概括
[DoyouwanttofightwithHuaweiforspeedandTeslathansinkingXiaopengP5?】OnApril14thXiaopengMotorsusheredinitsthirdproductPreviouslythemodelwiththeinternalcodenameD55wasofficiallynamedXiaopengP5andlabeleditselfwiththe”world’sfirstmass-producedlidarsmartcar”title
April 14,Xiaopeng MotorsUshered in its third product, the previous model with the internal code name D55 was officially named Xiaopeng P5, and it gave itself the title of “the world’s first mass-produced lidar smart car”.
During the conference,Xiaopeng MotorsThe helm of He Xiaopeng himself did not appear, because the most critical price, performance, parameters and other information about the vehicle have not yet been announced, and they will be left for the official announcement of the Shanghai Auto Show a few days later.butXiaopeng MotorsVice President, Chief Designer, and Deputy General Manager of Automotive Technology Center, etc.ExecutivesThey walked to the front of the stage, taking turns to show everyone the highlights of this new car and the vision of Xiaopeng P5.
One of the most concerned is that the lidar “gets on the car”. It is worth noting that the first car of the joint model ARCFOX HBT jointly launched by Huawei and BAIC will be launched on the eve of the Shanghai Auto Show on April 17. A mass-produced model of Huawei’s LiDAR solution.
Recalling that a few months ago, He Xiaopeng shared his understanding and thinking on the next generation of autonomous driving software and hardware systems, and Xiaopeng P5 not only carries the latest achievements of Xiaopeng Motors’ latest technologies, but also contains the power of this new car. One stage of huge ambition.
In the past year, it went to the US to go public, went to Europe to complete the delivery in Norway, and invested in the construction of a new factory in Wuhan…Xpeng Motors is advancing in accordance with the established strategy and has reached one milestone after another.
As of now, Xiaopeng Motors has three models in its product family. The first two models are Xiaopeng G3 and Xiaopeng P7. Xiaopeng G3 was launched in December 2018 and is positioned as a compact SUV; Xiaopeng P7 will be launched in April 2020 and is positioned as a fashionable coupe. As of March this year, the two models have delivered a total of 50,000 new vehicles. This delivery volume is not so proud, but it is indeed a good momentum.
In the early stage of the competition for new car-building forces, they were dubbed by the industry as the “three silly car-building”Wei Lai, Xiaopeng, and ideals are often put together for comparison. However, as the development of the new energy industry has become more and more mature, this track has become more and more subdivided, and the main battlefields of several new car forces have begun to shift significantly.
In particular, the high-end and low-end markets in the new energy sector have been polarized.Wei LaiThe founder, chairman and CEO Li Bin has stated in public many times thatWei LaiThe competitor is the BBA traditionluxuryBrand; andIdeal carAt present, its only product, Ideal ONE, competes with fuel vehicles including Toyota Highlander; then what does Xiaopeng Motors pursue?
We may be able to find the answer from the P5, the third production car of Xiaopeng Motors.
Pricing 200,000 yuan stalls, sinking and fighting
Although the price of Xiaopeng P5 was not announced at the press conference, Yang Jian, deputy general manager of Xiaopeng Automobile’s Automotive Technology Center, revealed an information point in his speech.The price of the Xiaopeng P5 will be in the 200,000 yuan gear, which is positioned lower than the Xiaopeng P7.
Previously, Musk once in 2020TeslaBattery Day revealed,TeslaA cheaper model will be produced, priced at about 160,000 yuan. This new model will be completed in China from testing to off-line, and will be put into production in 2022 at the earliest.The birth of P5 may mean that Xiaopeng Motors is moreTeslaTake the lead and sound the sinking horn.
“In the mid-to-high-end market of about 200,000 yuan, you can only buy traditional joint venture B-class cars and those pure electric cars that don’t have much smart experience. The Xiaopeng P5 was born to change this status quo,” Yang Jian Said.
Yang Jian explains Xiaopeng P5 Source: Xiaopeng Motors
Obviously, the purpose of Xiaopeng P5 is to penetrate into the relatively sinking market. This means that this car will not only enter the main battlefield of traditional fuel vehicles, but will also fill the gap in Xiaopeng’s product range in this price range.
In the conference call of Xiaopeng Motors’ fiscal year 2020 annual report, He Xiaopeng also made it clear to investors thatXiaopeng’s third model will help Xiaopeng’s sales to achieve a qualitative leap.
It is also a product named P series. Xiaopeng P5 inherits the simple fading surface of P7, integrated through headlights and intelligent interactive light language, but few people have noticed that this is a platform based on Xiaopeng G3 at the time. The coming models did not adopt the new platform architecture.
The difference is that Xiaopeng P5 “releases more space in the car”. It has a length of 4808mm, a wheelbase of 2768mm, and a wheelbase larger thanBYDQin Pro, GAC E’an S and other models, although positioned as A+ class, the interior space of this car can reach the level of mainstream B-class cars, the interior space performance is remarkable, and the rear leg space can even reach 167mm.
At present, Xiaopeng Motors has two intelligent electric platforms, namely David and Edward. The David platform is designed for vehicles with a wheelbase of 2600mm to 2800mm, and the Edward platform is designed for vehicles with a wheelbase of 2800mm to 3100mm. Xiaopeng P7 was born on the Edward platform. According to Xiaopeng insiders,“Xpeng will build a fourth model based on the Edward platform in the future, which will be an SUV.”
Building a car on a shared platform is a routine operation in traditional car companies, and its benefits are obvious-the cost advantage is outstanding. Xiaopeng’s prospectus when it goes public in 2020 shows that “this new model will share approximately 70% of the components with G3, and it is expected that the development cost of the third model will be significantly reduced”, referring to the Xiaopeng P5.
Although nothing was mentioned about the content of the David platform at the press conference, products built on the platform used by G3 can still clearly see the shadow of G3, except for the wheelbase and size of the body, such as the vertical control screen. The screen and front row space are slightly cramped. These characteristics are the characteristics brought by the platform.
Source: Xiaopeng Motors
In terms of appearance, after the debut of the new car, the evaluation of it was mixed. Many people like Xiaopeng’s consistent design language, but there are also some voices saying that “the appearance is too mediocre compared to the P7”, “the tail looks a bit stupid”, “like a cheap car of 100,000 yuan”, and “the body proportion is beyond words. “.
Automobile is a product that integrates various design requirements. New energy vehicles also need to consider factors such as battery location, vehicle height, interior space, and sensor layout. Whether it is appearance or interior, Xiaopeng P5 is looking for its own balance.
A Xiaopeng P7 owner told Future Auto Daily (ID: auto-time) at the press conference,“When the P7 coupe came out, it felt amazing in appearance, especially the side lines. However, the design of this Xiaopeng P5 today looks quite satisfactory. I don’t know whether it is due to the platform or the change in design thinking. The appeal is not that strong.”
Lidar boarding, “stacking” inside roll
Yang Jian mentioned at the scene that Xiaopeng P5 has two goals in the research and development process, “to achieve the first level of intelligence and the first level of practicality.”
Xiaopeng Motors has been trying its best to label itself smart. At today’s press conference, the executives who took turns also spent a lot of space, emphasizing the intelligent attributes of Xiaopeng P5.
Sleep mode, smart projection, and even direct voice control of the drone outside the car, these are the functions of the Xiaopeng P5. However, for the current user perception and the core competitiveness of Xiaopeng Motors, the core function behind the “smart” label is autonomous driving. After all, Xiaopeng Motors has always emphasized that it is a company that develops commercial full-stack technologies for autonomous driving. company of.
Wu Xinzhou Source: Xiaopeng Automobile
Before the press conference, Xiaopeng Motors carried out an NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) expedition challenge event with great fanfare. The complexity of its route selection is trying to get close to the user’s daily use situation. It relies on the XPILOT 3.0 automatic driving assistance system throughout the process, which is also the current domestic situation. The longest distance self-driving assisted mass production function expedition activity.
The average number of takeovers per 100 kilometers is 0.71, the lane change and overtaking success rate is 94.41%, the tunnel passing success rate is 94.95%, and the ramp passing success rate is 92.76%…This is the key data that the XPILOT 3.0 automatic driving assistance system won in the event.
The new Xiaopeng P5’s automatic driving assistance system has also been upgraded to XPILOT 3.5. According to the official disclosure, the dual lidar combination of Xiaopeng P5 will provide a 150° ultra-wide point cloud field of view in front of the vehicle. Wu Xinzhou, vice president of Xiaopeng Motors, said that the upgrade from version 3.0 to version 3.5, thanks to the addition of Lidar, added the urban NGP function, and the application range of Xiaopeng Motors has expanded from highways to urban roads.
Specifically, the XPILOT 3.5 autonomous driving assistance system integrates 13 high-definition cameras, 5 millimeter wave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, 2 car-level lidars, a total of 32 sensors, and a high-precision positioning unit (GNSS+IMU). ), a 360° dual fusion perception of the environment with vision + radar.
In the new version, the vehicle’s ability to detect pedestrians, static obstacles, and small objects is comprehensively improved, covering more difficult scenes such as dark night, low light, backlighting, and tunnel light and dark alternation, improving safety redundancy, and being more suitable for China’s complex road conditions.
According to the official, according to the navigation route, the XPILOT 3.5 automatic driving assistance system can assist the driver to perform driving tasks. It has traffic light intersection capacity, urban road conditions overtaking capacity, customized car following capacity, roundabout capacity, and can also be based on the ground and road Dynamic automatic speed limit adjustment on road conditions.
Source: Xiaopeng Motors
The enhancement of these functions is largely due to the existence of lidar. Xiaopeng P5 claims to be the world’s first mass-produced lidar smart car, but there is still a lot of controversy about this title.
As early as 2018, Audi A8 equipped with Valeo SCALA lidar was mass-produced; in September 2020, Lucid, a start-up electric vehicle company headquartered in California, released the first mass-produced model Lucid Air, equipped with Sagitar Lidar; At the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, the Arcfox ARCFOX HBT, which BAIC and Huawei cooperated, will also adopt Huawei’s three-lidar loading configuration plan; in 2022, the Weilai ET7 equipped with Innovusion Lidar will also usher in mass production and delivery.
More and more new cars start to regard Lidar as standard equipment. Is the first year of Lidar mass production really coming?
Cost and product power are both issues
In the 1970s, lidar technology first emerged in the military field. At that time, NASA developed a laser detection and ranging system for aircraft, which was the predecessor of lidar applications.
Lidar has the characteristics of long range, excellent resolution, and little influence from ambient light. With the gradual decentralization of technology to the civilian market, and the application of lidar in autonomous driving test projects such as Google, this technology has gradually become widely known. Today, in the eyes of many people in the industry, lidar technology has become the standard for smart cars in the future.
AAutomobile industryAnalystSaid to Future Auto Daily,“Lidar belongs to the core sensor of L3 autonomous driving. The introduction of front-end installation will usher in a concentrated outbreak of the market. However, two prerequisites must be met. The first is vehicle-level certification, and the second is cost control. It’s not that some car companies are willing to pay.”
Although lidar is becoming the core weapon of automakers’ autonomous driving arms race, it cannot get rid of the basic laws of traditional auto parts. In recent years, car companies have heard endless news about LiDAR technology solutions, but when a certain technology enters the period of advanced hardware embedding, the cost will be very critical.
According to people familiar with the matter, Livox customized the lidar products developed by Livox for Xiaopeng Motors based on Haojie’s on-board lidar platform. The cost is about RMB 6,000 or 7,000 each. At present, this price is already considered to be a very low level for mass-produced vehicles. , Within the price range accepted by car companies, if the Xiaopeng P5 starts in volume in the future, the cost may also be lower.
Another person in the domestic lidar industry also confirmed this to the Future Auto Daily, “We can give fixed-point customers the price can be less than 500 US dollars, and the price will be lower if the quantity is large, because the price is related to the scale.”
Related experts from domestic lidar manufacturer Sagitar Juchuang told Future Auto Daily, “There are five major standards for automotive-grade lidar: hardware, point cloud quality, reliability, supporting functions, and functional safety.It will take several years for any new platform design to move from a concept to a truly stable mass production stage, and then to be fully commercialized.”
At present, laser radars can be divided into three types of technical routes according to scanning methods: mechanical laser radars represented by the overall rotation of the optical-mechanical structure with Velydone, MEMS galvanometer semi-solid laser radars represented by Sagitar, and electronic scanning or overall A pure solid-state lidar that exposes Flash arrays.
Source: Xiaopeng Motors
Huawei and Sagitar Juchuang chose the semi-solid MEMS micro-galvanometer technology route. The Livox solution used by Xiaopeng is a prism or rotating mirror solution based on the first route that does not move the transceiver module.
According to data, Xiaopeng Motors announced on January 1, 2021 that it has reached a cooperation with Livox, which was incubated by DJI. The latter was established in 2016 and focused on the research and development of cost-effective lidar technology solutions that can be mass-produced With commercialization, Livox is also the first partner of Xiaopeng Motors in the field of lidar.
Xiaopeng P5 is equipped with a customized version of lidar supplied by Livox for Xiaopeng. The product will be mass-produced in Livox’s own car-level manufacturing center. Public information shows that the manufacturing center has several global top SMT production lines with a design PPM as low as 10, which can meet the independent and efficient production of Livox lidar core components in the future.
At the same time, Livox related personnel also revealed that “the lidar assembly line itself will also achieve an average annual production capacity of 100,000 units, and can expand the line within 3 months based on the increased demand of pre-installed mass production customers.”
It’s worth noting that car companies are now grabbing the title of the world’s first mass-produced lidar smart car, but in the eyes of lidar manufacturers, this is not important. “For us, I hope all car companies will grab this The world’s first”.
“Who is faster and who is slower is a matter of months at most. In the end, it depends on the product strength. The safer and more comfortable experience that Lidar will bring to consumers in the car is more critical.”, An industry insider said.
Not all manufacturers recognize the technical direction of lidar, Tesla CEO Musk stands on the opposite side of this technology.
In his view, it is not necessary for autonomous vehicles to use lidar, so today Tesla’s autonomous driving system mainly relies on computer vision to make decisions and judgments. Other sensors include ultrasonic sensors and forward radar, but there is no lidar. Configuration.
In June 2020, a Tesla Model 3 in Chiayi County, Taiwan, China, directly hits a large white truck that has overturned on the road. During the process, the vehicle did not take any actions to slow down or steer to avoid. Many experts believe , It can be avoided if equipped with lidar, because the algorithm can never run through all driving scenarios.
Before the real mass-produced lidar models hit the road, it is difficult to determine which technical route will be the mainstream in the future.
According to the plan, the Xiaopeng P5 will be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2021. Whether it can be worthy of the title of “the world’s first mass-produced lidar smart car” depends on its actual performance on the road.
(Article source: Future Car Daily)
(Editor in charge: DF532)
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