In the face of the three-week notice of suspension of production, Musk insisted on going to work and so on

China star company Momenta cooperates with Toyota, and BMW's annual income exceeds 654.38 billion euros.

Tesla's large car factory in fremont, San Francisco Bay Area may have to temporarily stop producing electric cars to prevent the spread of coronavirus, although Elon musk, the company's founder and CEO, obviously doesn't want to do so.

Late on March 17, local time, the alameda county Police Department said through Twitter that Tesla's fremont factory "is not an important business as defined in the Health Order of alameda county. According to the health order in Alameda County, Tesla can maintain the minimum basic operation.

Alameda county Public Security Department spokesman Ray Kelly (Ray? Kelly) told Forbes magazine that these minimum operations include functions such as salary, human resources and facility maintenance, but do not include shift production activities of automobile production lines.

Musk has not commented on the operation of the fremont factory, but he said on Twitter that "it is foolish to panic about COVID-19". The Los Angeles Times and other media have reported that Musk sent an email to employees on March 16, saying that employees can work at home voluntarily and the Tesla fremont factory will not be closed.

Tesla's car production line is still running normally, and it didn't respond whether it would stop production or whether any employees tested positive for COVID-19 virus.

In the past few weeks, Tesla was repeatedly asked how to deal with the health crisis brought by COVID-19, but no response was received. It is unclear whether Tesla has other public communication teams besides Musk's Twitter account.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Musk wrote in an email: "Frankly speaking, I think the danger of COVID-19 panic is far greater than the virus itself." . In the email, he clearly stated that "the number of cases in COVID-19 will not exceed 0. 1% of the total population".

Musk said: "I will continue to stick to my post, but only personally. I hope you can stay at home with peace of mind instead of working in panic. "

The video uploaded to Twitter by the LA Times reporter shows that on the morning of March 17, the parking lot of Tesla fremont factory was full of cars, and many employees took several buses to work normally. The factory is the only large-scale automobile factory on the west coast of the United States, mainly producing Model? 3. Model? S cars and models? X, model? Y and other SUV models. Tesla said on Twitter that delivery will start this week? Models? Type y

Tesla said that due to China's policy to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic, it was required to temporarily close the newly-built Tesla Giga Shanghai in June+10, 5438.

Alameda County in fremont and Santa Clara County in San Francisco (Santa? Clara) has implemented the home segregation policy since March 65438, 2006. In addition to grocery stores, pharmacies, medical services and other important service activities, enterprises in Silicon Valley will be closed for three weeks.

Momenta and Toyota reached a strategic cooperation on autonomous driving.

March 18, Momenta, the star enterprise of China Autopilot Technology Company? Momenta and Toyota announced a strategic cooperation to provide Toyota with high-precision maps and update services based on camera vision technology. The two sides will jointly promote the commercial landing of Toyota Automatic Map Platform (AMP) in China, so as to better serve users in China.

Momenta's high-precision map is based on the vision scheme, combined with the perception technology of deep learning and the visual mapping and positioning technology (SLAM), and can realize automatic high-precision map mapping only by using consumer sensors (camera, GPS, IMU), with a relative accuracy of 10cm.

At the same time, map technology covers a wealth of road information, including not only geometric features such as traffic signs, road poles, lane lines, traffic lights, road signs, but also semantic relations and semantic information at the road level and lane level.

This technology can be widely applied to various mass production sensors and realize large-scale low-cost commercial applications.

In addition, Momenta's automated map production line can efficiently process big data and ensure the freshness of high-precision maps, thus providing fresh and safe maps for different autonomous driving functions such as positioning, planning and control.

Momenta's strategy is to walk on two legs, on the one hand, realize mass production and automatic driving, on the other hand, realize the complete unmanned driving of travel service vehicles. This cooperation with Toyota is of great significance to promoting the strategy of walking on two legs.

In 20 17, Momenta was invested by Daimler, which was Daimler's first venture capital project in China. Today, another strategic cooperation with Toyota represents the attention and concern of top international car companies for China's original technology.

The United States plans to revise two standards for driverless cars.

On March 17, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it planned to carry out a comprehensive reform of automobile safety to promote the development of fully autonomous vehicles.

The agency proposes to modify the rules of passenger protection, driving control, glass materials, door locks, seating systems, side impact protection, roof compression and child restraint anchoring systems for self-driving cars. There will be 60 days to solicit public opinions before the proposal is finalized.

After the revision, the safety protection standards for all the front passengers of driverless cars are the same as those for the front co-pilot passengers of ordinary cars, instead of complying with the safety standards required by drivers. Another modification is that self-driving trucks without drivers or passengers do not need passenger safety protection facilities.

James, acting director of NHTSA? Owens said: "We don't want the regulations promulgated long before the emergence of autonomous driving technology to become unnecessary obstacles to innovation and improvement of highway safety."

This is not to change the safety rules of traditional man-controlled cars. NHTSA said in its proposal: "Because the potential of autonomous driving technology is mostly unproven and its impact is unknown, the agency believes that the most cautious way is to remove unnecessary obstacles that hinder innovation and ensure that passengers continue to be protected by existing regulations."

"This is good news for road safety," Alliance said. ? For what? Cars? Innovation) said, "Through this rule, the US Department of Transportation is also taking necessary measures to reduce regulatory barriers against advanced safety technologies and protect the safety of passengers."

Jason Levin, director of the Automotive Safety Center (Jason? Levine) criticized the actions taken by NHTSA during the coronavirus epidemic and thought that the regulatory safeguards for autonomous driving technology should not be cancelled, because even the Ministry of Communications did not prove its safety.

20/kloc-in June, 2008, General Motors applied to NHTSA for exemption, allowing it to deploy as many as 2,500 vehicles without steering wheel and other manual control devices on American roads every year. However, the agency has not yet taken action on this.

Although automakers all over the world are competing to develop self-driving cars, this technology has not been widely recognized by consumers. The recent accidents of self-driving cars have also made people doubt whether these vehicles are suitable for the road.

In February of this year, NHTSA also approved the Nuro self-driving car that did not meet the existing automobile safety standards for the first time. Nuro can temporarily deploy as many as 5,000 low-speed electric delivery vehicles without manual control devices such as mirrors and steering wheels.

Waymo, suspend the car service of Waymo One autopilot network.

In the context of the novel coronavirus epidemic, on March 17, Waymo said that it would suspend Waymo? One is to commercialize the online car service, because it still needs the support of human security officers. But what about Waymo? One's completely unmanned research project will continue to provide passenger services.

There are many technology companies in the United States that develop and test self-driving cars, but Waymo's Waymo? One is the first small-scale semi-listed company to commercialize online car rental projects. The project, like Uber and Raffles, requires users to register and log in on the designated APP. At present, the operation scope is limited to the suburb of Phoenix 100 square mile.

The company also recently released waymo? Via project is an independent business department, mainly dealing with self-driving trucks and urban distribution business.

The company said in a written statement: "Cancelling drivers will not only make our roads safer, but also help our passengers stay healthy in these uncertain times, which brings us great hope."

Waymo did not disclose the specific details of the fully self-driving cars it provided in Phoenix, which operated without human safety drivers. 20 19 to 10 CEO John Krafsick (John? Krafcik) said that the scope of driverless business has expanded, but at present the project is still only for the company's "Early passengers" (early? Rider) project members are open.

Waymo's safety driver signed a contract with transnational transport operator Transdev. Waymo has indicated that it will provide funds for the latter to help it tide over the crisis.

"We are committed to working with our labor partners and suppliers to ensure that their employees get the support they need during the continuous development of the novel coronavirus epidemic." A Waymo spokesperson said, "To this end, Waymo promised to provide funds. If employees are infected with the virus during their normal work for Waymo, or cannot go to work due to isolation or business suspension, our partners can compensate them. "

In addition, Waymo also suspended testing in California according to local prevention and control policies.

Tesla will start the automatic stop function at the red light.

Tesla's latest update seems to indicate some new features that allow cars to stop automatically when they encounter red lights and stop signs. If it is realized, it will be an important step for Tesla to launch an urban driving system for vehicles.

Tesla community resident hacker @greentheonly shared this possible red light and stop sign function. Hackers can simply study Tesla's 2020. 12 update software. Although this update is very common, it is exactly the same as the 20.8 version of the update software, but the hidden icon in its code strongly suggests that Tesla is introducing the automatic parking function.

In the newly updated software, hackers found a stop sign icon, a red light icon and a warning icon. It remains to be seen what these icons actually represent. However, @greentheonly mentioned that the above icon may be displayed when Tesla turns on the automatic parking function.

For Tesla fully automatic driving kit (full? Driving by car? Suite), it is a very valuable function to stop when encountering stop signs and red lights. The kit is designed to allow vehicles to drive on city streets without driver input.

Tesla's FSD order page specifically mentioned this function, saying: "The ability to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs will be realized later this year." Adding such a new icon shows that the Tesla team has collected enough data, and the team's neural network is identifying and learning how to react when encountering stop signs and red lights.

In addition to the new automatic stop icon, the software updated in 2020 at 438+02 seems to be ready to display FSD images on Tesla cars equipped with old-fashioned infotainment systems. This is good for cars equipped with Tesla's old MCU 1, because some of them have already purchased fully automatic driving kits. Finally, for car owners who don't want to spend $2,500 to buy a modified version of MCU2, their electric cars will still show the latest visual effects and introduce new FSD functions.

At present, Tesla is fully promoting that its fully automatic driving kit will introduce more new features. Although Tesla CEO Elon? Musk) failed to launch the "full-featured" FSD at the end of 20 19, but the company is expected to make significant progress this year. As the automatic parking function seems to be coming soon, referring to the "reverse call" function and the automatic driving system Autopilot will introduce a lot of improved functions, Tesla's driving function in the city may be realized ahead of schedule.

By 2025, BMW will invest more than 30 billion euros in research and development.

On March 18, BMW Group held an online press conference for its 2020 financial report. In 20 19, the sales volume of BMW group exceeded 2.53 million vehicles for the first time, and the total annual revenue exceeded 1042 1000 billion euros for the first time, with a year-on-year increase of 7.6%.

Facing the beginning of 2020, the spread of the epidemic prevented BMW from closing some factories. Dr. Peter (Nicholas? Peter) said that BMW has a very clear goal in 2020, focusing on cash flow and profit margin, and will take a series of measures to increase revenue and reduce expenses.

The BMW Group said that they are embracing the changes in the automobile industry with confidence, and always focus on customers, and constantly invest a lot of money in research and development to guide and shape the future travel experience.

Zipper (Oliver? Zipse) attended the annual meeting for the first time as the chairman of BMW Group. He said that by 2025, BMW plans to invest more than 30 billion euros in research and development to consolidate its position as an innovation leader. At present, the annual investment of BMW Group in R&D has exceeded 5 billion euros for five consecutive years.

By 2023, BMW Group's new energy product line will be expanded to 25 models, more than half of which are pure electric vehicles. The key to achieve this goal is a highly flexible production system and an intelligent vehicle architecture compatible with all kinds of powertrains such as pure electric, plug-in hybrid and internal combustion engine.

During the transition from 202 1 to enhanced smart car architecture, 50% of BMW's traditional power models will not develop follow-up products, thus supporting the launch of more power models. These measures will play a full role in the field of electrification after 2022.

According to the forecast of BMW Group, the global new energy sales curve will show an obvious upward trend before 2025, with an average annual growth rate of over 30%. It is predicted that by 202 1, the demand for electric vehicles will double that of 20 19.

Chairman Zipser said: "New technology is the key to future travel. The ability of innovation integration and system integration will become crucial. Only companies that can develop and integrate software and hardware at the same time can shape the future of automobiles. In this regard, we are obviously already in the fast lane. "

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.