Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

Vehicle networking technology can be said to be a typical example of the fluctuation of technological development. In the recent CES Asia, the auto industry has occupied two venues, with overseas automakers such as Audi, Honda and Ford demonstrating the local car networking ecology, and local technology companies such as Baidu Apollo issuing the "online car Code". Looking back, we can also see that Tencent released a full voice interactive Wechat for cars, and Huawei built a smart car BU, and a large number of companies related to vehicle networking are springing up in the Greater Bay area.

The concept of car networking is not new, but 2019 is particularly hot. I believe many people will remember that just two or three years ago, this technology was often referred to as "conceptual hype" and "difficult to land".

"every year is the first year of China's car network."

In 2016, as Didi, Baidu, Tencent and Ali, which had high-profile layout of car networking, did not show enough market-oriented products, a number of car networking start-ups represented by Paipu also began to close down. The once-popular car networking began to fail as expected. There is even a mockery that since the concept of car networking was put forward in 2010, every year has been the "first year of car networking in China".

Although this statement is somewhat exaggerated, it is not groundless. A series of products launched by BAT, such as Lubao and Wedrive, have not been popularized on the ground for a long time, and the user experience is not good, and sometimes even encounter the situation that the car drives half a kilometer and the car networking system has not been turned on yet. Other startups also began to sink to the lower reaches of the industrial chain due to difficulties in commercialization, and began to sell in-car entertainment screens without technological research and development.

The reasons behind it can be analyzed from both technical and market levels.

From a technical point of view, the mature process of vehicle networking technology is not only slow, but also needs to cross many gullies.

For example, in the driving scene, it is difficult for people to deal with other devices, the interactive technology is not powerful enough, the application value of vehicle networking has been difficult to play a role. As well as the keyword "net" of vehicle networking, when the rate of data upload and downlink is not strong enough, the role of vehicle networking can only stay in the car control + entertainment, it is difficult to link up with a wider range of scenarios.

At the same time, because the connection between the car networking manufacturer and the automobile manufacturer is not close enough, the function development of the vehicle networking has not been enough, so it is difficult to really realize some functions of the car through the vehicle networking system.

From the market level, the lack of close contact with automakers also makes it difficult for the Internet to enter the market.

Above all, when car networking is independently driven by technology companies, this cost can only be eaten or passed on to consumers by the technology companies themselves. Data show that consumers have to pay thousands to tens of thousands of fees to set up a set of in-car entertainment + telephone communication + partial fault detection system on the car. This kind of price may not cause consumers' sensitivity when buying a car, but if you pay this price to buy a set of "equipment" after buying a car, I am afraid you will encounter obstacles in terms of consumer acceptability and expectation management.

Because of the small number of users, unstable network connection and other reasons, the application ecology of vehicle networking is also very poor, can not touch the service port, and it is also difficult to realize the ecological cash. It is difficult to find other profit channels other than the hardware itself.

In this way, it is not surprising that car networking has been stuck in the first year.

Variable appears at first glance: who is the driver of car networking 2019?

So what are the variables in between from the bad in 2016 to the hot again in 2019?

In fact, on the one hand, the overall technological progress this year, and on the other hand, the changes in the automotive segment field.

In recent years, the rapid development of AI technology and 5G technology is closely related to vehicle networking technology.

What AI technology brings is the overall evolution of interactive technology. A clear understanding of voice, gestures and even facial expressions can change that drivers have no time to think about in-car interaction in the past. At the same time, the popularity of AI technology reduces the cost of algorithm applications and computing chips, so that more devices can be intelligent. This includes that more sensors can be added inside the car to expand the control range of the vehicle networking system, and a series of devices and products such as signal lights, parking lots, charging piles and so on can also be connected with the vehicle networking system through intelligence.

As for the ferocious trend of 5G technology, it meets the massive data demand generated in the process of travel digitization with strong data carrying capacity and transmission speed, and the improvement of network speed, it also ensures the timeliness of the flow of information between people and cars, cars and roads, so that vehicle networking technology can not only meet the needs of entertainment, but also participate more in driving itself.

The changes in the automotive field itself have also tilted resources to the field of vehicle networking.

The first is the decline of the car market itself, which has become more and more obvious in recent years. For automakers, it is an important task to show changes to consumers as soon as possible, and natural automakers will be more active in the field of vehicle networking. At the same time, because it is difficult to explore in the field of self-driving, the technology investment in the automotive field will also tilt to the field of car networking, which is easier to land. Like Audi's connect interconnection system, it can control a range of functions, from volume adjustment to vehicle settings. In addition to self-research, more automakers choose to cooperate with technology companies. For example, Honda chooses to cooperate with Ali and HKUST to develop the third-generation HONDA CONNECT;, Ford cooperates with Baidu to develop a new SYNC system with AI technology, and Ali's zebra Zhihang is a partner of SAIC Roewe.

The deep involvement of automakers will greatly enhance the experience for vehicle networking. In the automobile assembly, production and even the design side, we begin to plan the vehicle networking, for example, by adding a microphone array in the steering wheel to improve the accuracy of radio, and then improve the ability of speech recognition.

Under the technical variables and market variables, we only see another wave in the field of vehicle networking in 2019.

The old players re-enter the new environment, the car network is coming out of the first year.

In the era of the new wave of vehicle networking, we can obviously find three modes of the future development of vehicle networking.

The first category is the application ecological model represented by Tencent car.

Although Tencent has released in-car QQ before, due to various restrictions, this product has always been a chicken rib, only the relatively practical use of car-to-car location sharing. But now through the promotion of voice interaction, and the car Wechat special steering wheel buttons and vehicle Wechat navigation function setting, the existence of car Wechat can obviously play a more role.

With Wechat, a national-level App, as a platform, cars and mobile phone terminals can achieve seamless convergence of services. For example, Wechat friends recommend the location information of restaurants, shopping malls and so on through chat, and users can directly navigate through voice interaction on the car side. And the existence of Tencent Mini scenario, which is a cross-OS development platform, also allows developers to transplant products from mobile to automobile. Let users interact with parking lots, charging piles, car maintenance and other services more closely through the vehicle network.

In this way, the network of vehicles has the possibility of realizing traffic.

The second category is the underlying technical service model represented by Huawei.

Compared with many technology Internet companies that are more closely related to the software ecology, manufacturers like Huawei who are born in ICT have more advantages over the technology of software and hardware. For example, many vehicle computing platforms and intelligent driving subsystem solutions proposed by Huawei, 4G/5G vehicle mobile communication module and T-BOX and vehicle network are lower-level technologies that serve vehicle networking.

In other words, these technologies can be applied to the concepts of vehicle networking, intelligent cars, autopilot, vehicle-road coordination, and so on. It can be said that with the gradual upgrading of technology, cars, including the entire field of travel, will need to be improved on ICT, hardware systems and software platforms. In the future, in view of these underlying needs, manufacturers must be required to supplement services.

The third category is the driving cooperation mode represented by Audi.

Compared with the above model, there are still automakers and technology manufacturers working together to drive vehicles on the Internet. For example, Audi has been studying the C-V2X mode of car networking, through the intelligent interconnection of signal lights with the car, so that drivers can see the status and countdown of the next signal on the dashboard, so as to adjust the driving speed.

Objectively speaking, the construction cost of the C-V2X vehicle network is very high, in addition to the car itself, but also with other terminals for the signal level of the underlying interconnection. However, once the cost limit of terminal equipment transformation is broken, the driving experience can be greatly improved.

At present, it seems that the three modes do not overlap with each other. One is calling for developers to develop "car-side Mini Program", one is accompanying automakers to transform cars, and the other is persistently adding sensors to signal lights, charging posts and parking lots.

In fact, many of these players are "old players" in the field of car networking. Perhaps under the maturity of the technological environment and market environment, veteran players can give full play to their skills and experience advantages, so that the car network can take a step forward after the first year.

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