In-vehicle HUD - another new market worth tens of billions!

With the continuous development of intelligent driving technology, more and more information needs to be judged and reminded when driving a car. Today's dashboards obviously cannot meet these needs. It is an inevitable trend to display driving information and road information on the windshield, which has also largely driven the development of the head-up display (HUD) industry.

At present, the penetration rate of HUD in the global automotive products market is only about 2%, which shows that the market space for automotive HUD is very huge. In 2020, the domestic HUD market size reached 6.56 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 300%; by 2025, the market size is expected to reach 24.48 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of more than 50%, of which WHUD and ARHUD occupy the main market, with a proportion of 60%/20% respectively. It is expected that the technological progress of modern automotive cockpit electronic equipment and the growth trend of connected and self-driving cars will further promote the growth of the automotive HUD market size.

At present, luxury cars such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Japanese brands generally have a high configuration rate of HUD. In this context, the penetration rate of HUD continues to increase, and the technological iteration is also rapidly accelerating. For example, AR-HUD, which was still in the concept stage two years ago, has gradually started mass production this year with the launch of related models.

What is HUD?

As the name implies, HUD is a display system that displays important driving information in real time on the front windshield to avoid safety hazards caused by the driver lowering his head or diverting his sight. Looking back at the development history of HUD, we find that it first appeared on airplanes. It was not until 1988 that GM first transferred this technology to cars. However, due to technical limitations at the time, the displayed information was limited and the color was single, just like a digital alarm clock, and the overall effect was average. However, the fact that this technology on fighter jets was first applied to cars still amazed people at the time.

It was not until 2001 that Ford first installed a color display HUD system in its "Corvette" model, and HUD really entered the color world. In 2003, BMW became the first car company in Europe to use HUD technology. With the use of BMW, luxury models such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi began to join in. Although not the first to try it, HUD really developed with the promotion of these luxury brands.

However, HUD has only appeared in some models in the luxury car market. For example, BMW has a relatively high popularity of HUD, but the price is not cheap. For example, if you buy a 3 Series, you need to buy the M Sport Night Edition to get it from the factory, but its guide price is 359,800 yuan. Audi A4L also lists HUD as an optional item, and you can get it for only 17,900 yuan, which is a bit like modularization, but it is still a considerable expense.

It was not until the last two years, as the price and configuration system of domestic brands of cars became more mature, that HUD really appeared in large quantities in the configuration tables of models under 200,000 yuan. For example, after Geely's new energy brand Geometry A was equipped with W-HUD head-up display, the subsidized price was only 150,000 to 190,000 yuan. As for joint venture brands, the new generation of digital Golf top-end models launched at the end of last year also adopted W-HUD. The Golf's W-HUD system has two projection modes, standard mode and snow mode, and can also project vehicle speed display, navigation instructions, auxiliary systems and various warning information onto the front windshield. The addition of HUD undoubtedly adds a new sense of technology to the digital Golf experience.

The mainstream mid-to-high-end products on the market will not lack a practical HUD model, especially as the current speed of automotive intelligence development is very fast. The development trend of smart cockpits urgently requires HUD as the third screen as an important part of information display. Therefore, the development speed of HUD has been very fast in the past two years, and it has almost formed a trend.

The future of HUD

We have mentioned a type of HUD, W-HUD, above. W-HUD directly uses the car's windshield as a display device, and the display effect is more integrated. However, since the windshield is generally curved glass, W-HUD must be adapted to the high-precision aspheric reflector according to the size and curvature of the windshield. Improper calculation will lead to ghosting, and there are high requirements for software technology and hardware equipment. This also leads to high cost of W-HUD, which is not conducive to widespread application.

Another mainstream HUD is named C-HUD, which is characterized by a transparent resin glass placed above the instrument panel. The glass is usually specially processed according to the imaging conditions and is usually made into a wedge shape to avoid reflections on both sides of the glass. It is relatively stable and is not much different from that used in fighter jets. However, the display effect of C-HUD is average, and it will cause secondary damage to the driver in the event of a vehicle collision, which is not conducive to the safety of the vehicle.

According to the current trend, W-HUD will still be the mainstream in the next few years, and it will move from high-end to low-end, from optional to standard, and enter a stage of full bloom. However, just as C-HUD is only a transitional product in the evolution of HUD, W-HUD is still a transitional product even though it can display more content. AR-HUD will be the ultimate development direction in the future.

We can actually get some clues from the name combination. Simply put, AR-HUD is a combination of AR technology and HUD functions. It can present the vehicle's driving information in a more vivid and dynamic form, and it is also clearer and has a larger imaging area. It can update vehicle condition information and navigation information in real time like 3D projection, and can also be combined with ADAS functions to timely warn of road conditions and pedestrian information.

Currently, only the new generation of Mercedes-Benz S-Class uses this technology, and it is expected that the Volkswagen ID. series will also use the same technology. At the same time, FAW, GAC, Chery, etc. are also making corresponding plans. In order to better meet the needs of OEMs, in addition to traditional international Tier 1s such as Continental, Visteon, and Nippon Seiki, domestic technology suppliers such as Baidu, Huayang Group, Future Black Technology, and Ruisi Huachuang are also actively developing AR-HUD-related layouts.

With the intensive layout of new and old forces, the AR-HUD market is constantly opening up. According to relevant forecast data, by 2030, AR-HUD is expected to occupy more than half of the HUD market, which means that AR-HUD will grow exponentially in the next few years. The main reason is that the advent of the 5G era has become a highway for the explosion of in-vehicle AR applications. The 5G network has disruptive characteristics such as high bandwidth, low latency, and large connections. Combined with new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence, it has brought huge infrastructure benefits to the mass production and application of intelligent terminals with diverse forms and three-dimensional interactions.

AR-HUD is the future  

So far, the HUD mass production market is still basically in the hands of traditional Tier 1, and the product experience is generally not so ideal. AR-HUD is also seen by many new entrants as a weapon to break the poor user experience of the original HUD. However, at present, there are AR-HUD products in China that have a decent experience in the initial DEMO test, but their performance in the face of complex road conditions in reality is still unclear. Achieving real mass production is not as easy as imagined.

AR-HUD needs to be used in conjunction with vision and millimeter-wave radar (ADAS), GPS positioning, map navigation, and numerous body sensors. In addition, high-precision maps and high-precision positioning will further enhance the user experience of AR HUD. However, the development of high-precision maps is not yet mature, so it still mainly relies on ordinary ADAS, GPS and other technologies. ADAS may have a small delay in each step of the recognition process, but the errors and consequences caused are huge and serious.

All of these require a massive amount of algorithms and optimization support, and it is difficult for ordinary small start-ups to implement such detailed work. Therefore, in order to implement AR-HUD products, companies with strong strength and financial resources must follow up.

At present, Continental's TFT AR-HUD is the only reflective AR-HUD that has been put into mass production. The technology is developed by a localized team and based on Continental's perfect supply chain, it can achieve rapid adaptation and platform-based cost reduction. The Chinese development team and production line are mainly located in Wuhu, Anhui Province, mainly providing development, design and production of head-up displays for Chinese OEM customers.

Aiming at higher performance AR-HUD technology, the industry has begun to study holographic waveguide technology. Compared with reflective HUD technology, waveguide technology only needs to increase the optical machine projection surface area and greatly reduce the three-dimensional volume. Holographic waveguide technology originated from the field of AR glasses. The representative company of geometric waveguide is Israel's Lumus, but due to the very complex process, it has not yet been mass-produced.

In China, in addition to the active layout of car companies, Baidu is also a technology giant that entered AR-HUD earlier. Baidu launched the industry's first in 2018, and then carried out several rounds of iterations, upgraded the hardware, and added a VPU, which is a chip dedicated to processing pictures. This chip can be used to add ADAS functions. This is the biggest highlight of Baidu's AR-ADAS function, including lane departure, front vehicle warning, pedestrian warning, traffic signs, etc. HUD will play the role of a display screen in the future, but information is the most critical link, so Baidu's accumulation in this area will become an ecological ring displayed on the HUD.