"I think (high-speed NOA) prices may drop very quickly," Yu Yinan, vice president of Horizon Technology and president of software platform product line, said in a communication with Gaogong Smart Auto on April 6th at the Horizon Technology Open Day. "By the end of 2024, the price of a high-speed NOA (system) of about 100 TOPS will be comparable to the current price of an entry-level high-speed NOA of about 10 TOPS."
Dr. Yinan Yu, Vice President of Horizon, President of Software Platform Product Line
In fact, Horizon is trying to speed up the pace of NOA implementation based on Journey 5, and promote heavy volume.
Gaogong Intelligent Automobile has noticed that the current NOA market is stratified, which are: first, the entry-level high-speed NOA market, with a computing power of about 5-20 TOPS, and since 2022, the integration of lightweight travel and parking has become popular, and the horizon has seized During the window period, Journey 3 has already occupied an important position in this market; second, the enhanced high-speed NOA market has a computing power of around 50-200 TOPS; third, urban NOA is currently trying to land, and the sensor part may need to add lasers radar.
Under the condition of still being constrained by relatively high costs, the enhanced version of high-speed NOA is the first to be installed on high-end models. In November 2022, Ideal L8 will be officially delivered. The PRO version is equipped with Journey 5, 128TOPS computing power, and the sensor configuration is 6V1R1D.
According to reports, Ideal AD Pro is the world's first mass-produced intelligent driving system equipped with Journey 5, which realizes the standard high-speed NOA function. According to the monitoring data of Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, from November to December 2022, the sales volume of Ideal L8 PRO version will be 3451 and 6006 respectively.
Another phenomenon worth noting is that, compared with the progressive smart driving tier1's deep cultivation of lightweight travel and parking, after L4 players have turned to the OEM market in 2022, more breakthroughs have been made from the enhanced version of high-speed NOA and urban NOA. And scrambling to shout out the ultimate price-performance ratio, the players here include Pony Zhixing, Qingzhou Zhihang, Yuanrong Qixing, Zhixingzhe, etc.
All these indicate that the market window period for the enhanced high-speed NOA with 50-200TOPS computing power is gradually approaching. The battle in this market segment has already ignited, and various players have begun to compete.
According to the "2022-2025 China Smart Vehicle Industry Chain Market Forecast Report" recently released by Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, the penetration rate of the NOA market in 2022 will be less than 2%. From 2022 to 2023, NOA will usher in the first wave of peaks. It is expected that the NOA loading rate will increase rapidly in 2024-2025.
However, cost, as a key factor, still restricts the expansion of enhanced high-speed NOA and urban NOA.
In fact, the person in charge of Tier 1 of a leading intelligent driving said that the cost issue is the first to bear the brunt of NOA's standard configuration and mass production; for example, domain controller (chip) + positioning module and service + software development + test verification, The sales price of the plan often reaches 15,000-20,000 yuan. For car companies, the price is expensive, and the actual installed capacity is not large. The company's next direction is how to achieve better functions with one-third of the price.
However, the cost problem may be solved at an accelerated pace on the road to mass production.
Once Yu Yinan predicts that by the end of 2024, the price of the enhanced high-speed NOA of around 100 TOPS will drop to the same level as the current entry-level NOA of 10 TOPS . , it is even more necessary to plan in advance to seize the new window period.
As of now, in the latest "2022 Market Share List of Smart Driving Domain Controller Chip Solution Standard Equipped with L2+NOA Functions for Passenger Cars in the Chinese Market" released by Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute, Horizon leads with a market share of 49.05%.
The rapid landing in the L2+NOA field may benefit from the creation of an open ecology.
Specifically, in December 2022, Qingzhou Zhihang announced the launch of the "Qingzhou Riding Wind High-level Assisted Driving Solution" based on the Journey® 5 chip. Among them, the high-speed NOA solution is equipped with a single Journey 5 chip; the urban NOA solution is equipped with a LiDAR on the basis of the above, and is equipped with a dual Journey 5 chip.
In terms of Pony.ai, in January 2023, Pony.ai and Horizon Official Announced that they have reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation. Pony.ai launched a high-speed NOA and urban NOA mass-production-level solution based on the Journey 5 chip, and supports customized needs. It is expected that by the second quarter of 2023, the overall scheme of driving and parking, including high-speed NOA, memory parking and active safety, will be officially launched; the overall urban NOA scheme will be officially launched within this year.
It is worth noting that Yu Kai, the founder and CEO of Horizon, is cautious about urban NOA.
Recently, Yu Kai clarified his point of view in a public speech: It will take at least 3 years for urban NOA to be truly available. By 2025, L2+ high-speed NOA will still be the main force in mass production. The end of the decade for autonomous driving will still be "L2+++". The relationship between the car will evolve into a relationship similar to that of a person riding a horse. When a person drives a horse, the person assumes responsibility;
Gaogong Intelligent Automobile noticed that the view of "man-machine co-driving, and people bear the responsibility" is consistent with the current Shenzhen legislation to some extent. In August 2022, the "Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Intelligent Connected Vehicle Management Regulations" was officially implemented, and self-driving cars began to have "laws to follow" in Shenzhen: if there is a driver behind the steering wheel of the self-driving car, the driver will take responsibility in the accident; If the car is completely driverless, the owner will be responsible; if it is determined that a defect in the vehicle caused the accident, the owner can seek compensation from the self-driving vehicle manufacturer.
At present, the view that "L3 is a false proposition" is attracting more and more attention in the market. The core lies in whether people are really able to safely take over at any time under the L3 situation. There is a conflict between car companies and consumers on the division of responsibilities for safety accidents. .
According to the Shenzhen legislation mentioned above, consumers will be risk-averse towards L3; as for passenger cars, if the current car companies fully bear the risks and responsibilities brought about by autonomous driving or assisted driving, it will greatly limit the speed of innovation.
In fact, since the end of 2022, the management of many players in the autonomous driving industry chain have expressed similar views to Gaogong Smart Auto.
Talking about the substantial breakthrough of "L2+++", Yu Yinan focused on MPI ( the average mileage between two manual takeovers ) . According to his introduction, the current MPI index of high-speed NOA is 100-200 kilometers, and the urban NOA is 10-30 kilometers.
"So you can see that people would not sleep on such indicators. We actually need to spend 10 years to add four 0s to the end of these two indicators." In Yu Yinan's view, this means The car does not need to be taken over during its life cycle of about 10 years. This may be the evolution direction of autonomous driving in the next 10 years, when the industry may welcome a substantial breakthrough.
It is worth noting that Horizon is making a more open business model layout. According to the disclosed information, Horizon provides three different degrees of open cooperation models, which are summarized as "BPU authorization + software white box empowerment" model.
First, similar to the Nvidia model, it provides computing solutions and operating system OS; second, the TogetherOS model only provides computing solutions; third, it provides a more pure BPU authorization model, in other words, as an IP supplier, it supports the self-developed computing solutions of car companies , At present, a partner has been confirmed for this model, and another car company is advancing.
Regarding the BPU authorization model, Dr. Huang Chang, co-founder and CTO of Horizon, explained that the entire computing solution is very complicated. For example, there are about 50-60 subsystems in Journey 5, and each subsystem has multiple IPs . One chip is suitable for any scenario, and it is impossible to design multiple chips to adapt to various scenarios.”
Different OEMs have their own unique understanding of the E/E architecture, so it is necessary to open up to customers and partners to help them complete the entire design and development. "This is also in line with the mainstream trend of flexibility and openness in the entire automotive industry chain"
In the construction of Journey 5 ecological cooperation, from bottom to top, IDH (original designer/independent design company) includes Jinmai Electronics, Yingchi Technology, Tianzhun Technology, etc., providing hardware solution design and system support And bottom software debugging, etc.; software vendors include Qingzhou Zhihang, Heduo Technology, Juefei Technology, etc., providing software capabilities such as sensory control; hardware domain control, including Luxshare, Freetech, UMC, etc.
Ultimately, they will jointly provide services to OEMs.