Tesla vs. Huawei's self-driving technology battle
The source of strife
In the wave of automotive technology, autonomous driving technology is undoubtedly the most eye-catching star. The two tech giants, Tesla and Huawei, have engaged in a protracted battle in this area. Their rivalry stems from a disagreement over the path to autonomous driving technology, which has led to two very different technical solutions.
Tesla adheres to the route of pure visual algorithms, mainly relying on cameras and artificial intelligence algorithms to model and make decisions on the surrounding environment. The advantage of this solution is that the hardware is low, but it has certain drawbacks in extreme environments. Huawei uses a multi-sensor fusion route to collaborate with cameras such as LiDAR and millimeter-wave radar to more accurately perceive road conditions. Although this solution has a higher hardware cost, it can achieve better adaptability and stability.
The divergence between the two companies on the technical roadmap stems from their different understandings and positioning of autonomous driving. Tesla sees autonomous driving as a purely algorithmic challenge, so it pays more attention to the power of algorithms; Huawei, on the other hand, regards autonomous driving as a system project that requires the perfect integration of software and hardware. This difference in philosophy has led to a disagreement between the two companies on the technical route.
A contest of performance
The divergence of technical routes will inevitably lead to differences in the actual performance of the products of the two companies. Recently, some third-party organizations evaluated and compared the autonomous driving systems of the two companies, and the results showed that Huawei performed better in complex urban road conditions.
In Shanghai, for example, Huawei's autonomous driving system has a pass rate and coverage rate of 96% in elevated roads and ramp scenarios, while Tesla's driver assistance system (EAP) performs much worse in the same scenario. Evaluators found that Tesla's system couldn't even recognize common obstacles such as water barriers and cones on the road.
This result once again confirms the advantages of the multi-sensor fusion scheme in complex road conditions. Lidar can accurately obtain three-dimensional spatial information of objects, and millimeter-wave radar can effectively cope with bad weather, and the collaboration between the two and the camera makes Huawei's system have stronger environmental awareness capabilities.
There is also a view that the above evaluation is only a consideration of Tesla's assisted driving system EAP, and does not fully reflect the actual level of its autonomous driving system FSD. After years of algorithm training and iteration, FSD's performance in complex road conditions may have made great progress.
The battle of the future
Although Huawei is currently leading the way in complex urban road conditions, the development of autonomous driving technology is still ongoing. With massive actual road data and powerful algorithm training capabilities, Tesla is expected to break through the bottleneck in the near future and achieve excellent performance of pure vision algorithms in various road conditions.
Huawei is also accelerating the iterative upgrade of its technology. The newly released ADS 2.0 autonomous driving solution integrates a number of cutting-edge technologies such as 5G communication and cloud big data processing, which is expected to further improve the performance and adaptability of autonomous driving systems.
The battle between the two companies will continue. Advances in technology will bring safer and smarter autonomous driving experiences to consumers. In this marathon race, it is still difficult to determine who will finally win the competition.
Construction of industrial ecology
In addition to the competition in core technologies, the two companies are also secretly competing in the construction of the autonomous driving industry ecology. As a vehicle manufacturer, Tesla mainly relies on its own technical strength and massive on-board data for independent research and development; Huawei, on the other hand, is working with traditional car companies to provide autonomous driving solutions for the latter.
For example, the Zhijie S7, which was jointly built by Huawei and Chery, is equipped with Huawei's latest autonomous driving system, which can achieve autonomous driving in cities across the country. Through close cooperation with car companies, Huawei is accelerating the construction of an autonomous driving industry ecosystem and gaining opportunities for the implementation and promotion of its own technologies.
Although Tesla has an advantage in independent research and development, it faces some difficulties in the construction of an industrial ecosystem. It needs to play the dual role of a vehicle manufacturer and an autonomous driving system provider at the same time, which is undoubtedly a big test for Tesla's resources and capabilities.
The competition between the two companies in the construction of the industrial ecosystem will also become more intense. Whoever can realize the industrialization of technology faster will be able to seize the opportunity in this marathon.
Impact of Regulations
In addition to technology and industrial ecology, regulations and policies will also have an important impact on the development of autonomous driving technology of the two companies. In recent years, Continental has made great strides in autonomous driving regulations, but there are still some gaps compared to developed countries.
For example, the mainland has not yet issued relevant regulations to allow autonomous vehicles to drive on the road, which limits the development space of autonomous driving technology to a certain extent. In the United States, Tesla's self-driving system FSD has been approved for state road testing, which provides an important guarantee for the rapid iteration of its technology.
The further improvement of China's autonomous driving regulations will provide a more relaxed development environment for companies including Tesla and Huawei. Both companies also need to be actively involved in the development of regulations to gain favorable conditions for the development of their own technologies.