Shulou(Shulou.com)06/03 Report--

A hundred years ago, the wave of car manufacturing in the United States made a whole era.

Today, a hundred years later, we seem to see the re-emergence of the automobile industry.

The emergence of new technologies such as 5G and artificial intelligence has created new opportunities for software technology innovation in the automotive industry. So we can see that technology giants, car companies and start-ups around the world enter together, focusing on self-driving, car networking, smart cars and other fields to look for new opportunities.

The coming of this new opportunity is to take science and technology and information infrastructure as the main battlefield, wiping out the basic advantages of the previous industrial manufacturing and the division of labor in the global industrial chain. In other words, countries like China, which have emerged in the information revolution, will become one of the protagonists of the energy redistribution of the automobile industry this time.

In the process of raising the curtain of the times, we can take a look at what stage China has moved towards with regard to the advanced "intelligence +" of the technology-led automobile industry.

After the first step: the Rhythm and Speed of China's Automobile Industry

In order to understand this problem, the annual two sessions are an important frame of reference. After all, the importance of the automobile industry has reached the level of "national support". The call and advocacy of enterprises and practitioners are often those problems that need to be solved urgently in the development of the automobile industry, but can not be solved by one or two enterprises.

Since the two sessions in 2018, two distinct features have emerged in the proposal on the automobile industry. One is that the proposals of the traditional automobile industry are more advanced. For example, Wang Fengying, president of Great Wall Motor, put forward an initiative on the market environment of new energy vehicles, while Zhu Huarong, president of Changan Automobile, proposed that Changan Automobile will launch self-driving cars in 2025. The other is the increasing involvement of technology companies. For example, Baidu CEO Robin Li suggested that companies should be encouraged to build a "Chinese car brain" platform to grow into the world's leading self-driving open platform.

Generally speaking, the proposals of last year's two sessions are consistent with the development of the automobile industry last year.

Last year's car networking and autopilot showed a form of rapid development and rapid landing. Both Baidu's self-driving open platform Apollo and Ali's smart car solution zebra Zhihang have begun to work with Roewe, Jinlong and other automakers to launch related products, which let us see self-driving minibuses and cars that can communicate with each other in the real scene.

Today, it can be said that China took a step forward and fell steadily in the development of the automobile industry last year. If the first step is to step into virgin territory, then the second and third steps will determine the speed and pace of China's technological progress in the automobile industry.

The giants of the two sessions advised to anchor 2019 of Chinese cars with three grips.

With regard to the technological development of China's automobile industry this year, we can also try to get a glimpse into the proposal of the two sessions. Through the collation and summary of the relevant proposals, we can find three key points for the direction of China's automobile industry in 2019: standards, legislation and safety.

First of all, the word "standard".

This year, Zhu Huarong, president of Changan, submitted a proposal on improving the standards for intelligent transportation and vehicle networking, pointing out that the development of intelligent vehicle networking should unify the standards and strengthen overall management. The emergence of this grip obviously firmly grips the future prospect of the popularization of intelligent vehicle networking.

In fact, the voice of promoting the standardization of car networking is also heard in the market. We know that most of the current vehicle networking is also focused on the field of human-vehicle interconnection and vehicle Internet of things, allowing users to interact with cars in a variety of modes, or to remotely connect other IoT devices through cars.

But the higher value of vehicle networking lies in the interconnection of vehicles and roads. That is, the relationship between the car and the car and the road in the physical space can be mapped to the digital level, which can be used to calculate and predict congestion and assist in the realization of automatic driving.

But in order to achieve this valuable mapping, an important premise is to maximize the data exchange between vehicles and vehicles. Otherwise, 90% of the cars on a road perceive each other, and the other 10% are uncertain and will not be able to achieve these functions.

At this time, the standard and overall planning of vehicle networking, to create a platform and interface to facilitate the exchange of data becomes very important. Otherwise, no matter how much investment in the car network will not be able to break through the threshold of value realization, this is tantamount to doing everything possible to find a dragon knife but use it to cut vegetables.

The further step is "legislation".

In the current two sessions, another important voice in the field of the automobile industry is "legislation", especially the laws and regulations on self-driving. For example, Tan Minqiang, a deputy chief engineer from Dongfeng Company, even pointed out that in fact, many car companies have been able to achieve L4 self-driving, only because the laws and regulations are not perfect and can not be applied. The emergence of this grip is aimed at further landing on autopilot.

What is certain is that the current stage of development of autopilot has indeed changed from a simple technical problem to a technical + regulatory + moral issue. When the technology has met the requirements of autopilot in some scenarios (such as expressways and fixed roads), we need to find out a series of legal and regulatory issues such as technical standards on the road and the distribution of accident responsibility in order to realize the application of technology.

In fact, autopilot is not only a technical race, but also takes into account the speed at which the state machine responds to legislation. Take the lead in using the law to pave the way for technology applications, and the technical feedback obtained from field applications will also help autopilot to iterate more efficiently.

The most important grip, and "safety".

In the tight stage of competition in all technological development, security issues are often the most easily ignored. At the current two sessions, Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360 Group, focused on the issue of network security, especially the network security of smart cars. Zhou Hongyi put forward: "our goal is to keep smart cars from running naked. Today, no one dares to run naked on their computers. Mobile phones are also equipped with security antivirus software, and smart cars should also be equipped with network security protection systems. We should include the network security system as standard for smart cars like 'seat belts', so that smart cars are safe, reliable and controllable."

A year ago, we published a report about "car hackers". In fact, around 2013, when the car networking application was not yet on a large scale, engineers demonstrated at the exhibition and invaded two cars on the spot. There is no doubt that there are connections, there are links in data transmission, and there must be opportunities.

But until today, when the technologies such as intelligent vehicle networking and self-driving are about to be applied on a large scale, there is still a lack of extensive understanding about the safety of intelligent vehicles. But when these technologies are really widely put on the market, safety issues no longer affect just the loss of a car, but traffic safety on the whole road or even on a larger scale.

In the proposal, Zhou Hongyi proposed some applied solutions, such as the installation of safety networking modules, mandatory safety testing and the establishment of a manufacturer's safety operation platform, from which we can also see the urgency of the safety problem of intelligent vehicles. If, according to the current speed of application and legislation, there is no more time for discussion and hesitation on safety issues, it is best to directly launch a product plan that can be put into use. only in this way can we keep up with the long-term development of technological advances in the automobile industry.

After the written examination of the automobile industry, will safety become a key tutorial subject?

The cooperation of the three hands is making the technological progress of China's automobile industry more abundant. From the sprint development of technological capability last year, today it has entered the paradigm planning of the industrial field.

This kind of leapfrogging, in fact, shares the responsibility for the advancement of China's automobile industry. Like many technologies, in the early stage, we have to rely on the hard work of science and technology creators, wait for the results to be applied, the baton in hand should also continue to be passed on, and rely on the support of external forces to make the technology more efficiently applicable to the industry.

Now, these three hands have given a clear direction. Promote the connectivity and sharing of the vehicle network platform with the industry alliance standard; promote the extensive landing of self-driving by high-speed legislation; and finally maintain the orderly development of the whole industry chain with the prepared safety ability.

As far as enterprises are concerned, it is the security ability that reserves the largest commercial space in these three hands. Most of the rest, no matter legislation or standard approval, should be led by the government. However, when the first two promote the further popularization of smart cars, vehicle networking, self-driving and other technologies, the real test of the real scene will expose the potential safety risks of the relevant enterprises.

This is like an exam. We may all get similar grades in the written test, but we will certainly widen the gap in the interview.

It is conceivable that safety issues will be the focus of the automotive industry's "tutorial program" in 2019, whether it is self-developed technology like Ali and Baidu, or cooperation with safety solution providers such as 360, perhaps more important than the solution. it's the efficiency of the action. After all, no matter which new technology, the most difficult stage is the cold start period to win the trust of users.

When a large number of smart car-related technologies are put into application, there is no doubt that the first batch of those who are eliminated will not be because the technology is conservative and obsolete, but because of safety problems.

This is also the cruelty of technological change. This second has attracted a lot of attention because of its scientific research ability, and the next second it may be shuffled out because of a security accident in the application.

Every restart of the era will inevitably bring about fighting and plunder in the style of swords and swords. But when the blood returns to calm, stable and long-term development, it is the only throne that stands on top of the platform.

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