Jimu news reporter Zhou Hao
On the afternoon of August 12, Lin Wenqin, the founder of Shangshan Ruoshui Investment Management Company, drove a NIO ES8 car and died in a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of the Shenhai Expressway in Putian, Fujian Province. The company obituary said that it had an accident after it enabled the autonomous driving function (NOP pilot status) for NIO. On August 15, Weilai Automobile staff replied to the Jimu News reporter that the company is cooperating with the traffic police investigation, but the NOP function is only an auxiliary driving function. Jimu News reporter interviewed the owners of Nio cars who have used the NOP function, as well as professionals who study electric vehicles, trying to further understand the NOP pilot auxiliary function.
Accident Scene 2 (Source Network)
The 31-year-old owner of Weilai died in a car accident
On August 14, the "Mei Yi Hao" WeChat public account released an obituary, at 2 p.m. on August 12, Mr. Lin Wenqin(nicknamed "Meng Swordsman"), founder of Shangshan Ruoshui Investment Management Company, founder of Yi Tong Tianxia Catering Management Company, and founder of Mei YiHao Brand Management Company, drove the WEIO ES8 car to enable the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status), and unfortunately died in a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of the Shenhai Expressway, unfortunately passing away at the age of 31.
Lin Wenqin
Lin Wenqin has successively founded a number of well-known restaurant chain brands such as "Yiqi Hong Kong-style Afternoon Tea", "Daxi Spicy Mix", "Pot Juxia", "Jia Ru Hua Nail Powder", etc., with more than 500 franchise stores nationwide.
After the accident, Mr. Zheng, Lin Wenqin's former friend, set up a funeral team to assist in handling Lin Wenqin's aftermath.
obituary
Mr. Zheng told Jimu News that his friend Lin Wenqin has many years of driving experience and has purchased this Weilai car in less than a year. On the day of the incident, Mr. Lin was preparing to return to Quanzhou, and when he drove to the road section of the incident, the car did not recognize that there was a construction vehicle in front of him, and crashed into the front car, resulting in an accident. Mr. Zheng said that at the time of the incident, Mr. Lin did not drive for a long time, and after testing, there was no drunk driving or drug driving. He learned from the official APP data of Weilai Automobile and the company's staff that the NOP was in an open state at the time of the incident.
Accident Scene (Source Network)
Mr. Zheng said that at present, the accident vehicle is still in the local traffic police office, and the traffic police are also conducting further investigations into the accident. They issued an obituary to remind the majority of riders to use the NOP function with caution.
The Jimu News reporter saw from the scene pictures that the accident vehicle was seriously damaged, the engine cover was completely lifted, and the front of the vehicle was seriously deformed.
For this matter, on August 15, Weilai Automobile staff replied to the Jimu News reporter that the user did collide with an operation engineering vehicle and had an accident. At present, Weilai Automobile is cooperating with the traffic police to deal with and investigate the accident, and will also contact the user's family to do the aftermath. However, the staff said that the NOP function is only an auxiliary driving function, not an automatic driving function, and he himself is not clear whether the car has a NOP function turned on at the time of the incident. He said that if there is follow-up relevant information, the company will publish it in a timely manner.
NoP function that can only assist driving
There is no conclusion as to the cause of the accident caused by Lin Wenqin driving a NIO car. But this incident has set off a wave of discussion about noop functions on the internet.
A search by a Jimu news reporter found that in October last year, Weilai Automobile officially introduced the new Navigate on Pilot (NOP) pilot auxiliary function in the interpretation of the highlights of the NIO OS 2.7.0 system, calling it "the only two in the world".
NOP status instrument interface (image source WEILAI Auto)
In the official APP of Weilai Automobile, the pilot assistance (NOP) user guide prompts that noOP must not be equated with automatic driving. Like Pilot, NOP remains a driver assistance feature and may exit at any time if the operating conditions cannot be met. When using, we must always pay attention to the traffic situation and the road environment.
The guide writes that the NOP is based on the Niolai car navigation system, which has been implemented in the Pilot function of cruise speed control, distance maintenance, steering assist and turn signal control lane change, so that the vehicle in most of the highways and urban elevated sections covered by the HD map is realized according to the navigation planned path: automatically merge into the main road; cruise in the main road, and intelligently select the optimal lane; automatically switch to the next high-speed/elevated road according to the navigation plan; automatically drive away from the main road.
During the NOP driving process, the vehicle will integrate information such as road speed limits and environmental perception to intelligently adjust its own speed.
In 2019, Mr. Liu purchased a NIO ES6 car. He told Jimu News that after the noop function was launched last year, he installed the NIO Pilot automatic assisted driving system full package on the car, began to experience this function, and also recorded an experience video. Mr. Liu, a native of Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, said that when he was driving in urban areas, he would only turn on the NOP function when there was an occasional traffic jam, but he used it more on the highway. Mr. Liu said that because of the business relationship, he often needs to deal with urgent calls or information, and turning on the NOP function at high speed can make him more calm when handling official business. But he said that after turning on the NOP function, he will also hold the steering wheel. "After all, this is just an accessibility feature, and I'm going to take over at any time." Mr. Liu said.
Mr. Liu said that overall, his experience with the NOP function is not bad, the operation such as lane change is relatively smooth, and there has been no system and car owner grabbing the steering wheel. The system is upgraded to monitor the direction of the driver's eyes and whether the steering wheel is being held in hand.
But Mr. Liu told Jimu News that he had also encountered situations such as not turning smoothly when entering the ramp in the past. Another time, after he turned on the NOP function, he saw the front vehicle failure, there was a cone barrel behind the vehicle, the car system recognized the cone barrel, but there was no automatic lane change, he manually changed lanes to avoid an accident.
Mr. Liu said that his Weilai car friend group has paid attention to the incident of Mr. Lin Wenqin, but the reason is unknown and it is inconvenient to evaluate, and he can only remind himself that when he opens the NOP function in the future, he should pay more attention to the road conditions.
A professional who has long studied electric vehicles said in an interview with Jimu News that the NOP function cannot be regarded as automatic driving, and all similar functions of current mass production cars are assisted driving, and even if the function is turned on, the driver is also the main body of driving function and driving responsibility. At present, the most effective on-board sensor for identifying obstacles is millimeter-wave radar, but the sensor's recognition of stationary vehicles is not stable, so you must pay attention to the front when driving.
The professional said that if you don't use assisted driving functions such as NOP, don't use it indiscriminately. If you want to use such a function, you must always keep your attention and understand the boundaries of the function. In addition, how to guide car owners to correctly use the auxiliary driving function is also a problem that many parties need to think about.
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