"Smart Cockpit" or "Retarded Cockpit"? Just look at these four points and you're done.

How to describe the changes that have taken place in our car cockpits over the years? It is probably that the source of listening to music has changed from cassette tapes to N-disc CDs, and finally to today’s smart car machines; that earthy machine The key can both open the door and start the car. Gone are the old tricks of using a piece of iron wire to open the door.

Coupled with the booming mobile Internet, all kinds of smart software and smart configurations are crammed into cars, and car companies are not willing to lag behind in claiming how high-tech their cockpit configurations are.

So how smart are our current cockpits, or are they all truly smart? Let’s have a chat today!

Whether it is a smart cockpit or not, you will know it the moment you open the door

The first feeling when entering the car is very important. As the first threshold to experience the smart cockpit, it is basically The routine for traditional fuel vehicles is keyless entry and one-button start, but for smart cockpits, it is simply trivial. Usually, what manufacturers play the most is to get rid of keys as much as possible.

For example, Tesla uses a card-type key. To be honest, the experience is not much more convenient than a key, and it looks a bit like a star hotel room key, which can easily cause misunderstandings...

Of course, you can also bind the car owner’s mobile phone to the app, which is a little bit ahead of traditional fuel vehicles.

If you are an avid fan, you can also try the following cool operation: A man named Ben Workman from Utah, USA, implanted the chip in the Tesla Model 3 proximity card key Once it's in the subcutaneous tissue on the back of your right hand, you no longer need to unlock or swipe your phone with your phone when getting in the car, just rub the B-pillar with the back of your hand.

Do I have to undergo surgery just to make it easier to get on the bus? This is too unintelligent. In comparison, our independent brands are much smarter than this!

For example, Leapao S01 provides "fingerprint vein recognition unlocking" and "face recognition activation", which is unique enough. Through the sensor button on the door handle, vein biometric technology is used to identify the vein distribution map with infrared, which is more secure than fingerprint unlocking.

When entering the car, the vehicle can be started directly through face recognition technology, thus achieving a true "keyless" start that does not require a key at all. At the same time, the system will automatically synchronize the settings. seat position, rearview mirror adjustment and even music collection and navigation records, etc.

Ever since I have experienced this kind of face recognition, I will feel that password input and fingerprint recognition are just a cloud. It is as smooth as FACE ID on Apple phones, and it is done as soon as you get in the car. Of course, compared to the less popular fingerprint vein recognition, other car companies are currently equipped with face recognition systems, such as Xpeng G3 and Roewe's RX5 eMAX.

That’s right, a truly smart cockpit will be fully prepared for you as soon as you sit in the driver’s seat.

Is voice interaction smart enough? Just shout out

For a long time, human-computer interaction in the car has usually been achieved through buttons. However, as a smart cockpit, it is too much to click on the screen and press buttons every day.

So if you want to test whether it is a "smart cockpit" or a "retarded cockpit", you can just shout.

Some so-called smart car machines have slow recognition speeds, high error rates, and very few functions. Moreover, the voice control part is only limited to the car system. There is basically no IoT for electronic components in the car. If you want to turn on the air conditioner or open the sunroof by voice, there are no functions that need to be linked with hardware. For such a "smart cockpit", I'm afraid You need to add the word "half" in front.

In contrast, some cars and machines not only enable real voice interaction, but are also very humane. For technology geeks, virtual tenderness is essential.

For example, NIO's NOMI not only supports wake words and natural semantic recognition, but also has richer functions, whether it is daily multimedia operations (playing music, radio) or vehicle-machine linkage (adjusting driving mode, power recovery intensity). ), and even localized services (finding food, looking for charging) can be realized directly through voice.

You can even chat and tell jokes with the car owner. Interacting with NOMI like teasing Siri before is also one of the fun for car owners.

Although many people think voice interaction is dispensable, after the editor experienced the accurate and intelligent voice system, I really can't go back. Perhaps it can be said that it's not that we don't want to use the voice function, but that the voice function of some models is too useless. It is not only very embarrassing to use, but also the effect is not good, so it is better not to use it.

True OTA upgrade allows you to drive a new car every day

It is a man’s nature to like the new and dislike the old. After all, after facing the same car (or the same person) for N years, unless you can be like Like Jack Geller in Friends, otherwise it will be a matter of time before you get bored.

Unfortunately, cars are durable goods, and it is obviously unrealistic to replace them with another one every now and then. Of course, if you are a wealthy person, just pretend that I didn’t say that. So can the smart cockpit in the new era allow you to try new things every day without buying a new car?

The answer is - OTA upgrade.

"OTA" is not new in the digital field, but recently it has become popular in the automotive industry. Because new energy vehicles emphasize intelligence, and intelligence is inseparable from the iteration and evolution of software and hardware. OTA is actually very simple. It refers to Over-the-Air Technology, which is over-the-air (wireless) download and upgrade technology.

Thanks to OTA upgrades, many pure electric vehicles, including Tesla Model 3, can remotely upgrade vehicle software to achieve the magical effect of adding new functions to the vehicle and even changing performance. For example, the intelligent assisted driving system is gradually opened through software upgrades. With the iteration of versions, Tesla's AP intelligent assisted driving has been successively updated with a series of major upgrades including automatic lane changing, ice cream cone recognition, etc.

For control and performance, OTA can also achieve improvements. The most famous one is the "brake door" overseas last year. When the foreign media "Consumer Reports" tested the braking performance of Model 3, it was found that Model? 3 In the 100-kilometer braking event, the braking distance was too long. In response to media test feedback, Tesla pushed the latest version of the software OTA upgrade. After completing the upgrade, Consumer Reports once again conducted a braking test on Model 3, and the braking distance was shortened by 6 meters.

It can be seen that through OTA upgrades, the vehicle's control response can be changed. For traditional fuel vehicles, the experience of "driving a new car" after such an upgrade is difficult to experience.

But! Not all OTAs are true OTAs as mentioned above, but OTAs that only upgrade the central control system. In other words, they are incomplete OTAs, because at most they only improve the UI and interaction design of the central control system, or It just adds a few multimedia functions.

The difference between them is that "fake OTA" simply upgrades the functions of the central control screen, while "real OTA" improves the software and hardware performance of the entire vehicle. Moreover, with the existence of big data and the cloud, today's smart electric vehicles can continuously update and iterate the vehicle by collecting experimental data or road data to improve the product experience.

Therefore, only with true OTA can it be called a “smart cockpit”.

A hodgepodge of special features, you won’t know until you have used them

Whether it is smart cars or OTA upgrades, various manufacturers are working together in this direction, but the taste is becoming more and more tricky. These are obviously not enough for consumers, so some "fancy" functions are needed at this time.

For example, the recently promoted Roewe AR-assisted driving was initially deployed on its flagship pure electric SUV MARVEL eMAX is also equipped.

The AR-Driving real-scene driving assistance system 2.0 will project the real-time road conditions in front of the car onto the instrument, and it also comes with real-time guidance on road conditions such as turns, forks, U-turns, etc., to achieve accurate AR real-scene navigation.

Xpeng G3, as a new force in car manufacturing, has also taken a different approach. In addition to our conventional cameras, it is also equipped with a roof camera, which is mainly used to achieve the two functions of "God's perspective" and taking pictures.

The so-called "God's perspective" allows us to use this camera to "secretly observe" the scene outside the car, and it can also achieve 360° images to assist in passing obstacles. It can achieve an effect similar to that of a 360° driving recorder; if you encounter an obstacle, it is perfect to check the blind spot through the "God's perspective".

As for the camera function, I personally think that the entertainment orientation is greater than the intelligence orientation...

So are these functions worthy of the word "smart"? From a technical point of view, manufacturers are indeed spending a lot of money. A lot of effort has gone into it, but judging from the actual situation, it has not achieved earth-shattering results. After all, everyone is in the exploratory stage of intelligence, and the specific application of technological configurations also requires the participation of consumers.

The ultimate meaning of smart cockpit is actually autonomous driving

Based on what we said above, the current definition of "smart cockpit" should be an all-round adaptive entry experience. Good operational interaction and later OTA upgrades, as well as practical intelligent driving assistance.

But from a development perspective, if you want to make a qualitative leap in driving experience, I personally think that autonomous driving is the ultimate answer!

Nowadays, among the intelligent attributes of new energy vehicles, autonomous driving is becoming more and more important. Look at the dazzling array of promotions on the posters - L2, L3, L2 Plus, L2.5, L2. The current mainstream OEMs can basically reach the L2 level.

So when autonomous driving continues to develop, what will the supporting smart cockpit look like? At the 2019 CIIE, Kia’s R.E.A.D. Me unmanned intelligent cockpit gave the answer:

When an unmanned vehicle is equipped with a future driving concept cockpit and the vehicle drives automatically, what if If you want to use your time on the road to work, you only need a laptop and a cup of coffee to turn the cockpit into an office - when we click to open the office mode, the seat moves forward; the small table automatically pops up, and the cabin also It will be changed into a light environment suitable for office; of course, if you want to drive by yourself, there is no problem at all. After clicking the driving mode, the steering wheel will automatically rotate out from under the table. At this time, the front windshield becomes transparent, and the driver and passengers can You can see real-time information about traffic conditions.

Therefore, waiting for complete autonomous driving and then matching such a cockpit will be a truly intelligent existence!

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.