Robots wash and mop the floor every day to make meals, the clothes in the closet are instructed to change into different styles and colors, driving without a driver's license because the car will move on its own... When we were young, we had imagining the future world. With the development of science and technology and the efforts of several generations, what sounded strange at the beginning has gradually taken shape.
When self-driving technology first appeared, people were curious and distrustful of it, but the market and capital valued it. In 2021, the commercialization of autonomous driving is increasingly explored, from L2 technology equipped with mass production models, to L4 technology officially selected by car companies, and then to the landing of the To G model, automatic driving technology can be said to be a hundred flowers blooming, the situation is very good.
Nowadays, in the domestic automotive field, automatic driving has become one of the well-deserved hot words, and when domestic car companies engage in automatic driving. On the other hand, Tesla, the "ancestor" of the world's self-driving cars, has "turned over a big car".
On January 18, according to relevant media reports, a driver driving a Tesla Model S was charged with manslaughter because he drove using an autopilot system, which led to a traffic accident, resulting in the direct death of 2 passengers.
Another bloody tears incident caused by Tesla's autopilot technology, which is also the first criminal case in the United States to be directly charged with a felony because of Tesla's autopilot car accident.
Some professional analysts said that in this accident, Tesla is also inevitable to blame. Once Tesla's autopilot technology is finally judged to be dangerous, Tesla that directly applies dangerous technology to the road is likely to bear moral, criminal and civil liability.
Funny, on January 17, the day before the traffic accident was reported by the media, Musk was also "singing double reeds" with a Tesla shareholder on Twitter.
The shareholder asked Musk if Tesla's self-driving car has not had a single car accident since FSD went online, while 20,000 people in the United States in the same period have died in the car accident? Musk immediately replied, "Of course! ”
Although the autopilot system that was reported the next day that caused the crash was Autopilot, there were many differences in functionality and performance between FSD and FSD. However, Musk's promise and the car accident news that was immediately exposed the next day were compared, and the impact was also quite large. After all, Tesla's self-driving car, the car accident caused by both hands can not be counted.
Tesla, as the first car company to propose the concept of automatic driving, can be said to be pure in autopilot technology. Tesla's pure visual scheme of "camera + millimeter wave radar" used in autopilot technology completely abandons lidar, and even "arrogantly" says: "Only fools use lidar."
Contrary to Musk and Tesla, China's road to lidar is almost a road to the rhythm of black.
After all, in the breakthrough of L3 level autonomous driving technology route, lidar is recognized by most car manufacturers, and the international mainstream automotive suppliers have invested heavily in research and development, so in the long run, lidar has become the most core competitive area for intelligent driving.
Because China is already at the global advanced level in the field of laser technology, China is actively expanding in the vehicle lidar industry and wants to pull down the international mainstream lidar suppliers.
Judging from the current situation, China already has the strength to challenge international suppliers.
As we all know, international suppliers include Valeo, Continental, lbeo, innoviz, velodyne and Aeva, but China has also seen many technologically advanced companies, such as Tudtong, Sagitar Juchuang, Hesai, DJI and Huawei, whose products have been supplied to mass-produced cars.
In fact, the pure visual scheme has great limitations when executing, and from another point of view, even if it is a human being, when encountering heavy rain or fog, the vision will be dull, and it is very difficult to see things, let alone the pure visual driving system. Extreme weather, or plastic bags floating in the air, or the refraction of the sun's rays in the evening, will interfere with pure visual self-driving systems.
Although Tesla's self-driving technology is still the world's leading after continuous iteration, the birth defects of the "camera + millimeter wave radar" driving system are difficult to avoid. This is also the reason why in recent years, the news about Tesla's self-driving car accidents, resulting in heavy casualties, has hardly stopped.
On Jan. 5, a consumer electronics show was held in Las Vegas. At the exhibition, two cars equipped with self-driving technology drive past a child model. One of the cars is loaded with lidar, and the other is Tesla's self-driving car.
Among them, the car equipped with lidar stopped before hitting the child model, while Tesla's self-driving car directly knocked the child model to the ground in one fell swoop. Although this experiment has not yet been verified by external experts, this simple parallel comparison can also see a very obvious difference between the two.
For lidar, domestic car companies hold the opposite attitude to Tesla. At the Guangzhou Auto Show, which just ended not long ago, we can learn that there are more than 10 models equipped with lidar that are planned for mass production or have been mass-produced, and 2021 is the first year of the outbreak of lidar in the domestic automobile market.
The technology and performance of lidar are higher than that of pure vision system, which uses the laser beam to detect the surrounding environment, obstacle orientation, etc., can accurately distinguish objects, anti-interference ability is very strong, and the detection range is also wider than "camera + millimeter wave radar". The comparison between lidar cars and pure vision system cars at the consumer electronics exhibition can also see the advantages of lidar.
At present, among the domestic car companies, Xiaopeng is the first to realize the lidar loading and mass production and listing, Huawei Qijie AITO, Great Wall Mech Dragon and Polar Fox Alpha S subsequently also achieved mass production and delivery, and the use of Huawei 96-line lidar, is also the most advanced lidar technology in China.
Although there is a difference in the cost of current lidar autonomous driving compared with cameras, due to Huawei's intervention, the continuous improvement of corresponding technologies will greatly reduce the cost. But what is clear is that lidar is moving in a clearer direction, and people are expecting more and more self-driving cars.