If one of the highlights of the competition between mobile phones is the pixel of the camera, then the key to the automotive technology battle lies in the lidar, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Weima have all stood on the track, and the first batch of new cars equipped with lidar will be listed next year.
These new cars armed to the teeth will become an important focus of the car market next year, consumers buy cars to start counting cameras, radar?
<h2>The "big kill" of smart cars - lidar is coming</h2>
Last weekend, WM Motors announced the launch of its first all-scenario intelligent pure electric sedan, the WM M7, which will be mass-produced and delivered within 2022.
The biggest highlight of this new car is the intelligent driving system armed to the "teeth". The car is equipped with 32 top-of-the-line intelligent driving perception hardware, which greatly improves the perception ability in complex light, complex road conditions and complex weather conditions. The M7 is also the world's first model to build three autonomous zoom high-precision super-vision solid-state lidars and the first to achieve a lidar level detection range of 330°. The M7 is also equipped with seven 8-megapixel high-definition cameras, its maximum detection distance is more than 600 meters, close to the 4K level pixel imaging capability, it is integrated with lidar, can build the vehicle's surrounding environment in real time.
Prior to this, Xiaopeng Motors has announced that the world's first mass-produced lidar smart car Xiaopeng P5 rolled off the production line and will soon be delivered to the first batch of owners. The upcoming NIO ET7 is equipped with 33 high-performance perception hardware, including ultra-long-range high-precision lidar and multiple high-definition cameras. The SAIC R car ES33 is scheduled to be launched in the second half of 2022 and will also be equipped with lidar. Zhiji Automobile also announced that the Zhiji L7 is equipped with 12 high-definition cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radars and 2 laser radar upgrade capabilities.
Up to now, the upcoming smart models equipped with lidar have exceeded 23 models, and statistics have found that in these popular models that will soon be mass-produced, the super-fusion auxiliary automatic driving program of "lidar + millimeter wave radar + ultrasonic radar + camera" has been adopted.
<h2>How will lidar change smart driving? </h2>
Lidar is becoming the standard for a new generation of intelligent car-assisted autonomous driving capabilities, how will it change the car?
Lidar is considered to be one of the most important pieces of hardware that push smart cars through technical barriers, and it is also a solution to avoid frequent recognition of blind spots. It is reported that the main configuration of mass-produced smart cars on the market is camera + millimeter wave radar + ultrasonic radar. However, millimeter-wave radar has a certain chance of not being able to recognize objects that are completely stationary in front of them , including relatively stationary objects at the same speed in the same direction.
The camera simulates the human eye and uses visual algorithms to achieve unmanned driving, tesla is a typical representative. The disadvantage of visual algorithms is that they can only drive by learning, and once they encounter new problems, they go down.
Smart cars that want to cross this divide must be equipped with lidar. Lidar has a wider detection range and higher accuracy, which can make up for the drawbacks of millimeter-wave radar's inability to accurately model peripheral obstacles, and can cope with unknown complex traffic conditions without learning.
One report notes that the lidar market for automotive and industrial applications is expected to reach $5.7 billion by 2026, with a staggering 21% CAGR from 2020 to 2026.
<h2>Unmanned cars are still a bit far away, but the gameplay is getting more and more exciting</h2>
However, it is worth noting that even equipped with lidar does not necessarily mean that driverless driving has really arrived, and WM Motors is the first car company to make an official commitment to the responsibility of unmanned vehicles, but the scope is limited to the field of autonomous parking.
On the one hand, it is the continuous upgrading of automotive sensing equipment, on the other hand, it is a frequent accident of unmanned vehicle accidents, armed to the "teeth" of the car cost is getting higher and higher, can consumers appreciate and pay?
"We think hardware involution competition is good for the industry, which will trigger more solutions, which is the key to a breakthrough in driverless driving." The person in charge of a smart car company in the industry said that smart cars need to have a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, and the armament of hardware can bring a hundred flowers of innovation, which makes smart cars present various possibilities, and unmanned driving is not the only criterion for success.
Changan Ford's latest EVOS is called a "smart oil car", which has a rare black technology on fuel vehicles. For the first time, it launched the "joint driving fun" function, which can be used by the main and co-drivers to drive together, and the co-drivers can share driving tasks, such as viewing navigation, real-time vehicle information, road sign information; they can also switch the whole screen and the split screen according to the needs of the main and co-drivers. The car also has the industry's first mass-produced vehicle-to-vehicle coordination system, which can read seconds, prompt and calculate how much speed to safely pass at traffic lights.
BMW's smart driving has also unlocked a new skill, The Trail Reversing Assist, which allows the vehicle to automatically control the steering backwards for 50 meters along the most recently driven route.
Some cars are on the ground, and some are looking for higher tracks. Xiaopeng Motors recently launched its fifth-generation flying car, the Traveler X2, which can carry two people and fly more than 70 kilometers.
Source: Thoughtful