Text | Wei Qiyang
Source | Intelligent Relativity (aixdlun)
The pace of the driverless era is getting closer.
On September 15th, at the "Wisdom of Everything-Baidu World 2020" conference, CCTV news anchor Bao Xiaofeng and Baidu Group Vice President and General Manager of Intelligent Driving Business Group Li Zhenyu experienced an unmanned experience in front of a national audience Driving the Robotaxi, in a trance, one of our feet seems to have entered the era of no one.
(CCTV live broadcast experience Baidu Apollo fully driverless)
The fact is the same. In Baidu World 2020, Apollo released a number of industry-leading new products, including the fifth-generation autonomous driving kit, the latest version of the open platform, Apollo 6.0, etc., and also announced the autonomous parking solution in Weimar Information on the progress of the models on the ground, as well as the development progress of the Xiaodu vehicle and the "ACE traffic engine" in the field of intelligent transportation.
Li Yanhong said in Baidu World 2020 that the self-driving car industry will enter a full commercial stage in 2025, and at this time, Apollo is making full strides.
Fully unmanned, Robotaxi takes a key step in commercial closed loop
Robotaxi has moved from a closed test field to an open road manned test, and then to today's fully driverless landing. Apollo has completed a brand-new technological leap in 7 years. At this point, Robotaxi has finally outlined a complete commercial closed loop.
Apollo leads the way, but at the same time it also raises a question. To realize fully autonomous driving, what front-end capabilities are needed?
In Baidu World 2020, Li Zhenyu responded with the three elements of "pre-installed mass-produced car", "veteran AI driver" and "5G cloud driving".
"Front-loaded mass-produced vehicles" are literally understood, they are customized models produced by OEMs that can be copied and mass-produced on a large scale. Compared with modified self-driving vehicles, front-mounted mass-produced vehicles greatly ensure the Consistency and safety and stability.
At present, Baidu's leading pre-installed mass-produced vehicle, the Hongqi EV Robotaxi, which will roll off the assembly line in 2019, has already run in Beijing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Cangzhou, and has started fully autonomous driving tests in some areas.
"Ai veteran driver" refers to the complete unmanned driving capability, which is what we often call hard power.
For old human drivers, we measure two standards, namely, driving experience and accident rate. Although Apollo’s “AI veteran driver” has only 7 years of driving experience, the overall test mileage exceeds 6 million kilometers, and the accident rate has always remained zero. From this perspective, Apollo’s “AI veteran driver” has an older safe driving experience than humans. Drivers have to be richer.
Baidu believes that after a cumulative total of 100,000 passengers in 27 cities around the world, the "veteran AI driver" is smart enough to solve most of the problems, and the remaining few extreme and special edge scenarios will be driven by "5G cloud." To solve.
(Apollo debuts 5G cloud driving)
"5G Cloud Driving" is an important supporting service for unmanned driving. Based on 5G, smart transportation, V2X and other new infrastructure facilities, "5G Cloud Driving" is autonomous driving when autonomous vehicles face road changes or traffic control. System fills up. The "5G cloud driving" that received the request will take over the driverless car and change it to a parallel driving state to help the car solve problems.
Since "veteran AI drivers" can handle most road conditions, extreme scenarios do not appear frequently, so unlike ordinary safety officers, a cloud driver can serve many vehicles alone.
Combining these three elements to form a whole, self-driving vehicles have the possibility of large-scale deployment. Self-driving vehicles are about to enter the era of parallel driving and will give birth to a new business model of self-driving car sharing.
In addition to Robotaxi, Apollo's small-scale vehicle, autonomous parking solutions, and ACE traffic engine have also achieved large-scale landing leadership in their respective fields.
According to data released by Baidu, in the first half of this year, Xiaodu Cars has cooperated with 60+ mainstream auto brands around the world, with more than 500 models on the market. According to the "China Intelligent Connected Market Trend Report" recently released by IHS Markit In 2020, Xiaodu's vehicle capacity has already ranked first in the world in the field of intelligent networked vehicles.
In the direction of intelligent transportation, Apollo's "ACE transportation engine" has landed in nearly 20 cities across the country, which has greatly improved travel efficiency and has become the number one player in the new infrastructure of intelligent transportation.
In addition, the new Weimar model equipped with Baidu's Apollo autonomous parking solution will go on sale early next year. This will be China's first model equipped with L4 autonomous parking. It can find parking spaces in multi-storey basement, one-click valet parking and call.
Breaking the commercialization, Baidu Apollo reveals three sharp swords
Autonomous driving enters into 2020. The industry has experienced the first PPT storytelling and two stages of competition with the technology represented by Robotaxi. At present, most companies are stuck in a difficult situation for commercialization. This time Baidu Apollo's commercial results in 2020 in the world are eye-catching, and it is almost leading the way.
It is inevitable to be a little curious, how does Apollo do it?
1. The first principle of commercialization: generate multi-dimensional value
Autonomous driving is difficult to commercialize. The difficulty lies in the degree of integration and penetration of technology and scenes and the speed of its own hematopoiesis. In layman's terms, the former refers to whether the technology can be used after it is implemented, and whether it is good or not, whether you are willing to use it; the latter refers to What is the efficiency of business returns, it boils down to whether it can generate value.
As mentioned above, Xiaodu Vehicle has achieved the world’s largest number of vehicles in the field of intelligent networked vehicles. The fundamental reason is that it has truly turned "useful" into "practical", and it can become a feature highlight of the vehicles on board. The sales of installed models are "assist."
For example, the main sales models of brands such as Ford Ruiji, Haval H6, Geely Boyue Pro, Binyue, Lynk & Co 06, Hyundai Fitas, etc. are all equipped with Xiaodu vehicles. Behind the hot sales of these models are connected cars. Assists to promote.
In terms of intelligent transportation, Baidu Apollo has implemented a large number of new infrastructure projects across the country through the "ACE Traffic Engine", many of which are super projects like Guangzhou Huangpu's super billion yuan.
Li Yanhong also revealed that through calculations, the construction of intelligent transportation infrastructure based on vehicle-road coordination will be able to increase traffic efficiency by 15%-30%, thereby contributing an absolute growth of 2.4%-4.8% to GDP. This is what Apollo does. The value of intelligent transportation.
In terms of autonomous driving, although Robotaxi is still far from commercialization, Apollo is striving to leapfrog ahead. At Baidu World 2020, Apollo has released a new fifth-generation autonomous driving kit, the first to be equipped with a fifth-generation autonomous driving kit Pre-installed mass-produced vehicles that can meet the needs of fully unmanned operation have also begun to select models. More importantly, for each new generation of Apollo, the cost will be reduced by half and the capacity can be increased tenfold.
In particular, the emergence of "5G Cloud Driving on behalf of" technology may greatly accelerate the process of Robotaxi's commercial landing. Whether it is independent operation or the introduction of an online car-hailing platform, it has a very broad imagination.
2. The first ability to realize commercialization: rapid replication and customization
Business competition pursues speed. The landing of a single project can only be said to have made a breakthrough in a certain field, and a large number of projects are carried out at the same time. Only in this way can it take the initiative in market competition and truly reflect its leading position in the industry. At this time, the ability to quickly copy and customize It becomes extra important.
Baidu Apollo has achieved rapid replication and customization in the three fields of intelligent transportation, intelligent vehicle linkage and autonomous driving.
In terms of intelligent transportation, Baidu Apollo released the "ACE traffic engine". Through the overall architecture of "1+2+N", it can be like building blocks to combine required functional modules and extended functional applications under the same digital base. .
In terms of smart car connectivity, Baidu Apollo provides a wealth of optional solutions for car companies and individual users from the front to the back of the car through three embedded smart cockpits, CarLife+, and a small mirror. It can attract consumers in a short period of time through after-installation, or deep customization of smart car-linked products through front-installation.
In terms of autonomous driving, Baidu Apollo allows partners to develop autonomous driving products in a short period of time by opening up the autonomous driving kit, and allows more developers to enter multiple special scenarios, such as the Yimin open-pit mine. The driverless mining developed by the Apollo system is now available.
It seems that Apollo's lead in commercialization is definitely not accidental. Baidu Apollo has found an excellent balance between the contradiction between standards and individuality in the form of different solutions.
3. The first element to achieve commercialization: active ecology to form industrial synergy
A mature business model must be supported by an active industrial ecology. In the future autonomous driving industry ecology, the traditional single-line front and rear organizational relationship between upstream and downstream, supply and demand will not be enough to stir a pool of spring water. Only when peer-to-peer industrial synergy can keep the industrial ecology full of vitality.
The open sharing that Apollo has always insisted on is contributing to the formation of a new world of synchronization and collaboration across the entire industry chain: production relations between enterprises are more equal, and collaboration and mutual benefit are more important; developers are more willing to participate in ecological construction, which makes it easier to form an industrial scale and at the same time accelerate Commercial landing of technology.
At the Baidu World 2020 Autonomous Driving Sub-forum, Baidu released the latest version of its open platform, Apollo 6.0, as scheduled, open sourced its safe and unmanned capabilities, and added multiple cloud services to make it easier for developers to use. Today, the Apollo open platform has open sourced 600,000 lines of code, gathered 45,000 developers and 210 ecological partners around the world, and a win-win ecosystem with Apollo as the center of the entire industrial chain is growing infinitely.
The future being touched, the flag of China in the era of no one
In the traditional automobile era in the past, China was a marginalized spectator, and once thought of using the east wind of new energy vehicles to achieve "curving overtaking", but judging from the current progress, all new energy vehicle companies plus car manufacturing New forces can't beat a Tesla. Now the baton of "overtaking" is passed to the hands of smart cars. In the increasingly unmanned era, can China stand on the main stage?
Apollo, which runs in the first camp, has more hopes. Whether it is technical ability or commercial landing results, Apollo is the only company in China that can compete directly with foreign counterparts.
Compared with the industry-recognized powerhouse Waymo, Apollo is not much different in technical hard power, but in the practice of commercial landing, Baidu Apollo is ahead.
Apollo has a distinctive technical route and landing experience to become a representative of China's technological self-improvement.
We set our horizons higher. In the future industrial competition in the era of unmanned people, Apollo may no longer represent Baidu as a company. To a certain extent, it will lead China's intelligent network as the banner of China's technological self-reliance. The evolution and upgrading of the automobile industry.
Apollo, it's up to you!
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