It seems to be "one step away", but in fact it is "a chasm"
Autonomous driving, which has been silent for a year, sees a new dawn at the end of 2023.
Recently, car companies, including Mercedes-Benz, Jihu, BMW, Zhiji, AVATAR, Deep Blue and Changan Automobile, have successively announced that they have obtained L3 autonomous driving test licenses.
Throughout 2023, autonomous driving will be surrounded by ice and fire.
On the one hand, at various auto shows, various car companies have demonstrated their intelligent driving functions within the L2 level, trying to get closer to autonomous driving.
On the other hand, from Google's Waymo to Ali Damo Academy, from Baidu to Xpeng, a large-scale adjustment and reduction of the autonomous driving department will also continue to be staged in 2023.
Due to the delay in the implementation of L3 and above autonomous driving, the industry simply classifies the existing parts below L3 as "intelligent assisted driving", and "autonomous driving" is used to refer to L4 and L5 levels that are still waiting to be implemented.
Tianyancha data shows that in the past 10 years, the global disclosed financing amount has exceeded 440 billion yuan. Among them, more than 220 billion in the mainland. So much so that many people classify autonomous driving as a "false fire".
However, the imminent implementation of L3 conditional autonomous driving is a good thing for the industry after all.
So much so that at the just-concluded Wenjie M9 press conference, Yu Chengdong repeatedly declared that "we spent three years to build the SUV Wenjie M9, which is the most powerful SUV that can be seen on the road", and some netizens still commented, "Don't brag about X if you don't get the L3 test license......
From burning money to fighting each other, the entire automotive industry is just waiting for a glimmer of dawn for autonomous driving.
L2, the car company is very rolled, and the owner is very Buddha
There is no doubt that autonomous driving will be one of the major selling points of the future automotive industry.
Even if fully autonomous vehicles are not yet on the road, at the moment when L2 is dominant, car companies are also loudly promoting assisted driving functions in order to match the development trend of autonomous driving.
Full autonomous driving is still difficult to attract consumers as the biggest selling point. Therefore, the Advanced Driving Assistance System (ADAS) has become the first major direction of "involution" of car companies.
From AEB (automatic emergency braking function), full-speed range ACC adaptive cruise function, to ACL automatic lane change function, to APA automatic parking function, etc., and in order to further highlight the high level of their own intelligent driving, car companies have given L2.5 or even L2.9999 above L2...... level of "gimmicks".
For example, when the Besturn T90 was released before, one of the major selling points it gave was that it was "equipped with an L2.5 level assisted driving system".
Yu Chengdong said bluntly at the press conference of the M5 intelligent driving version that it is equipped with HUAWEI ADS 2.0 high-end intelligent driving system, and the assisted driving level belongs to L2.99999...... Infinitely close to L3.
Screenshot of the video of the press conference Source/Network
This even attracted He Xiaopeng's "mutual fighting". After the new version of the M7 was completely broken, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xpeng Motors, publicly criticized in an interview with the media, believing that "99% of the AEB of friends (Wenjie) is fake".
Then the two quarreled for a while, Yu Chengdong said that He Xiaopeng "doesn't understand technology", and He Xiaopeng ridiculed Yu Chengdong as a "layman". In the end, the controversy ended with He Xiaopeng taking the initiative to "give in".
However, compared with the carnival of car companies, for car owners, whether it is adaptive cruise, automatic lane change, automatic parking and other auxiliary functions, as long as the car is not allowed to completely spread the steering wheel, autonomous driving is still just an imaginary thing.
As for who is stronger in assisted driving, it is difficult for the owner to have a three-dimensional perception.
Xiao Qi, who has purchased a new energy vehicle and is considering changing his car, firmly believes that battery life is the first choice when buying a car, and intelligent driving is the least concerned.
"It's not that intelligent driving is not important, but I feel that almost all new energy vehicles are quite intelligent now. I have also test-driven several brands of cars before, including following the car, changing lanes, automatic parking and other functions, which are basically available. Xiao Qi said.
If the salesperson is chattering in the ear at this time, the "talk therapy" intelligent driving technology is often the more boring the car owner feels.
"Especially when it comes to the fact that my technology is far ahead of the curve and at the L2+ level, I'm even more confused. Xiao Qi said.
In fact, for car owners, when the autonomous driving technology above the L4 level cannot be applied to the vehicle at this stage, the level of intelligent assisted driving is L2.0, L2.5 or L2.999, which does not affect the enjoyment of intelligent driving functions.
In the summer of 2023, Li Jie has just experienced the thrill of intelligent driving, although she still doesn't understand whether her car is L2 or L3.
"For a distance of more than 300 kilometers, after turning on assisted driving, you only need to set the maximum speed and the car can drive on its own. During this process, you must put your hands on the steering wheel, otherwise the steering wheel will vibrate, indicating that you are not operating properly. ”
L3, which looks beautiful and tastes sour
As the total number of cars increases, the traffic pressure in large cities and popular areas is also increasing.
The ever-increasing flow of vehicles is testing the safety of autonomous driving all the time.
Everyone knows that autonomous driving is coming sooner or later.
Everyone knows that it is impossible for a self-driving vehicle to be completely free of breakdowns and accidents.
According to national standards, autonomous driving technology is divided into levels 0-5, with a total of 6 levels.
Among them, the L0-L2 level driving automation function is assisted driving, and the L3 level and above driving automation function can really be called automatic driving, that is, it can replace the driver to become the driving subject under specific circumstances, and realize the driver's desire to free his hands and feet.
At this stage, autonomous driving is firmly limited to the L2 level, and the biggest difference is that L2 still does not allow the driver to take his hands off the steering wheel, starting from L3, the driver can be allowed to let go of his hands and let the vehicle drive autonomously in different time periods and scenarios.
To put it bluntly, the driver himself is still driving at Level 2, but at Level 3 and above, the driver will gradually change from a person to an autonomous driving system.
Once this change occurs, the rights and responsibilities of driving safety and violations will also change.
At the L2 level, it is a serious violation of traffic laws for drivers to swipe WeChat and watch videos while driving, while from L3 onwards, only a person needs to sit in the driver's seat, and whether to perform the above operations depends entirely on the driver's needs.
This also means that in the event of a traffic accident, the responsibility may be attributed to the car company, not the driver.
Obviously, no car company wants to be responsible for the first accident, so even if some car companies have been able to achieve L3 conditional autonomous driving, they are still advertised as L2+.
Before the issuance of the L3 conditional autonomous driving road test license, the industry generally believed that urban NOA was the closest to L3 and a crucial step from L2 to L3.
Urban NOA is a function that assists driving in the city, which can assist the car owner, realize the vehicle driving autonomously on the city road, complete the actions such as following, changing lanes, overtaking, etc., and finally arrive at the place designated by the car owner.
Based on this, major car companies have made efforts in urban NOA in 2023, and have successively announced their "small goals" of "opening the city" in 2024.
According to incomplete statistics from "Phoenix Weekly Finance", new car-making forces, including Xpeng, Weilai, Ideal, Wenjie, AVATAR, Zhiji, etc., have successively disclosed the progress of NOA in their own cities.
Among them, Li Xiang, CEO of Li Auto, wrote on social platforms that "the official version of urban NOA will cover highways and ring roads and 100 cities across the country in December", while Zhiji Auto will launch the urban commuting mode in mid-2024 and cover 100 cities across the country by the end of 2024.
Screenshot of Li Xiang's speech on the social platform of Li Auto CEO
In addition, Xpeng Motors also disclosed relevant plans, that is, by the end of December 2023, Xpeng XNGP will be open to 50. In 2024, XPeng will cover the whole country with XNGP, and NIO plans to complete 250,000 kilometers of urban pilot route verification in 200 cities by the end of 2023, and 400,000 kilometers of urban pilot route verification in more than 230 cities by the second quarter of 2024.
However, even if urban NOA can be infinitely close to L3 autonomous driving technology, there are still essential differences between the two. At the end of the day, the city NOA is still "auxiliary", and the driver must pay attention to the road condition information at all times so that he can take over at any time.
Why was L3 suddenly "woken up"?
This round of "quietly" waking up L3 conditional autonomous driving car companies is not small.
On December 14, BMW announced that it had obtained a Shanghai L3 autonomous driving high-speed driving test license, which is also the first L3 test license in China.
Photo source/BMW Group
On December 16, Zhiji Auto announced that its vehicles equipped with Level 3 autonomous driving functions have officially obtained a high-speed autonomous driving test license in Shanghai. On the same day, the relevant departments of Beijing issued the "Detailed Rules for the Administration of Road Testing of Conditional Autonomous Driving Functional Vehicles in the Pilot Zone of the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy (Trial)".
Two days later, Mercedes-Benz announced that it had become one of the first companies to be approved for a conditional autonomous driving (Level 3) highway road test license in Beijing.
Together with Mercedes-Benz, JIHU Motors has become one of the first batch of companies to be approved for conditional autonomous driving (L3) highway road test licenses in Beijing. JiHu said that it will officially carry out actual road tests of the conditional autonomous driving system on designated roads in Beijing.
In addition, Changan Automobile, AVATR and Deep Blue Automobile have also become the first batch of enterprises in Chongqing to be approved for conditional autonomous driving (L3 level) test licenses on high-speed roads.
Xie Xiaowen, a well-known critic and expert member of the New Technology Promotion Branch of the China Communications and Transportation Association, told Phoenix Weekly Finance that behind the L3 level autonomous driving from being "ignored" to being suddenly "woken up", on the one hand, it is the continuous maturity of artificial intelligence, sensing technology and Internet of Vehicles technology, so that L3 autonomous driving technology has the initial commercialization conditions. On the other hand, the increasing demand of consumers for autonomous driving also makes car companies need to plan ahead and seize market opportunities.
According to statistics from Autohome, the penetration rate of standard L2 models has increased rapidly from 16.5% in January 2021 to 47.0% in June 2023. In addition, the penetration rate of models with L2+ functions increased from 1.1% in January 2021 to 6.9% in June 2023, although they do not reach Level 3 levels of intelligent driving functions.
Another set of data from the Passenger Car Association shows that from January to October 2023, the loading rate of L2 and above assisted driving functions of new energy passenger vehicles has reached 51%.
Photo source/Passenger Association
On November 17, the relevant departments jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Access and Road Access" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which officially set out specific requirements for the access specifications of L3/L4 autonomous driving and improved the relevant rules.
This means that the development of the intelligent networked vehicle industry in mainland China has taken a key step.
ZHOU DI, AN EXPERT FROM THE MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, TOLD PHOENIX WEEKLY FINANCE THAT UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF L3 AUTONOMOUS DRIVING, THE NOA TECHNOLOGY PURSUED BY CAR COMPANIES AT THIS STAGE MAY BE AFFECTED TO A CERTAIN EXTENT. After all, Level 3 autonomous driving has higher reliability and safety than NOA technology, and can achieve autonomous driving under certain conditions.
Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said that the development of L3 autonomous driving technology will put forward higher requirements for NOA's technical solutions and performance. With the popularization of Level 3 autonomous driving technology, NOA may no longer be one of the main selling points of vehicles, and car companies need to find new competitive advantages.
It seems to be "one step away", but in fact, it is a "chasm", which has also become the most "heart-wrenching" evaluation of the development of L2 to L3 in the industry.
The reason for this is clear from the many restrictions given by Mercedes-Benz before.
Mercedes-Benz mentioned that Level 3 conditional autonomous driving only supports closed road driving, and the maximum speed is 60 km/h (it will be increased to a maximum of 130 km/h in the future).
On December 22, AVATR also mentioned that it was one of the first companies to be approved for the conditional autonomous driving (L3 level) test license for high-speed roads, and it was only after driving more than 5,000 kilometers on the high-speed section of Chongqing with many curves and ups and downs, which can be called "hell-level" difficulty, that it obtained the test report certified by CAERI.
But for car companies, this is always an opportunity to move forward on the road of autonomous driving, and there will be challenges before there will be development.
(Xiaoqi and Li Jie in the article are pseudonyms)
This article is from the WeChat public account "Phoenix WEEKLY Finance" (ID: fhzkzk), author: Cao Yang