You want to write code to build a smart car? Wei Lai: I am a thief 6

[car home? Science and technology] We are always talking about how to provide consumers with distinctive products with the advent of the era of smart cars, but compared with the Ford Model T launched by 1908, at least on the surface, there is no essential difference. Where is the so-called industry change reflected? How to understand the software-defined car? On the solstice of the winter of 2020, we were lucky enough to meet Mr. Zhou Xin, executive vice president of Weilai, who just got off the plane, and had a profound conversation with him about the future and smart cars.

Adas & ampAd Assisted Driving and Automatic Driving

I don't know when SAE's automatic driving classification has become a common language for product packaging of major OEMs. Today, I released an L2-level assisted driving, and tomorrow you will get an L2.5-level assisted driving. The day after tomorrow, he said that his product was equipped with L2.9-level driver assistance. Of course, this is due to the continuous improvement of suppliers' technology, which makes the realization of assisted driving function easier and cheaper. But at the same time, this originally advanced technology began to become a bit less advanced.

In Weilai's car-making logic, they are used to thinking about what kind of experience should be provided to customers first, and then deducing what the form of this function is. With a clear function, it is divided into specific parts, such as hardware and software needed to realize the function, and finally it is decided which supplier's products to choose in the market.

It is understood that in NIO? Before the official launch of Pilot, Weilai had internally iterated 10 versions. For a company that was just established at the end of 20 14, it is definitely a "First Five-Year Plan" strategic route to set up a special self-driving R&D team on 20 15.

"It is difficult for us to predict what the result will be, because there are many factors that affect the result. What we can do is to make full use of what we have at hand, and how the results are finally handed over to users for selection and evaluation. " According to the data disclosed by Zhou Xin, 50% of the models delivered at present choose to buy NIO? Pilot. And 10 February 23rd, based on NIO? The pilot's driving mileage has exceeded 1 100 million kilometers. Although this result can't be intuitively compared with other manufacturers, you can still feel his satisfaction at this stage from between the lines.

Many autonomous driving companies and suppliers regard ADAS and AD as two different products. There has always been a voice in the industry that the underlying logic of L 1 to L2 is very different from L3 to L5, so it will be divided into two teams from the time of research and development. Faced with this problem, Zhou Xin believes that this technology should be gradual, iterative and upgraded, and step into a high-level process step by step.

When asked which is more likely to become the mainstream route of autonomous driving technology in the future: offline bicycle autonomous driving or online V2X autonomous driving, Zhou Xin also expressed his views.

The ability to drive a bicycle automatically should be the foundation. First of all, the car must be able to drive automatically well. V2X technology and high-precision maps play an auxiliary role rather than a decisive role.

Of course, with the blessing of V2X and high-precision maps, the driving process can be more efficient and fast, but without these, a smart car should have enough ability to send passengers to their destinations like people.

Fota- firmware upgrade in the air

The word smart car is a new name that has become popular in recent two years. Its purpose is nothing more than to distinguish its products from the traditional products in the automobile market in the past. But what is a smart car, it seems that no one can say it well. At this point, we try to give a definition to this brand-new thing-

In the above definition, the importance of update iteration is obvious. Because only with the ability of iteration can smart cars continue to progress in a smarter direction. But the same OTA technology, SOTA and FOTA have obvious differences in ability. If you don't know much about it, you may wish to click on the link "FOTA era of cars?" Selling cars is just the beginning. ?

NIO mentioned above? Pilotage and navigation? Open? Pilot being pushed to users is actually a manifestation of Weilai FOTA's ability, but it can do more than just open and upgrade its assisted driving ability. As early as this time last year, the memory of the main driver's seat and the snow mode introduced by Weilai through FOTA are a good example.

Snow mode can better reflect the difference between FOTA and OTA. Turning on the snow mode will force the vehicle to maintain the working state of full-time four-wheel drive and lock the torque distribution of the front and rear axles of the motor at 50:50. In addition, the initial response sensitivity of the accelerator pedal has also been slightly adjusted, which makes the vehicle start more softly on the slippery road surface, and the braking energy recovery system will be automatically set to the lowest level, thus reducing the slipping phenomenon caused by the power generation of the wheel reverse drag motor.

"Snow mode is actually a function that we began to think about after receiving actual feedback from some northern car owners. Our team of engineers quickly developed the function after receiving the demand in the winter of 20 18, and then went to yakeshi for field vehicle testing in June of 20 19. After nearly a year of repeated verification and testing, this function was pushed to users through FOTA at the end of the year. "

"Moreover, FOTA technology itself solves the needs of users, but it is also inseparable from the support of users." During the whole interview, Zhou Xin mentioned the users of Weilai many times. "In the most difficult year in Weilai, 20 19 was the user who helped us stick to it all the way."

Previously, many people questioned that Weilai made great efforts to build a service ecology, which seemed to be a thankless thing, but Zhou Xin didn't think so. Through one-button startup, one-button maintenance, power exchange service and NIO? House and other ways, Weilai always maintains online and offline high-frequency direct communication with users.

"It takes a long time for traditional cars to upgrade their software systems to 4S stores. What FOTA can do is to save a lot of time. For our users, the most extravagant thing is not watches and bags, but time that money can't buy. What we are doing is very simple, that is, we want to squeeze out the time that users should not waste and return it to users. "

EEA- Electronic and Electrical Architecture

In the final analysis, the assisted driving function and FOTA's iterative ability are closely related to the electronic and electrical architecture design of the car body. But when it comes to how to understand the word, Zhou Xin cited Lego as an example.

In the traditional automobile field, the electronic and electrical architecture is usually a discrete and distributed scheme. According to the development goals, car companies divide the functions of vehicles into several blocks and deploy ECU respectively. The advantage of this is simple and direct, and it is also Tier? 1 and Tier? What our suppliers have been trying to do for decades-package hardware and software and sell them directly to car companies.

Due to the continuous improvement of the ability of assisted driving function, the requirements for computing power are getting higher and higher. If the ECU of all parts of the vehicle is upgraded, it is not the optimal solution from the perspective of cost and integration. It's a bit like buying a computer to work, playing games and watching movies. From a broader perspective, these functions overlap or even cover each other, so why don't we just buy a high-performance computer to realize multi-function of one machine? Saving money also liberates the occupation of space.

Facing the just-needed FOTA, centralized SOC(System? Open? Chip (system on chip) is easier to manage and iterate than discrete domain controller or ECU. Can't ECU brush FOTA software in the past? It is not impossible. However, in the traditional concept of building a car, every hardware and its software are strongly coupled, and the packaging schemes of these hardware and software come from different suppliers around the world, which makes their programming languages, writing logic and even software and hardware interfaces different. Zhou Xin said that the development direction of Weilai electronic and electrical architecture is the decoupling of vehicle software and hardware, and the software should be completed by the main engine factory as far as possible, and then the appropriate hardware partners should be found according to the functional requirements.

"This is why most of the taxi calling software from Wei Lai was written by our engineers themselves. You must understand the software before you know what kind of hardware you need. " Zhou Xin said. "There are many masters in this field, but not necessarily in the automobile industry. IT may be in the IT field, the Internet industry, or even universities and scientific research institutions. "

In addition, he also briefly introduced the differences of the next generation electronic and electrical architecture independently developed by Weilai. "We don't think the electronic and electrical architecture in the traditional sense can represent the intelligent part. Wei Lai prefers to divide this part into several structures. For example, the logical architecture for vehicle thinking and decision-making, the operating system architecture for vehicle software, and the traditional electronic and electrical architecture for implementation. "

Of course, the reason why Microsoft and Intel can get along so well is inseparable from the support of Intel X86 and X64 architectures. On the other hand, Apple has just released a Macbook product with M 1 chip, and some software can't run. In the final analysis, it is also because of structural changes.

Before, the OEM didn't pay much attention to "writing programs" because everyone was used to the workflow of getting "finished products" directly from suppliers. This is a bit like borrowing a workbook from a classmate. When you get it, you not only write the answer, but also introduce the problem-solving ideas and derivation process in detail. The so-called integration ability is more from the perspective of engineering and machinery. In the future era of smart cars, this integration ability is also reflected in the high integration of automotive software platforms.

In fact, this will definitely affect the long-term cooperation mode between car companies and suppliers. From the past series to car companies as the center, suppliers at all levels closely revolve around this model.

In addition to the fast iteration speed of software, the iteration speed of many hardware has also begun to catch up with the pace of electronic products such as mobile phones and computers. "The iteration cycle of traditional automobile chassis parts is about 5 years, while batteries, chips and sensors will change greatly in about 12 months. If we are all configured according to the mainstream level at that time, when the chassis hardware of the vehicle is still in its heyday, batteries, chips and sensors may be outdated or have insufficient performance. "

"Maybe in a few days, NIO? Day? Not only can we see new products in 2020, but we can also reveal some specific technical details? " Faced with this suspicious question, Zhou didn't take the bait and didn't give a yes or no answer. Instead, she sold a sentence: "You will know when the time comes."

Write it at the end

The automobile industry is in the "fast lane" that the consumer electronics field has experienced. Both the collapse of traditional giants and the emergence of new giants occurred in just 10 years. Throughout the interview, Zhou Xin always emphasized that Weilai was a start-up. "No one can predict the changes in the industry. Wei Lai can only try to do his own thing. But one thing has not changed since the establishment of 20 14, and that is the original intention of creating a pleasant lifestyle for users. " (Figure/text? Car home? Yang Peng)