Investment swarms to develop beyond imagination as autonomous drivers scramble to "hit the road" in China

Uber's driverless traffic accident did not affect the pace of auto-driving technology advancement. At this year's Beijing auto show, although the self-driving limelight is much lower than the brand debut of the new power of car building, the competitive application of smart interconnection technology has become the basis for external judgment on the future pattern of cars. This time, even the only Toyota to announce a moratorium on auto-driving testing after the Uber accident brought the concept of unmanned vehicles to the Beijing auto show. Parts and components companies, including Bosch, Anbofu, and Faleiao, are more high-profile. Local car companies and startups have also attracted attention and are already at the top of the spectrum in auto-driving research and development.

At the same time, the same unstoppable is the continued boom in autopilot investment. The data shows that the transaction volume in the autopilot industry chain has shown rapid growth in 2017. In 2017, only Bosch Automotive and Intelligent Transportation Technology business sales in China reached 82.9 billion yuan. Wang Bo, vice president of Apollo's active safety and user experience and president of Asia Pacific, expects China's demand for ADAS (automatic driving assistance system) to increase by 26% annually over the next five years. Significant changes are different from the auto-driving concept of almost every car show in the previous auto show. After opening auto-driving road tests in many cities in China, the focus of car companies has shifted to the road test license and the self-driving local cooperation in Chinese competition.

“We are very interested in China's R&D and road test for further autonomous driving,” said Dr. Peter, a director of the BMW Group and responsible for corporate finance and China affairs, not to rule out the possibility of conducting research and development of autonomous driving technology with Chinese partners. For autopilots in China, all multinational auto companies have the same ideas as BMW. At present, Baidu has obtained multiple road test licenses and has become a popular target for vehicle cooperation. During the auto show, the public reported that it will establish a joint venture with Didi, and carry out in-depth cooperation in the field of autonomous driving research and development, testing and travel. The battle for autopilot technology in China is on the verge.

Competition to "go on the road" in China

“We are very interested in driving road tests in China. Many cities in China offer a very good autonomous driving R&D and testing environment that will enable our technology to continuously improve and eventually reach the level of fully autonomous driving.” Dr. Peter Said. Volvo also expressed the same expectation, said Henrik Green, senior vice president of research and development at Volvo Car Group. "At present, Volvo is exploring cooperation with relevant parties in China to carry out pilot projects, and it is not yet possible to announce specific plans."

Anbofu, a multinational component giant and autopilot system solutions company, is also preparing for road test. "We are also studying when to introduce Level4 on-demand travel to the Chinese market. We are still considering various factors. In addition to licenses, Need to integrate some supporting facilities, such as data, high-definition map access, etc. can begin to test in the country, but these are not too big obstacles." Wang Zhan revealed. In December 2017, the component giant Delphi officially completed the split of the power train business unit, and officially changed its name to Ampere, and turned its attention to the development of automatic driving systems..

Since March this year, Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing have successively put open roads for automatic driving and issued passenger car company road survey signs. But so far, no foreign companies have obtained road test licenses. And China's liberalization of self-driving road testing has further intensified the competition in auto-driving technology. "BMW plans to launch the BMWiN-EXT model in 2021, which has completely reached the third level(L3) autopilot technology from the perspective of autopilot technology." Dr. Peter said that BMW is promoting autopilot research and development and road testing around the world. There is a very clear road map. "In terms of technology reserves, BMW has basically the fourth and fifth automatic driving technology to carry out the development and testing of related prototypes. We believe that the future will bring corresponding models to China. "

Because Uber's autopilot accident proposed that at least 200 million kilometers of road testing should be conducted before the commercialization of autopilot, BMW's autopilot is considered to be the most cautious solution. The L3 is considered to be a turning point towards real autopilot. Although the driver still needs to remain focused and ready to take over, the vehicle will be responsible for environmental monitoring responsibilities and can independently complete almost all driving operations. The first level L2 is still driven by the driver. The automatic system can only complete certain driving tasks. The main technology is the ADAS advanced driving assistance system. At present, the automatic driving technology of traditional auto manufacturers has generally touched the L2 level, but the advanced and comprehensive degree of technology is different.

Volvo, another traditional automaker with an aggressive self-driving layout, gives it a schedule that is basically the same as BMW. By 2025, Volvo will be rolling out the l4 self-driving production vehicle, which will be clearly self-driving, Henry Green said during the show. "From L4 to L5, there are very high requirements for high-precision maps, and the development depends to a large extent on laws and regulations and the construction of infrastructure."

Compared with the vehicle companies, parts giants in the upstream segment of autopilot give a more recent timetable. "Many domestic and foreign host plants are discussing when Level2 to Level3 will be listed. At present, everyone basically agrees that Level2 + will be listed in 2020." Wangzhan said: "We believe that self-driving of L2 + can be achieved by 2020, especially in active security systems."

But Gu Feng, co-founder and CEO of the new car company Aichi, said that L3 is a technology in the laboratory, just a transition. At this year's auto show, Aichi released a model with L2 level autopilot. Anbofu's most direct competitor Bosch, did not give a specific timetable. On April 26, Bosch exhibited a full set of intelligent transportation solutions and Level 3 autopilot sensing solutions at the Beijing Auto Show, but the Bosch Group Board of Directors Dr. Rolf Bulander, Chairman of the Automotive, Intelligent Transportation Technology Business Unit, admitted that it is hard to say when the entire autopilot system will be put on the market.

"In terms of full autopilot, it's not just about us, it's not just about the mainframe, it's about society, laws and regulations. Therefore, it will take some time to fully automate. " The person told the Economic Observer.

Autonomous cars have "advanced" L5

Judging from the information at the auto show, BMW's schedule clearly does not represent more automakers 'mentality in the field of auto-driving and time racing. As representatives of global car companies, Volkswagen, Nissan, and Toyota have all introduced L5 concept cars with full autopilot.

It is worth mentioning that local brands have begun to occupy a place in autopilot technology and are relatively more aggressive. For the entire vehicle, the independent brand generally locks the launch time of the L3 level in 2019, and the time point of the L4 level is set in 2020.

As a representative of the traditional car company, BAIC New Energy released the vehicle artificial intelligence system “Darwin” at the auto show, and exhibited the EU5 based on the system and integrated 10 intelligent driving assistance equipment and technology; The SAIC Group, which received the California Autopilot Test License, made its debut with the new pure electric model MarvelX of SAIC Roewei, which is equipped with the 3.0 version of the Internet car zebra intelligent system jointly developed with Alibaba.

GAC New Energy announced that it will implement the L4 level automatic driving demonstration operation in 2019 and gradually transition to the L5 full automatic driving level, while the Great Wall will show a more radical attitude and directly introduce L5-level autonomous driving at the auto show. The functional WEY-X concept car, the Great Wall plans to achieve unmanned, completely unmanned by 2025. The new force of the car is generally said to be born and self-driving. Among them, the ES8, the first model to be the most popular, is equipped with the automatic assisted driving system NIO Pilot, which cooperates with global technology companies such as Mobil-eye, NVIDIA and NXP. It is planned to release a model with L4 level autopilot capability by 2020. Both Baiteng and Cloud have introduced L3-class autonomous driving technology. The L3 advanced automatic driving assistance system will be directly on the production car, and it is expected to achieve L4 level automatic driving after 2020.

As Chery, who has always been the most technically reserved, this time it seems more cautious. Chery first released the "Lion Plan" to comprehensively carry out enterprise intelligence reforms. Secondly, it announced that it will achieve L3-level autonomous driving in 2020, and achieve high-level, fully automatic driving at L4 and L5 levels in 2025. Nissan, Volkswagen, Renault, and Bosch all said that in 2022, they will be completely unmanned, that is, five years later. Among Chinese companies, Weilai and Baidu will also be completely unmanned in this year.

Parts and components have become the main area for the auto-driving technology of the auto show, including the Chinese auto-driving start-up technology company. This time, three Chinese autonomous driving startups, Roadstar.ai, Jingchi and Hedo, demonstrated the development of new products and technologies for automatic driving such as laserspecial. On the autopilot solution provider, the emergence of the “domestic core” horizon, which was founded two years ago, is also quite interesting. At the same time as the introduction of the L3/L4 autopilot solution Matrix1.01, it announced that "by 2025, 30 million cars will be equipped with a horizon-driven autopilot BPU."

Under the circumstances of Chinese transportation reality, can the technology of independent brand be realized and reflected into reality? Will autopilot become a weapon of independent brand or another breaking lesson?

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