Radish Run Robotaxi, in a strange direction, quietly became popular.
In essence, represented by Robotaxi, they are exploring the L4 driverless route, which is naturally alienated from "people and vehicles driving together"; More intelligent driving suppliers or OEMs are going to gradually climb from L2 to L3 and L4, and they can't avoid "man-machine co-driving".
But there is no doubt that after so many years of development, the cost of intelligent driving has dropped significantly, the experience has also been greatly optimized, and even the "intelligent driving business model" is in the verifiable stage.
Although the popularity of intelligent driving is not as hot as a few years ago, the cost of "fighting for the night" has allowed us to see more dawn, especially the dawn of technological equality.
At present, there are three main categories of intelligent driving players: the first category is intelligent driving suppliers, such as Momenta and Huawei; The second category is the full-stack self-development of car companies, such as Tesla and Xpeng; In addition, in order to preserve the core competitiveness, more important work will be handed over to internal R&D personnel, and some less important work will be handed over to suppliers.
One thing to say, the "small transparent" DJI in the past few years is rapidly growing into the best among them. On the road of intelligent driving, DJI, a typical intelligent driving supplier, suddenly found the competitive posture that he should be best at, "first bring down the price".
It is reported that 20 models will be equipped with DJI's intelligent driving system on the road this year; By 2025, it is expected that 2 million vehicles will be equipped with DJI's intelligent driving system.
The mountain rain is coming, and the wind has filled the building
For DJI, the choice to enter intelligent driving is very natural.
Relying on drones to make a fortune, DJI itself has a complete and mature binocular obstacle avoidance system, and has long begun to research core technologies such as perception, positioning, decision-making, and planning. Years of precipitation can also allow DJI to migrate its technology to the car very smoothly.
It is reported that as early as 2016, DJI's internal technicians deployed a set of binocular + vision fusion positioning system on the car.
Technology comes from drones, and that person is no exception. The founding management team of DJI Automotive is basically from the DJI drone project, which is temporarily transferred from the flight control department and the vision department. At the time of its establishment, the entire group consisted of no more than 10 people.
DJI was once quite low-key, and it was not until 2021 that it announced that it would enter the smart car market, but it was unrelenting in mass production cooperation.
In 2022, the 2023 KiWi EV, the first model equipped with DJI's in-vehicle intelligent driving system, rolled off the assembly line. In 2023, the Baojun Yunduo equipped with the "Lingxi Intelligent Driving 2.0 System" will also be officially launched. Now, SAIC Volkswagen's former "popular king" Tiguan L Pro also adopts DJI's intelligent driving system, and has played a loud slogan - "petrol and electricity are the same intelligence".
At the 100-person meeting of electric vehicles in March this year, Shen Shaojie, head of DJI's automotive company, released the "upgraded version of the Chengxing platform" and "the high-configuration version of the Chengxing platform" of the city's high-end intelligent driving solutions in his speech.
It also officially announced the solution of "7,000 pieces of universal city pilot", which will reduce the "no map" city navigation capacity to a model at the level of 150,000 yuan.
At the same time, at the meeting of 100 people, Shen Shaojie showed a set of data from the State Information Center - in the composition of the domestic passenger car market, the market share of 80,000-200,000 yuan has reached 74%, but the configuration rate of high-end intelligent driving of new energy vehicles in this market range is close to 0.
Previously, He Xiaopeng said, "If (vehicles equipped with high-end assisted driving systems) are only less than 10,000 to 20,000 yuan more expensive, we believe that high-level assisted driving will quickly occupy the market." ”
At this time, DJI's strategy of focusing on "cost performance" has been fully formed, and the entry-level standard line of high-end intelligent driving is 7V+32TOPS configuration, corresponding to 8-150,000 level models, and the minimum 80,000 yuan model can enjoy high-end intelligent driving functions; The "no map" city pilot L2+ intelligent driving function realized in the 7V+100TOPS computing power will gradually be popularized to 150,000 yuan level models.
In addition, DJI has not let go of the possibility of mass production of L3+, and it also has a Eye-Lifting System, the first "front-front fusion" technology, which provides high-quality 3D point clouds with high resolution and ranging accuracy for intelligent driving, and improves the system's sense of safety and comfort in difficult scenarios such as complex traffic flow and extreme lighting in urban areas.
There is nothing new under the sun, and the strategy of cheap big bowls has been tried and tested.
Subsequently, SAIC Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen successively announced that the new Tiguan L Pro version and the new generation Magotan will adopt the 7V+100TOPS inertial navigation binocular pure visual intelligent driving solution with a cost of about 7,000 yuan.
In July this year, DJI's on-board official account was renamed Zhuoyu, and there was a clearer separation from DJI. It is reported that DJI has successfully obtained a number of financings since the beginning of this year, with a valuation of about $1.5 billion, and is expected to achieve positive financial indicators in 2024.
From technical advantages, product cost performance, to extensive accumulation of good relationships and independent operation, DJI Automotive has been very stable in every step.
Thinking back to last year, Yu Chengdong was full of magic and far ahead, occupying the minds of young people, bloodbathing the circle of friends of the elderly, making intelligent driving shine and rushing to the public eye, and it also boosted the sales of the world, from "difficult to live" to "hot".
Is there such a possibility that DJI, which is now on the front line, will there be such a "big explosion"?
On closer inspection, it wasn't all smooth sailing for DJI, and the first collaboration model, the KiWi, was not an instant hit. In 2023, the Baojun KiWi sold 5,639 units throughout the year, which is quite a bit lacking.
The second model, Yunduo, has made a name for itself, but its overall sales have also been mediocre, with the highest monthly sales of less than 1,600 units in the first six months of this year.
What's more, the configuration version of the cloud is also very complicated, in 7 versions, only 2 are equipped with the "Lingxi" system, the price is 125,800 yuan, 133,800 yuan respectively, compared with the 1-20,000 yuan more expensive without the intelligent driving system.
Now the Volkswagen Tiguan L Pro is even more dazzling, there are a total of 6 models, of which only 2 versions have this system, but the naming is not as clear as the cloud "Lingxi", which are Zhixing version, Zhiling version, Zhizun version, some stupid and unclear.
Too much SKU differentiation not only makes consumers dizzy, but also invisibly weakens the voice endorsement of DJI. What's more, consumers can't help but wonder whether it is a vase with intelligent trim or a really attractive product strength, which requires more effort to explain the truth.
So, then again, is it possible for DJI vehicles to come standard with them? The answer is hard to say. This will not only be a bit of a game, but also need some data on paper, or even mapped in reality, to prove how much intelligent driving has a boost to sales?
We can always see the tone of some manufacturers, "intelligent driving may become the TOP3 influencing factor that drives users to buy". The most obvious is Xpeng, and one of the main labels of its MONA series is that it is a popularizer of intelligent driving within 200,000.
Seeing that other brands have not relaxed their investment in intelligent driving, including NIO and Ideal, they have been rolled up end-to-end.
As for Tesla, although FSD has not entered the Chinese market, we have more or less seen its amazing performance. However, it is still a mystery how many users in North America are willing to choose FSD. At least, the previous data was not very "pretty".
Therefore, DJI's intelligent driving advantage is "low cost", but its "big explosion" needs a real "explosion point", and it is necessary to prove a formula, "intelligent driving system with increased cost = more in line with expected sales". It's just that this "breaking point" hasn't really appeared yet.
Among DJI's partners, there seems to be no "destined person" who is really willing to gamble.
In addition, DJI itself is too low-key, compared to the overwhelming live broadcasts and publicity of the current car company bosses, whether it is Wang Tao, the founder of DJI, or Shen Shaojie, the head of DJI's car, rarely appears.
What DJI cares more about, and pursues, is the engineer culture. For example, Shen Shaojie once said that DJI's automotive background is more biased towards robot companies, and engineers who can do a good job with very limited resources are highly respected.
This low-key engineer atmosphere has actually weakened the general public's desire to explore DJI vehicles. At the same time, it also gives many people the illusion that "overnight, the ground was broken, and DJI's on-board production models suddenly went everywhere".
But for DJI, it's not completely out of the ordinary. Compared with the current "twisted" electric vehicles, fuel vehicles still have a lot to do.
The latest news is that on July 9, a new generation of Magotan was officially launched, and its two models are equipped with the IQ.Pilot intelligent assisted driving system of Volkswagen and DJI, which can achieve high-end driving assistance functions in the full speed range of 0-130km/h.
At present, its intelligent assisted driving system has obtained the ISO 26262 functional safety ASIL C product certification issued by the internationally renowned certification body UL, and its reusability has been verified.
In terms of volume, fuel vehicles are "scum"; However, in terms of sales, fuel vehicles still have the last hunting flag, and more than half of the market. Even if there is no standard intelligent driving for the whole system, but make friends, develop in a low-key manner, and keep an eye on the fuel vehicle market, maybe there is really a broad world.
market share is highly concentrated. It is typical that the brand sales are gradually "squeezed" to the head, which must be a tragic situation of "the head is full, and the rest falls". What's more, it can't be reversed, it's the law of the market.
Then, when the eyes shifted to the intelligent driving market, they were also fleeing and fighting. "Please give a reason to choose you", this is the most urgent proposition of the intelligent driving supplier.
DJI can be seen clearly, on the one hand, low cost and good experience are its "moat"; On the other hand, making friends and speaking less is its background color and style. Don't underestimate fuel vehicles, its basic size, and the desire for intelligence, is where DJI comes in.
The auto market has no choice but to "fight for the night", can't sit still, and waits for the dawn.