Winding tracks, roaring engines, racing drivers swaying gear levers and steering wheels feel the joy of the limit. When it comes to racing, you can always think of "speed", "personality" and "extreme", and the joy and purity of driving are only revealed on the track.
In today's increasingly high degree of automotive automation, car companies are focusing on how to make cars out of human control to truly achieve intelligence, with the spirit of "rebellion" Lotus proposed the concept of "track-level intelligent driving".
"Keep driving fun, as long as you have a driver's license, you can win the F1 championship." Feng Qingfeng, CEO of Lotus Group, summed up "track-level intelligent driving" in this way.
Lotus EVIJA
Why can Lotus be made into "track-level intelligent driving"? What does "track-level smart driving" bring? For these questions, Li Bo, head of lotus intelligent driving project, made an answer.
1, better hardware + better software + better cloud computing, Lotus intelligent driving advantages are fully displayed
"The pursuit of pure driving pleasure" has been the philosophy of Lotus since its inception in 1948. As one of the world's three major sports car brands, Lotus has a record of 7 F1 constructors' championships, 6 F1 drivers' championships and 81 F1 races.
In 2018, Lotus proposed the "Vision 80" brand revival plan, becoming the world's first world-class sports car brand to transform to electrification and intelligence, and then proposed the concept of creating "track-level intelligent driving" in 2021.
As Feng Qingfeng said in an interview, "Lotus still follows the path of Lotus, not others. ”
Feng Qingfeng, CEO of Lotus Group
Li Bo, the person in charge of the intelligent driving project, defines the core of Lotus intelligent driving as the ultimate intelligent driving performance on Lotus's ultra-high-end pure electric intelligent car with better software algorithms, higher computing power platform, stronger sensing system, combined with cloud support and driver participation.
Racing is different from daily road driving, and it has strict requirements for the judgment, reaction and calculation of racing drivers. Lotus proposed to integrate the track gene into intelligent driving, which means that higher requirements are put forward for intelligent driving, how to achieve the courage of racers, how to accurately control the brakes, steering and other timing, how to deal with extreme situations, etc.
Lotus's integration of racing genes into intelligent driving is both an innovation and a challenge, for which Li Bo is very confident, "Lotus was born on the track, started on the track, brilliant in the track, we are confident to inherit the spirit of Lotus and achieve track-level intelligent driving." ”
Li Bo can have the confidence to say this sentence, which is inseparable from the technical support of Lotus.
Li Bo, vice president of Lotus Technology and head of the intelligent driving business line
Just as the golden age of the development of the internal combustion engine is the infinite pursuit of horsepower, the golden age of intelligent driving is actually the continuous pursuit of intelligent performance, only with the best hardware, can ensure that the intelligent driving system can have the best vision and the strongest brain.
In the field of intelligent driving, is it possible to build lidar? How many lidars are there? It has become a symbol of strength in the "arms race" of car companies. The addition of lidar can not only improve the intelligent driving level of products, but also become a core selling point that attracts consumers' attention.
Lotus TYPE 132
But the cost of lidar is also relatively expensive, currently on the market for a lidar for 700-1500 US dollars, the same price of the car equipped with lidar means less profit. However, this increase in cost has less impact on luxury cars, mr. Li Kunlong, CFO of Lotus Technology, said: "For our products in this positioning range, the addition of lidar does not have any obvious impact on costs. ”
Lotus Technology CFO Li Kunlong
This year, Lotus's upcoming first ultra-high-end pure electric smart SUV "TYPE 132" is equipped with a combination of ultra-high-performance lidar + ultra-high-definition camera + 4D millimeter wave radar. In terms of hardware performance, full redundancy is achieved, which is enough to ensure that the intelligent driving system of the vehicle has ultra-high road recognition capabilities.
In addition, to realize the vision of track-level intelligent driving, higher software algorithm capabilities are also indispensable. Racing in the track, the driver is always in a state of game with the track environment, 0.01 seconds late braking point, more than 0.1 degrees of turning deviation, accurate shifting, opponent's prejudgment, sudden reaction, etc., will bring different results.
And this kind of game scene is more common in the daily road surface, such as the convergence or departure from the highway, the sudden incorporation of the front car while driving, and so on. Ensuring safety and optimal planning in a variety of scenarios places very high demands on intelligent driving systems.
With guaranteed computing power and generous chip equipment, Lotus introduced this "game theory" into intelligent driving systems. "In the future, the intelligent driving system, computing power platform and sensing system equipped by Lotus must be industry-leading, or even the best in the industry." Li Bo introduced Lotus TYPE 132 as an example.
In addition to hardware and software, Lotus, which has a global layout, also has its own advantages in cloud storage.
Cambrian Song Wang Ping believes that with the continuous development and iteration of smart cars, the demand for computing power has risen sharply in a geometric trend, and the universal open chip of large computing power has become the mainstream. In order to establish a more efficient intelligent driving operation and iteration system, leading car companies have begun to uniformly deploy the collaborative computing capabilities of the vehicle, cloud, edge and terminal. Expand computing power through cloud services, so that computing power is not limited to the hardware and software configured in the car, but also uses cloud storage space to provide data processing for intelligent driving.
"We will also have data centers in Central/European and around the world that provide strong and compliant storage capabilities." Li Bo said that each lotus product will be released and sold globally, "with our global sales, data centers are not only in China." "In the future, Lotus plans to set up data centers in different regions of the world, and the establishment and management of data centers will strictly comply with international standards and comply with local regulations.
The computing power platform and the sensing system determine the ceiling of software algorithm iteration, and the intelligent cloud platform greatly accelerates the iteration speed of software algorithms, and the iteration of software algorithms makes intelligent driving have vitality. It is with these three advantages that Lotus can shout out the goal of "track-level intelligent driving".
Incorporating the track gene into the field of intelligent driving, Lotus kicked open another door of intelligent driving, Feng Qingfeng said at Lotus's brand conference: "With track-level intelligent driving, cutting into the intelligent driving track, this is the direction that Lotus Technology will set in the next decade, and it is also a completely different technical path for Lotus intelligent driving and any other brand." ”
2, safe, comfortable, personalized, track gene to make intelligent driving further
When it comes to the track level, Li Bo's excitement is overflowing, and Lotus's results make him very proud, "Lotus has engraved the sense of manipulation and aerodynamics in the brand's DNA, and also integrated the brand concept of for the drivers into every product." ”
Li Bo introduced what "track-level" means, and he likened Lotus's "track-level intelligent driving" to an "old driver" who has been racing on the track for many years in one-on-one service, safer, more comfortable, more efficient and more personalized.
In the face of different road conditions, such as narrow and winding streets, wide but undulating sections, dense turning points, sudden approaching or slowing/accelerating of neighboring cars, road emergencies, etc., once you lose control of the car, accidents can occur. The so-called "track-level" intelligent driving technology is to make accurate analysis and decisive judgment at the level of a race driver in various situations, and to make a professional-level rapid response to improve the safety of intelligent driving.
At the same time, comfort is not sacrificed, agility and control on the track, delicate control of the throttle and brake, the mastery of the vehicle's center of gravity shift, applied to the daily scene of the traffic, will make the comfort of the ride experience rise by an order of magnitude.
Intelligence and personalization have always been inseparable, based on the use of data of each user to make an adaptation program is not the latest way to play, how to play intelligent driving based on big data is the real pain point. For Lotus, as the user's mileage increases, the intelligent driving system continuously learns the driver's handling preferences and style. At the same time, Lotus also has the ability and strength to carry out personalized analysis and services for each customer, in data processing and calibration, through refined, personalized, efficient processing, accurately touch the needs and cool points of car owners, to achieve true personalized adaptation.
Colin Chapman, the founder of Lotus, said, "The driver and the car should achieve a step-by-step breathing level, which is 'WEAR THE CAR'." Driving a car is like wearing a car on the body, and this intelligence is the real personalized adaptation. ”
"It's a bit like the concept of a luxury brand." Li Bo introduced, "For example, you buy a Patek Philippe watch, from 1839 onwards, every Patek Philippe watch in the world, he will establish an archive for it, as long as this watch still exists, they will always save parts, and more powerfully, no matter when, they can ensure that there are enough skilled technicians to maintain and repair any watch." That's one-on-one service, true customization. ”
It is understood that Lotus's system will combine the vehicle parameters entered in the early stage and the actual data of all aspects of the vehicle in use, and organically combine with the driving and riding preference data of the owner, and make the best plan between the vehicle performance and the owner's preference.
Safety, comfort, efficiency and individuality are the features that take the future of intelligent driving to the next level, which lotus has always been the concept of. "What Lotus wants to do is not only a breakthrough for the car, but also for everyone to try, a breakthrough in the concept of the car." Feng Qingfeng said.
Text/Liu Chang Editor Song Yuting Proofreader Zhao Lin