technology companies or car companies, it is a new industrial revolution, and it is difficult for a single player in the industrial chain to complete all hardware research and development and intelligent technology accumulation.
Therefore, the key word of Baidu's conference is - openness.
For automotive companies, Baidu Apollo released the Baidu Intelligent Driving Open White Paper, announcing the definition of open experience, open autonomous experience evolution, open full-cycle OTA services, and open co-creation with car companies.
This way is not a "hammer sale", accompanying car companies with an open attitude. For example, before SOP, Baidu Apollo opened human-computer interaction interfaces, core capability SDKs and underlying soft interfaces in the form of APIs and SOA services.
Open experience definition, car companies can define and implement the human-computer interaction interface, intelligent driving style, and even participate in the technical links of intelligent driving control according to their own needs.
After the successful delivery of the SOP, Baidu Apollo opens the closed-loop cloud and supporting tool chain of intelligent driving data to car companies, supporting car companies to build a data closed loop after the new model is launched, and can independently improve the data-driven intelligent driving experience, so that car companies have more control.
Open full-cycle OTA service, longer after SOP (such as 3 years), if car companies want models to continue to enjoy the capabilities and experience of Baidu Apollo's intelligent driving mainline products, Baidu Apollo can also provide corresponding solutions for car companies, such as in the form of quarterly OTA, to ensure the vitality of model intelligent driving capabilities.
At the same time, Baidu Apollo will also provide technical support and training for the product, R&D and delivery teams of car companies by cooperating with car companies to establish a product joint committee.
This model is like a new type of zero-zero relationship in the era of smart cars, and the cooperation between the new Tier1 and the main engine factory has begun to follow.
In addition, Baidu has initially established an open partner ecosystem in the field of mass production of smart vehicles, and there are partners such as Neusoft and Zhongke Chuangda in the field of smart map and smart cabin delivery. In the field of hardware, there are partners such as Aptiv, Neusoft, Tongzhi, and Desai. In the field of chips, it is to carry out in-depth cooperation with NVIDIA, Qualcomm, TI and other chip companies.
In addition, at the press conference, Baidu also announced that Black Sesame Intelligent has become the preferred domestic AI chip partner for Baidu Intelligent Driving.
In three years, cars without self-driving will be difficult to sell
At the press conference, Baidu Apollo launched its flagship product Apollo City Driving Max.
This flagship autonomous driving system is equipped with two NVIDIA Orin X, a computing power of 508TOPS, two high-beam lidar with a visual distance of 180 meters, seven 8-megapixel cameras, four 3-megapixel surround view cameras, five millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic sensors.
In terms of software, the perception scheme of "pure vision + lidar" is adopted. Officials said that the visual perception system is the only system in China that uses pure vision to achieve urban navigation assisted driving. In the mass production phase, lidar will be added as a perception redundancy.
According to the official statement, the "lightweight high-definition map" used by Apollo City Driving Max is nearly 80% lighter than the traditional high-definition map used in the industry.
In addition, the Apollo Highway Driving Pro has also completed the product upgrade, and its computing power platform has been upgraded to a single TDA4-VH platform, compared with dual TDA4-VM, the AI computing power and CPU computing power utilization rate of the new product are less than 50%, which can achieve a higher level of integrated parking functions under lower computing power and lower cost conditions.
Baidu Apollo and Lantu have deeply cooperated with the first model, the new Lantu FREE, equipped with Apollo Highway Driving Pro, which can realize high-speed navigation, urban driving assistance, full-scene parking and other functions.
THIS COOPERATION METHOD IS SIMILAR TO THE HI (HUAWEI INSIDE) MODEL BETWEEN HUAWEI AND CAR COMPANIES, WHICH CAN PROVIDE INTELLIGENT DRIVING AND INTELLIGENT COCKPIT.
At the event, Baidu Apollo also announced the upgrade of the autonomous parking product Apollo Parking, the success rate of the new product in the Top5 parking space type is more than 99%, and it only takes 28 seconds to park in the vertical parking space, which reduces the difficulty of parking for novice drivers and improves parking efficiency for old drivers.
For Apollo Parking, Baidu Apollo plans to cooperate with car companies and other Tier1 promotions in a software-based way.
In terms of intelligent cockpit, Baidu Apollo has Xiaodu in-vehicle OS and Xiaodu voice SDK.
Among them, Xiaodu in-vehicle OS as a turnkey solution can be quickly equipped with mass production, while Xiaodu voice SDK is localized based on large models, and car companies can define and realize intelligent cabin experience through Xiaodu voice SDK.
In terms of smart maps, Baidu Apollo has upgraded the car navigation map, which has improved its quality, performance, and real-time data to varying degrees, and upgraded the high-precision map to OneMap, which can quickly and dynamically update map data.
At the same time, Baidu Wenxin Yiyan model has opened invitation testing, and Baidu is also exploring the use of Wenxin big model capabilities to reshape the relationship between users and smart cabins in travel scenarios.
At the event, Baidu Apollo also demonstrated the landing application demonstration video of Wenxin large model.
For example, you can talk to the car through voice control, let the car take pictures for you and send moments of friends, and at the same time be able to self-test battery performance and answer related questions.
However, at present, these functions are only forward-looking exploration functions, and have not yet been mass-produced.
"We believe that the smart car of the future is not a large mobile phone with four wheels, but an intelligent robot that can learn and grow." Li Zhenyu, senior vice president of Baidu Group and president of the intelligent driving business group, said that the cross-gap of intelligent driving from the "early market" to the "early mass market" has begun, and the next three years will be a key window period for intelligence.
"In 2026, when intelligence completes the market crossing, it will be difficult for cars without intelligent driving capabilities to enter the user's car purchase list."