Lian Yubo: The key and thinking of BYD Automobile's intelligence

Lian Yubo: The key and thinking of BYD Automobile's intelligence

(China Automotive News)

(Full text of the speech at the 2022 Zhangjiang Automotive Semiconductor Ecology Summit and Global Automotive Electronics Expo)

Dear leaders and friends, hello everyone! I am BYD Lian Yubo, and I am very honored to be invited to participate in this summit to share with you some of BYD's explorations and thoughts on intelligence and electrification.

My sharing is divided into three parts, first of all, I would like to share with you BYD's exploration in intelligence. With the continuous development of the automotive industry, the factors that determine the core competitiveness of automotive products have changed, from the engine, gearbox, chassis in the fuel era to the three-electric system in the era of electric vehicles, in the era of intelligence, vehicle software, data services, intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit has become the most competitive field in the industry.

However, it is not enough to emphasize electrification or intelligence, only intelligent electric vehicles that integrate electrification and intelligent new experience are the mainstream of industry development, so we are required to develop electrification at the same time, but also to grasp the intelligent transformation. Today, I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the role that chips should play in smart electric vehicles.

In recent years, our country's policies related to smart cars have been intensively introduced, and strategies and plans for the development of intelligent vehicles have been formulated.

In my opinion, there are five major trends in the intelligent transformation of automobiles: safety-oriented intelligent driving, chips becoming the key to the development of intelligent technology, data-driven service upgrades, centralized electronic and electrical architecture, and high-bandwidth internal and external networks.

First, in terms of safety-oriented intelligent driving, according to data from the market, more than 90% of Chinese users are concerned about the safety of autonomous driving, reflecting the market's strong concern about the current autonomous driving. Recently, the relevant state departments are also focusing on the relevant safety issues in the use of intelligent networking, and have formulated corresponding management measures, so under the dual attention of the market and policy, intelligent driving with safety first will become the mainstream of the development of the industry, and safety is the key foundation for stability and sustainable development.

Second, chips have become the key to the development of intelligent technology, because the supply chain crisis caused by the shortage of automotive chips in the past two years has made the industry realize that chips have become the core of intelligent technologies and automotive products, and without stable chip supply support, electrification and intelligent transformation will be impossible. According to statistics, the amount of chips used in new energy vehicles is about 1,000 in a normal state, and more advanced intelligent cars will increase in the future, and chips are distributed in automobile chassis, power, intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving and other systems. At present, due to the late start and lack of experience of semiconductors in the mainland, the domestic self-satisfaction rate in the field of key automotive chips is still very low, which cannot meet the needs of intelligent development.

Third, compared with traditional cars, smart cars have more application data, which not only has huge application value, but can also be applied to intelligent product innovation, functional services and improvements, and other fields, which can significantly improve the user experience, so on the premise of ensuring consumer privacy and security, making full use of the massive data generated by smart cars to drive service experience upgrades will become an important development trend in the automotive industry.

Fourth, with the continuous enrichment of various functions of automobiles, the complexity of automotive software and the demand for computing power have been greatly improved, and the traditional distributed architecture has exposed problems such as poor scalability, complex architecture, and low open efficiency, which can no longer meet the needs of the intelligent era. Therefore, driven by this demand, the E/E architecture has changed, and the rapid development of a central computing architecture has become the mainstream development trend today.

Fifth, ICVs require massive data exchange between internal and external data, and many key data are directly related to user experience, which puts forward higher requirements for real-time and accurate data transmission. The development and construction of related fields are even ahead of the development of smart cars.

Next, I will mainly share BYD's views and exploration practices in intelligent transformation.

BYD's intelligent development has always been based on safety first, and has always believed that safety is the first element in the development of intelligent driving. At present, from the perspective of the market sales of automobiles, consumers are interested in technology labels and are willing to compromise to buy, and users who value car safety, quality and reputation occupy the mainstream. Therefore, BYD chooses the intelligent technology route of safety first, first to solve the safety risks and hidden dangers caused by various immature technologies, and then quickly improve the application of intelligent technology to ensure that users can enjoy the convenience brought by intelligent technology in a safe and timely manner.

As for intelligent safety, high-level intelligent driving technology has recently attracted much attention. For example, L2+ intelligent assisted driving has brought a great improvement to the user experience, while L3 intelligent driving has greatly increased its cost but cannot add more experience to users, and has been repeatedly involved in accidents and faces the problem of division of responsibility. Overall, the cost performance is not high, and there are great obstacles to market development. Now L2+ is widely used, higher levels are progressively advancing, and there are new technical directions.

Intelligence is not only a convenient tool, but also brings security issues such as information. BYD attaches great importance to this. Looking at the chip again, the chip is the support of intelligent technology, BYD has laid out the chip industry chain in advance, independently developed and produced power semiconductors, vehicle-grade MCUs and other products, which is conducive to supporting the transformation to intelligence.

In the field of automotive-grade semiconductors, BYD has deeply mastered the key technology of IGBT, and has made technological breakthroughs in high-power silicon carbide modules, becoming the first batch of domestic automobile companies to independently develop and mass-apply automotive-grade power semiconductors.

If hardware technology is the core of traditional automobiles, in the era of automotive electrification and intelligence, software constitutes the soul of intelligent electric vehicles, and only independent research and development of core software can grasp the initiative of core technological innovation. The operating system is the core of automotive software, and the automotive operating system is evolved from various scattered control software of traditional automobiles and new operating systems of various electronic devices, which is the core of the transformation and upgrading of traditional automobiles to intelligent vehicles.

BYD realized the importance of the automotive operating system very early, and independently developed BYD OS, the first automotive operating system in China with complete decoupling of software and hardware, which covers intelligent vehicle control, supports cross-platform applications, hardware plug and play, continuous OTA upgrades, etc.

BYD's DiLink intelligent network connection system is an ecosystem of technology + content services independently developed by BYD based on intelligent hardware, Internet of Vehicles, cloud communication, information fusion, AI big data and other technologies and user insights, including Di platform, Di ecology and other functional platforms, aiming to comprehensively connect people and vehicles, life and society, and provide consumers with a new experience of intelligent travel.

In the era of intelligence, in order to meet the needs of more intelligent functions of automobiles, the capabilities of various functional hardware are also the focus of car companies that need to be improved. In order to achieve a wealth of intelligent functions, BYD has gradually electrified the mechanical moving parts of the whole vehicle, such as electric air outlets, power windows, electric charging ports, etc., and brought users a new experience of using the car by calling various electrification functions from the time of product development.

In terms of electronic and electrical architecture, BYD has divided the original scattered domain controller into four domain controllers according to their functions, transforming from a single CPU to a multi-core CPU with stronger system processing power, which greatly improves the control performance and interaction efficiency. The multi-sensor upgrade has brought about the improvement of data computing capabilities, and the fusion of perception, personalized design, and iteration of multiple algorithms all require computing power support, and various security designs also rely on computing power redundancy backup. Driven by a variety of factors, the demand for computing power of the controller platform for smart electric vehicles is increasing, and BYD has laid out in advance, this year it has the world's first 6nm 5G chip, and has begun mass production of the intelligent cockpit platform.

With the above-mentioned software and hardware technology, in fact, it only touches the threshold of intelligent electric vehicles, and if you want consumers to feel the service experience brought by intelligence, you also need to focus on the vehicle service experience. BYD has always been user-centric, creating an intelligent vehicle service experience through the full collaboration of software and hardware, and continuously optimizing it. In terms of intelligent service innovation, BYD has given full play to its years of accumulation in the field of electrification and intelligence, and promoted the implementation of a series of intelligent innovation services for intelligent driving, intelligent scene services, and intelligent interactive services, and more services will be applied to BYD's intelligent electric vehicles in the future.

Intelligent transformation is inseparable from the support of internal and external systems, in order to quickly respond to the task of intelligent product development and meet the needs of users, BYD has made changes in the internal system and external ecology. In order to ensure the rigor of vehicle research and development, while taking into account the software requirements, a new research and development management system has been established to provide users with high-quality products and services with the fastest development speed.

The transformation of automotive intelligence covers the transformation of multiple industries, which is inseparable from the cooperation of various industries. BYD adheres to the concept of open car manufacturing, and has established multi-field cooperation with many enterprises, research institutions and universities at home and abroad, and also as an open ecology, and at the same time open to social developers, and held the first developer conference in the automotive industry, opening up 341 sensor data and 66 controls of automotive hardware to global developers, so that more developers can gather wisdom and share openly, so as to form a prosperous intelligent electric vehicle ecology. Create a win-win cooperation and diversified ecology.

Finally, BYD's thinking on the development of intelligent electrification of future vehicles is introduced. The current transformation of smart electric vehicles has achieved initial results, and how to continue to develop with high quality still needs to be considered by industry colleagues. BYD's view is that the sustainable and high-quality development of intelligent electric vehicles mainly lies in the synergy of electrification and intelligence, and how to coordinate and solve the problem of "stuck neck", which is as follows.

In terms of the coordinated development of electrification and intelligence, electrification has brought excellent dynamic performance, abundant power, more space, more precise control, and quieter driving experience to automobiles, laying a solid foundation for intelligence. Intelligence gives full play to the advantages of smart cars and empowers products. It is necessary to continue to upgrade and promote electrification while transforming into an intelligent vehicle. At the same time, the intensity and speed of intelligent transformation, the parallel and improvement of quality, the importance of the research and development of various core technologies at the bottom of the software, including the joint promotion of the construction and improvement of industry standards and regulations, etc., can ensure the healthy development of the industry.

To this end, industry cooperation should be deepened. Traditional manufacturers of vehicle R&D and production, in the field of electrification and intelligence have not adapted to rapid technological iteration and industry transformation, to achieve in-depth industrial chain in all links of the industrial chain, the integration of the vertical industrial chain of automobiles, the construction of a flat industrial system, and the distance between enterprises and upstream and downstream, only in this way can we ensure that enterprises can quickly respond to market demand, and at the same time accelerate the application of new technologies in the vehicle.

Combined with the technical advantages of the Internet of Things, information and communication, positioning and navigation and other basic fields, the integration of automobiles and energy, transportation, information, communications, smart life and home and other fields can be accelerated, and a multi-field intertwined network ecology can be created to empower the automotive industry to enhance its core technology and competitiveness.

Finally, it should be clearly recognized that there are still some key underlying technologies in the automotive industry that have not been fully mastered, which is still very unfavorable for the follow-up long-term development, and some "stuck neck" technology research and development is difficult, the development cycle is long, and the resource investment is large, which is also the focus of many companies to make breakthroughs. Thank you.