In the wave of intelligent vehicles, intelligent driving technology is becoming the core driving force for the transformation of the automotive industry. With their innovative capabilities and keen insight into market demand, some cutting-edge technology companies have gradually emerged in the industry and become an important force leading the trend.
Horizon is undoubtedly the best of them.
On April 24, Horizon held the 2024 Intelligent Driving Technology Product Launch Conference of "Journey Direction, Towards the High". Based on the era of intelligent driving, Horizon Robotics has released a new generation of on-board intelligent computing solutions, the Journey 6 series, and the Horizon SuperDrive™ all-scenario intelligent driving solution, based on the forward-looking prediction and deep accumulation of the concept of combining software and hardware with full-stack technology.
Source: Horizon
The emergence of Journey 6 and SuperDrive's high-end intelligent driving solution is a phased manifestation of Horizon's full-stack technical strength combining software and hardware and its strategic layout of large-scale mass production, which will further consolidate its leading position in the first camp of intelligent driving technology companies.
Horizon's "New Journey"
Looking at the research and development of the Horizon Journey family computing solution, there is actually a relatively clear vein, which is deeply consistent with the development trend of the industry.
Journey 2 focuses on intelligent driving assistance and active safety, Journey 3 leads the large-scale mass production of high-speed NOA and driving and parking integration, Journey 5 leads the market of high-end intelligent driving domain control computing solutions, and Journey 6 covers the mass production needs of low-to-high-end full-scene intelligent driving, realizing the key transition from single-point to serialization.
The appearance of the Journey 6 series comes at the right time.
According to the data of the intelligent driving configuration database of Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute, the standard configuration of L2 level (including L2+ and L2++) in the new energy passenger vehicle market will reach 3.7 million units in 2023, with a market penetration rate of more than 51%.
At the time when high-end intelligent driving is ushering in an inflection point, the intelligent driving market is actually showing a state of "mixed" development: there is not only the involution competition of urban NOA technology, but also the momentum of L3 level technology, and at the same time, low-level intelligent driving functions are also continuing to expand the market.
This coexistence of multi-level and multi-technology routes reflects the diversified needs of the market and users.
For car companies, not only do computing solutions need to be able to flexibly adapt to different environments and provide corresponding perception and decision support, but they also need to be open and easy to use, and can efficiently support the development and deployment of various intelligent driving applications for different positioning models. The most important thing is to strike a balance between performance and cost-effectiveness.
The Journey 6 series has launched a total of six versions, including Journey 6B, Journey 6L, Journey 6E, Journey 6M, Journey 6H, and Journey 6P.
Source: Horizon
For the mid-end intelligent driving market, Horizon Robotics has launched the Journey 6M, which can support cost-effective solutions in urban areas, and Journey 6E, which can support high-speed NOA, and provides AEC-Q104 automotive standard SiP modules and Matrix 6 domain control reference designs to achieve lower power consumption and better system cost with ultra-high integration.
Facing the high-end intelligent driving market, Horizon Robotics has launched the Journey 6P, which is specially designed for a new generation of full-scene intelligent driving, which has six product features, including high integration, high computing power, high efficiency, high processing capacity, high access capacity and high safety.
More importantly, Journey 6 has a unified hardware architecture, a unified tool chain and a unified software stack, which has the characteristics of same-generation, intergenerational compatibility and optimal system, and relies on a platform-based scalable computing architecture and a consistent, complete and mature intelligent driving mass production development platform.
Let's take a look at them one by one:
The unified architecture means that OEMs can more easily integrate and upgrade systems, helping to reduce development costs and improve productivity.
The unified tool chain and software stack provide a stable development environment for developers, reduce compatibility problems in the software development process, and improve development efficiency.
Same-generation consistency and intergenerational compatibility means that in the same generation of products, different models can share the same technology and resources, and at the same time ensure a smooth transition of technology between different generations.
The platform-based scalable computing architecture design allows customers to expand functions and services as needed in the future, ensuring long-term sustainability and the possibility of technology upgrades.
A consistent, complete and mature development platform provides a comprehensive development environment, enabling OEMs to efficiently develop and deploy applications on a mature platform.
The demand for intelligent driving products is developing differently, and the essence of volume value and volume price comes from the bottleneck of efficiency, and the key to solving the problem lies in the reconstruction of the computing base. Computing solutions based on a unified hardware architecture, tool chain, and software stack are the ultimate answer.
Based on the above characteristics, Journey 6 will support its customers to quickly develop and deploy intelligent driving applications, quickly respond to market changes, accelerate product time-to-market, and gain a head start in the highly competitive market.
High-end intelligent driving model room
At present, China's intelligent driving market has entered the next competitive cycle with "large-scale mass production" as the core, for local suppliers, the next few years will be L2 intelligent driving products to win on a large scale, and seize the L2+/L2++ high-end intelligent driving market, the competition will be rapid large-scale mass production and cost reduction, as well as achieve better functional experience at a limited cost.
If the Journey 6 series corresponds to the mass production demand of intelligent driving in various scenarios in the market today, then under this diversified demand, the most important question that the industry needs to consider is what is the intelligent driving experience that users really need, and how to create the next generation of more universal high-end intelligent driving systems.
Due to the diversity and complexity of user needs, the vast majority of solutions on the market are still unsatisfactory. Especially at the moment when urban NOA is not going to roll up, most car companies' urban NOA is still in its infancy and cannot meet the needs of users for intelligent driving.
On the whole, the vast majority of current users do not need to truly realize unmanned driving, and the core demands are safe, comfortable, cheap, reliable, intelligent and efficient.
Standing at an important juncture of intelligent driving towards the large-scale popularization of all scenarios, Horizon believes that the intelligent driving system will go through three stages of development from usable, easy to use to easy to use. However, the high-end intelligent driving system represented by the urban NOA in mass production has not yet fully reached the standard of "usable" in the eyes of users.
Source: Horizon
Another highlight of the Horizon press conference, SuperDrive, a full-scene intelligent driving solution, provides a new solution to create an "easy-to-use" intelligent driving solution.
According to reports, SuperDrive focuses on the breakthrough of anthropomorphic experience, with dynamic, static, OCC (Occupancy Occupancy Network) three-in-one end-to-end perception architecture, data-driven interactive game algorithm, SuperDrive can take into account the scene pass rate, traffic efficiency and behavior anthropomorphism in different road environments, and can also calmly deal with congestion confluence, intersection interaction - dynamic Driveline, courtesy to cyclists, congestion lane change, Complex urban scenes such as urban roundabouts.
Since 2023, "end-to-end" has become the absolute "top of the industry" in the autonomous driving industry, and Tesla's latest version of FSD Beta v12 upgrades the urban street driving stack to an end-to-end neural network.
At present, the current bottleneck in the development of end-to-end autonomous driving technology is still the traditional three major problems - algorithms, computing power and data. Among them, the computing platform needs to support the network in the larger-scale end-to-end autonomous driving system, the data layer needs to have massive and very diverse data that can cover most cases in the life scenarios of ordinary users, and the algorithm needs to explore an interpretable and intervenable end-to-end autonomous driving system.
Based on the end-to-end architecture of dynamic, static, and occupancy, the occlusion call rate is increased by 70%, the number of dynamic code lines is reduced by 90%, and the network load is reduced by 50%, effectively solving the problems of high latency, multiple rules, and heavy load in the current industry-aware architecture.
Source: Horizon
In addition, Horizon has accumulated an end-to-end deep learning algorithm based on Monte Carlo tree search, which greatly improves the perception and interactive game ability of the intelligent driving system in complex traffic environments. In congestion scenarios, the success rate of lane change is increased by 50%, and the pass rate of intersections is increased by 67%.
Source: Horizon
Horizon's expectation for SuperDrive is to use the Journey 6 flagship version to create the best high-end intelligent driving system combining software and hardware with the support of top software algorithm technology, so that the easy-to-use urban NOA solution can accelerate the large-scale mass production.
For the entire industry, SuperDrive is committed to providing high-end intelligent driving model rooms, supporting the improvement of R&D and delivery efficiency through the flexible opening of full-stack technical capabilities, and accelerating the industry towards the endgame of high-end intelligent driving.
Soft and hard integration, all-round player
With the release of Journey 6 and SuperDrive, Horizon is undoubtedly a big picture. On the whole, Horizon Robotics wants to be a bottom-level enabler of the intelligent driving track, and accelerate the innovation and development of the intelligent driving industry with full-stack technology combining software and hardware, and the core is to achieve large-scale mass production.
After several twists and turns in the development of intelligent driving, the industry has understood that the evolution of intelligent driving capabilities must rely on large-scale mass production, so as to achieve effective verification of the feasibility and reliability of the technology.
In fact, observing the various characteristics of Journey 6 and SuperDrive, as well as the previous product development layout of Horizon, there is a clear direction, and it is also large-scale mass production.
For the field of high-end intelligent driving, the large-scale mass production capacity of full-stack technology combining software and hardware is the key factor that determines the success or failure of enterprise competition.
Large-scale mass production verification is the premise of promoting software and hardware collaboration and promoting the evolution of intelligent driving capabilities, and the combination of software and hardware coupled with an open and flexible business model is the guarantee of large-scale mass production.
With the continuous progress of intelligent driving technology, the trend of integration of software and hardware will become more obvious. The future competition is not only about a single software or hardware capability, but also about how to tap the full-stack technical capabilities of software and hardware synergy and establish the core competitiveness of enterprises.
Especially in the era of software-defined vehicles, traditional development models are also changing. OEMs and some Tier 1 OEMs and some Tier 1 companies need to coordinate hardware and software vendors to solve many specific pain points such as compatibility and integration, and also strengthen supplier management throughout the product life cycle.
Horizon has always been known in the market as a "software algorithm company in the guise of hardware", and it also positions itself as "a market-leading provider of advanced driver assistance (ADAS) and advanced autonomous driving (AD) solutions for passenger cars".
Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon, said: "Horizon Robotics starts with the end in mind, and has a forward-looking layout of full-stack technologies combining software and hardware, with software as the traction and hardware as the drive, to create a software and hardware intelligent driving system for all scenarios and ecology, and to create the ultimate efficiency with the ultimate openness, and to reach the end of intelligent driving." ”
Horizon's insistence on full-stack technology is consistent.
Taking end-to-end as an example, Horizon proposed the concept of end-to-end evolution of autonomous driving as early as 2016, and proposed Sparse4D, an end-to-end algorithm for autonomous driving perception, in 2022. In 2023, UniAD, the industry's first publicly published end-to-end autonomous driving model by Horizon Robotics, won the best paper in CVPR 2023.
At the same time, in terms of hardware technology, Horizon Robotics' new generation of intelligent computing architecture BPU Nash, which is specially designed for large-parameter Transformers, can create industry-leading computing efficiency with a high degree of software and hardware collaboration, and accelerate the application and popularization of end-to-end and interactive game algorithms.
Source: Horizon
Nowadays, end-to-end has become the focus of competition for high-end intelligent driving algorithm technology, and Horizon has once again caught up with the times, which is also based on the forward-looking layout many years ago.
Horizon's comprehensive capabilities of software and hardware can also be comprehensively reflected in the products it can provide.
Horizon has been emphasizing that it is positioned as a Tier2, which can provide software and hardware product solutions, and can also authorize customers to use Horizon's algorithms, software and development tool chain.
Of course, it is not enough to have a technical product, and without a matching business model, it is still impossible to win the favor of customers. Horizon offers its customers a highly open approach to different collaborations.
SuperDrive supports the mass production and delivery of partners with full-stack capabilities, which is actually the embodiment of the business philosophy that Horizon has always adhered to.
It is precisely because of the diversified software and hardware product portfolio and flexible and open business model that whether it is an auto company or a Tier1, whether it is a hardware or software partner, you can find a suitable business cooperation model in the development environment and diversified product portfolio provided by Horizon, so that Horizon can build a mature intelligent driving ecosystem and continuously expand partners.
Today, Horizon has mass-produced 200+ fixed-point models, and the cumulative delivery of the Journey series has exceeded 5 million pieces, linking more than 30 car companies and 200 upstream and downstream partners, building a mature, efficient and open business ecosystem, and continuously promoting the performance improvement and cost optimization of intelligent driving systems at different levels.
The newly launched Journey 6 series has 10 first-batch mass production partner car companies and brands, including SAIC, Volkswagen Group, BYD, Li Auto, GAC Group, Shenlan Automobile, BAIC Group, Chery Automobile, Xingtu Automobile, VOYAH Automobile, etc., as well as a number of Tier1, software and hardware partners.
It is reported that the Journey 6 series will start the delivery of the first front-end production model in 2024, and is expected to achieve mass production delivery of more than 10 models in 2025. At the same time, SuperDrive will reach cooperation with a number of top Tier1 and automotive brands in the second quarter of 2024, will launch the standard version of the mass production solution in the fourth quarter, and will achieve the delivery of the first mass production cooperation model in the third quarter of 2025.
Mass production determines the future
It wasn't easy for Horizon to get to where it is today. If it weren't for the route design at the beginning of its establishment, guided by mass production, and insisting on the combination of soft and hard, I am afraid that there would be no today's results, and there would be no future.
A very intuitive question, why once released, Journey 6 can gain market favor, and even when Journey 6 may still be in the PPT stage, many manufacturers have expressed their willingness to cooperate?
It is safe to say that the emergence of Journey 6 is inseparable from the product development and accumulation of 5 million sets of shipments in the first three generations of Journey.
Source: Horizon
It is not easy to transfer the intelligent driving system that combines software and hardware from the laboratory to the production model. This includes not only the ability to integrate systems, but also the management of costs, reliability, and production cycles.
For the development of intelligent driving systems, Horizon also pointed out: "From usable, easy to use to love, it is a comprehensive test of the ability of the software and hardware combination system, which not only requires the deep accumulation and application of forward-looking software algorithms, but also tests the mass production efficiency of software and hardware collaboration." ”
It is this accumulation of market-proven products that allows Horizon to gain the long-term trust of customers.
There are many companies that advertise themselves as "powerful players" in the intelligent driving market, and how many of them have squeezed out the water and implemented them? The most important measure is whether customers and users are willing to pay.
We can't make a definitive judgment about the future of the horizon. But at least one thing can be determined, large-scale mass production is the core standard for testing the leadership of technology, and the first enterprise to mass produce has more obvious advantages.
Relying on the rich intelligent driving ecology, Horizon has opened up the closed loop of "R&D and application". A wide range of car companies and ecosystem cooperation have brought a large number of intelligent driving scenarios to Horizon, provided a large number of valuable, cutting-edge, complex, and high-value feedback close to user needs, and promoted Horizon's software research and development capabilities.
It is precisely because of this closed loop that Horizon has been able to realize the evolution and co-polishing of software and hardware at the same frequency, and finally become an intelligent driving technology enterprise with top-level full-stack technical capabilities combining software and hardware.
Technology R&D and large-scale mass production form a positive cycle, the scale of mass production continues to expand, and the leading position of Horizon will also remain stable.
With the gradual deepening of the development of intelligent electric vehicles, the cooperation mode of the industrial chain has changed, and how to build a stable cooperative relationship is a difficult problem, which puts forward higher requirements for the stability and scalability of suppliers. Due to the need for stability of cooperation, the industry prefers companies with long-term viability.
Based on the moat built on the horizon and the advantages of technological leadership, at least in the short term, the horizon should not have too many survival concerns, which is the guarantee for the horizon to maintain its development.
Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD Group, stood on the platform for Horizon at the end of the press conference and said: "BYD started a strategic cooperation with Horizon as early as March 2021, and by this year, millions of cars have been equipped with Horizon's Journey 2, 3 and 5 series, and we have become Horizon's largest mass production landing partner. Today, I announce that BYD models will also be equipped with Journey 6, and we will continue to cooperate with Horizon to create a safer and more reliable intelligent driving experience for consumers, and make every effort to promote the popularization of high-end intelligent driving and the intelligent development of China's automobiles. ”
Source: Horizon
The road to high-end intelligent driving has just reached a turning point, and as one of the leading suppliers of intelligent driving technology in China, Horizon has obtained the ticket to the finals.
The "horizon" of the horizon, probably much farther away than we think. After all, what Horizon wants to do in the era of smart cars is Intel + Windows in the PC era and ARM+Android in the mobile terminal era.