Electronic exterior mirrors (CMS) will officially enter the era of pre-installed mass production.
On July 1, the "Performance and Installation Requirements for Motor Vehicle Indirect Vision Devices" (GB15084-2022) was officially implemented. In the new national standard, the rearview mirror is changed to an indirect view device, and the camera-monitor system is included, which means that CMS can replace the traditional optical rearview mirror and be equipped with models alone for mass production and launch.
As early as two years ago, the launch of the world's first CMS-equipped models, such as Audi E-Tron, Lexus ES300h, and Honda e, attracted a wave of attention around the world. Behind this is that Japan and Europe have introduced relevant laws and regulations as a basis.
In the Chinese market, many car companies are also following up quickly. Brands including BAIC, Lotus, Xpeng, Hongqi, Dongfeng and other brands have revealed plans for models equipped with CMS products. For example, the BAIC Rubik's Cube, which was officially launched in July last year, is the first model in China to advertise that it will be equipped with electronic rearview mirrors. However, since the new regulations have not yet been officially implemented, the optional CMS configuration has not been implemented.
With the official implementation of the new national standard, this situation will also be changed.
The advantages of electronic exterior mirrors are very obvious, including expanding the field of vision to reduce blind spots, enhancing the display of driving environment images in bad weather, etc., which greatly improves safety; it also has considerable effects in reducing wind resistance, energy saving and emission reduction. CMS products can also integrate rich ADAS functions, provide support for high-end intelligent driving systems and intelligent network connections, bring better human-computer interaction and driving experience, and are likely to become the next hot high-end intelligent configuration.
Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute predicts that by 2025, the scale of front-mounted electronic exterior mirrors for passenger cars in the Chinese market alone may exceed one million sets per year.
Local suppliers get together
In the Chinese market, the track for front-mounted electronic exterior mirrors has not been fully opened, but there are already a large number of competitors.
According to public information, in addition to the above-mentioned BAIC Rubik’s Cube, there are also high-end models of Dongfeng Fengshen’s new model “Haohan”, Lotus ELETRE, BYD Song L, Haobo Hyper GT, Xiaopeng G7, Hongqi and other car companies. It is planned to be equipped with automotive electronic exterior mirrors.
In terms of commercial vehicles, several domestic car companies such as Shaanxi Automobile Delonghi, BYD Pure Electric Bus, and Liuqi Chenglong Automobile have unveiled models equipped with CMS systems, covering buses, tractors and other models.
Behind this, a large number of local suppliers have already preemptively deployed and realized product upgrades and innovations based on their own technological advantages.
Among them, Hefei Jiangcheng, the CMS supplier of BAIC Rubik's Cube, completed the mass production of electronic exterior mirror products as early as 2021, and fully complied with relevant domestic regulations. Now that the new national standard is officially implemented, its pre-installed mass production will also quickly land.
Huayang GM has also deployed electronic exterior mirrors for many years. Relying on years of product development experience in streaming media rearview mirrors and technical reserves in dynamic image processing, display screen design and other related aspects, it released electronic exterior mirror products in early 2022. , respectively launched CMS products for passenger cars and commercial vehicles , which have great advantages in size, stability, safety and reliability.
According to the data, Huayang GM’s electronic exterior mirrors can automatically adjust the rear viewing angle according to the vehicle’s steering or reversing information in steering, reversing, and high-speed driving modes. Increase a certain angle to greatly improve driving safety.
Huayang General Motors passed the ISO26262 automotive functional safety process certification in April 2021. Among them, the electronic exterior mirror can provide the driver with a clearer and wider exterior rear view at night, rain, fog and other bad weather through the HDR function of the camera and a special image processing algorithm.
With its excellent product strength and innovation, Huayang GM Electronic Exterior Mirror has been well received since its launch in 2022, and has been designated as a domestic OEM project.
By integrating the advantages of the three major product lines of vehicle cameras, display screens, and system controllers, OFILM has launched a comprehensive solution for electronic rearview mirrors. The left and right outer arms of OFILM's self-developed electronic rearview mirror are each equipped with a 2M camera with heating function, and two 7-inch display screens are used in the cabin. and high reliability. At present, OFILM has successfully obtained the fixed-point projects of passenger cars from many car manufacturers. At the same time, the company is accelerating the implementation of the project and will realize mass production after the implementation of the new regulations.
Yinjia Technology’s VTCMS electronic exterior mirror system has launched two sets of solutions, VTCMS01 (commercial vehicle) and VTCMS02 (passenger vehicle) for the application requirements of commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles. In particular, the volume of VTCMS02 can be reduced to three times that of traditional rearview mirrors. At the same time, it can cooperate with the auxiliary safety system to remind the driver more intuitively, such as providing blind spot monitoring, door opening warning, rear crossing assistance and other functions.
Another earlier supplier, Yuxing Electronics, has achieved batch delivery of its CMS products in the field of commercial vehicle aftermarket since 2019. At present, its CMS products have been iterated to the fifth generation, and have been used in Yutong Bus-Bus, Beijing Jingjing Mass production of Shenshen Xiang Technology Deepway smart heavy-duty truck project has been achieved, and other fixed-point projects include Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle, Foton Commercial Vehicle, Foton Daimler, and FAW Jiefang several leading commercial vehicle companies .
In addition, according to public information, Chuangda, Zejing Electronics, Joyson Electronics, Freetech, Desay SV, Jingwei Hengrun, etc. have related product deployments or designated locations.
At present, the suppliers who have been designated by the CMS of domestic car companies are mainly local suppliers, but foreign suppliers are also rapidly landing in the Chinese market. Among them, FORVIA is the first enterprise in the industry to obtain the EU certification for electronic exterior mirrors. At present, its electronic exterior mirror products have also received project orders from Chinese car companies. With the implementation of the above regulations on July 1, its CMS products will also enter mass production.
It can be said that the above-mentioned enterprises have already completed product development and verification in the window period of standard formulation, and now they are able to take the lead in seizing market opportunities when the pre-installation mass production market opens.
Difficulties in mass production of cross-domain pre-installation
In the critical period of pre-installation mass production, CMS, as an emerging product that has not been verified by mass production, still has problems such as high requirements for vehicle regulations, difficult technology and development, and high cost.
In addition, some industry insiders pointed out that some products lack sufficient research and development and technical iterative verification, the accumulation of test samples in vehicles, the true quality, safety and reliability performance of products for pre-installed mass production, may restrict the subsequent large-scale CMS products. mass production process.
First of all, let’s look at the technical aspect. There are still not small technical thresholds in terms of functional safety, system delay, and image quality.
For example, the national standard requires the CMS system to reach the functional safety level of ASIL-B; in addition, the system design needs to consider various extreme working conditions and system delays, and the delay time is required to be less than 200 milliseconds, and the screen display screen is 30 frames. In addition, problems such as dispersion/light leakage, glare, depth of field, halo, and distortion are often encountered in actual application scenarios, which need to be dealt with in the later stage by relying on powerful image algorithm technology.
Fu Bingkai, deputy general manager of Shanghai Yuxing Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., said that the CMS product is a cross-field and interdisciplinary highly integrated system product, involving traditional optics, sensor communication, electronic circuits, engineering institutions and other fields. Suppliers have very high requirements on lens design, chip selection, ISP/DSP system design and testing capabilities of cameras and monitor systems.
He also specifically mentioned that the verification test based on real vehicle mass production coordinate data is a necessary means to ensure the safety and reliability of the system. For example, the installed prototype vehicles and the products released by various suppliers do not comply with the requirements for the installation position of the camera in clause 3.3.2 and 3.3.3 of ISO16505, which will cause the image magnification to not change linearly, and the vehicle behind will suddenly become larger when approaching, causing the driver Misjudgment of object distance and object speed will cause potential safety hazards.
For pre-installation mass production, suppliers need to achieve product functional safety certification, system optimization and testing, and make preparations for mass production in terms of engineering and solution adaptation.
OFILM CMS products have obtained the ISO26262 functional safety level ASIL-B certification in June 2022. At the same time, the company has an independent functional safety team to independently complete the functional safety development of CMS products. Its products take only 35 milliseconds from the camera shooting, transmission to the display screen to display the picture stably, which is far higher than the requirements of the new national standard.
OFILM has a complete product line of vehicle cameras, display screens, and system controllers, and its CMS system solution has a cost-effective advantage; Escort for the smooth landing of the project."
Yuxing Electronics independently developed the fifth-generation front-mounted electronic rearview mirror system with unique intellectual property rights - SmartEye 2.0 SmartEye2.0 has a single camera with multiple curvatures that can temporarily adjust the field of view through a camera to meet complex scenes; The camera with three-piece, double-chamber structure design uses a vent valve to improve the heat dissipation and pressure of the camera during operation; it also uses full-pixel head-up camera technology to solve the problems of pincushion, barrel, and linear distortion produced by market lenses.
In addition to the above, the current cost of electronic rearview mirrors is still at a high level, and further cost reduction is needed.
The CMS system is mainly composed of three parts: camera, display screen, and controller. Compared with traditional optical rearview mirrors, a system is much higher. In the field of pre-installation of passenger cars, CMS systems also mostly appear as options. The price of options is around 7,000 to 16,000 yuan, and they are mainly concentrated in the high-end model market.
Industry analysts believe that in the next two years, the cost of the CMS system will gradually decrease under the benefits of equalizing the scale of mass production and improving the industrial chain.
In addition, under the trend of integration and integration, the integration of CMS system and driver assistance (ADAS), the integration of CMS interior and exterior mirrors, and the trend of domain control integration can further reduce system hardware requirements. From a system perspective, the resulting cost-effective advantages of comprehensive functions can also stimulate market demand.
For example, the CMS product launched by OFILM has integrated some ADAS functions to realize functions such as blind spot alarm and door opening warning. When the blind spot is monitored and alarmed, it provides early warning information display and field of view switching, and can provide five display field of view positions, which can be personalized according to the driver's usage habits.
Based on the powerful algorithm capability, through the interaction with radar and camera and the integration of specific software algorithms, Huayang GM’s CMS products can also realize rich ADAS functions, such as blind spot detection (BSD), rear view width, door opening warning (DOW), Lane Change Assist (LCA), vehicle distance display, etc.
In general, CMS system suppliers have mastered core technical capabilities and achieved decoupling of software and hardware, and can adapt to Tier 1 diversified solutions; in addition, they have realized comprehensive supply of diversified deployments in the fields of HUD, DMS, ADAS, etc. Providers have obvious advantages in function integration, technical collaboration, and system cost optimization.