[Car People] Mobile phones and cars, who defines who?

Will the car of the future be a “car” or a “mobile phone”?

Text/Wu Yu, "Car Man"

Build a smarter car or add wheels to a mobile phone? This may be a soul-searching question that every trader has experienced.

Dr. Wang Chenglu, President of Huawei's Software Department, said that in Huawei's eyes, everything is a mobile phone, and a car is a mobile phone with four wheels. Based on the computing and processing capabilities of mobile phones, the buttons on the steering wheel become the input device of the mobile phone, and the car navigation becomes the navigation module of the mobile phone... The car has become an oversized smart phone.

This is not a choice of product form or product classification, but the essence and original intention of car manufacturing.

The IT industry has always been arrogant about defining everything with software, including software-defined networks, software-defined storage, software-defined services... When faced with the "temptation" of building cars, the concept of "software-defined cars" naturally comes up.

Standing on the obelisk founded by data and AI, "software-defined cars" seems to have climbed to the top of the contempt chain.

The core idea is that software based on data interaction and emphasizing artificial intelligence is the key to determining the future of cars; while the engine power, touch screen size, and luxurious decoration are quietly marked with the marks of "outdated times" and "outdated thinking."

In an era where consumer Internet and industrial Internet are constantly integrating, people's trading behaviors are e-commerce, their social behaviors are online, and their entertainment behaviors are gamified... Every person and every life is being swept up in it. They either actively accept being crushed and become part of the information, or are forced to enter the ark that has already been digitized.

Under such a trend, who has the courage to stand up and promise: "Cars will still be cars 10 or 20 years from now", or directly declare that "mobile phones and iPads are the soul of future travel"?

The boundaries have long been blurred, and there is no single answer.

trend

When it comes to "software-defined cars", traditional car companies have realized that a crisis is coming.

Volkswagen Group has made its software department Car.Software independent, not only to develop its own vw.OS car operating system, but also to increase the proportion of its self-developed software to more than 60%; Mercedes-Benz is expected to release its self-developed operating system MB.OS in 2024 to ensure absolute control over all vehicle architectures and user interfaces; Toyota plans to invest 300 billion yen (about 2.9 billion US dollars) and invite James Kuffner, a former engineer from Google's autonomous driving department, to join, just to master the core technology of software and operating systems...

From seat adjustment to instrument display, from power output to cruise control, modern cars are almost all powered by ECUs. More and more cars are equipped with microprocessor-based ECUs, with luxury cars equipped with more than 100 and low-end cars having 40 to 50...

At the same time , the amount of software code has grown exponentially. The software code required for the communication and navigation software of a Mercedes-   Benz   S  -Class sedan alone exceeds 20 million  lines; the number of lines of code in a BMW X5 is even in the hundreds of millions.

If the number of 20 million lines of code is not shocking, the following figures will definitely refresh most people's cognition.

The Boeing 787 passenger aircraft, which took nine years and cost over $32 billion to develop, has only 6.5 million lines of software code for its avionics and onboard support systems.

The multi-purpose fighter F35 Lightning (fifth-generation fighter), which has the most complex avionics system and sensor system that enhances the pilot's situational awareness, is programmed in C and C++ like car codes, and its Block 3F software code is about 8.6 million lines.

The only known software that can match the number of lines of code for automotive software seems to be Northrop Grumman's X-47B, a tailless jet-powered hybrid wing drone that can not only take off autonomously from an aircraft carrier with high electromagnetic interference, but also operate semi-autonomously and refuel in the air, but its system code lines are only 17 million lines.

The "crisis" is not only the surge in the number of lines of code, but also the rapid growth of manpower and R&D costs. The cost of software and electronic equipment already accounts for 35%-40% of the total vehicle manufacturing cost, and there is a trend of further increase in the future.

IEEE Spectrum (a professional magazine under the Institute of Electronics Engineers) once published an article about the automatic transmission of the GMC Yukon dual-mode hybrid model: In the construction plan of this car, 70% of the manpower was used to develop control software. The control software reads and analyzes thousands of input data per second, and the largest amount of data is not the traditional throttle opening and steering wheel angle, but the working conditions of the generator, battery pack, and drive motor.

70% of manpower is used for software development, and the working conditions of the "three-electric" system have become the key to ECU decision-making... This is a true portrayal of "software plays a leading role". With the addition of pure electric drive and L2 intelligent driving, this has become a trend that car companies cannot ignore.

income

Since the first Model S was delivered, the oversized touch screen has replaced large-displacement engines and multi-speed gearboxes, becoming synonymous with "luxury" and "future". Now, both traditional and start-up car companies are pursuing the goal of optimizing algorithms and improving computing power.

What NIO ET7 shows off is the ADAM supercomputing platform based on four NVIDIA Orin chips, the AQUILA super-sensing system equipped with 11 high-definition cameras and 19 radars, and Qualcomm's third-generation Snapdragon digital cockpit platform, which is aimed directly at Tesla Model S.

Huawei's car-making features three 96-line automotive-grade laser radars and a chip with a computing power of up to 352 Tops (let's not ask who the manufacturer is for now), highlighting the system's continuous self-learning and rapid iteration capabilities, setting new standards for high-level autonomous driving...

By investing more resources and manpower in electronic architecture and software code, automakers will gain real benefits.

On the one hand, the arrival of the electronic architecture has effectively shortened the previously lengthy R&D and testing cycle. Data from General Motors shows that after adopting the new generation of VIP intelligent electronic architecture, the product R&D cycle has been shortened by 18 months.

This means that the previous 48-month R&D cycle can now be compressed to 30 months, and there is room for further reduction in the future - it only takes the time of a mid-term facelift to get a new car that is completely new inside and out.

On the other hand, the addition of OTA remote upgrades has completely changed the definition of a "new car". Previously, from the moment the car rolled off the production line, all of its hardware and parameters had been fixed (re-flashing and re-updating are not discussed here). Now, users can choose a convenient time and place to update at any time without having to take time out to go back to the 4S store; companies can fix potential bugs and add popular features without having to wait for the new generation to be launched.

The moment a user picks up the car, it is just the beginning of the continuous upgrade and update of the vehicle. In other words, with the support of OTA, the car will not age over time, but will become "newer with use".

General Motors China President Peter Brill said: In the era of intelligent networking and electrification, software is the key to driving the development of automotive technology. General Motors has made large-scale investments in the field of software. Even during the epidemic, the work of recruiting large-scale software talents has never stopped.

Doubtful

Whether software can define a car remains a question.

First of all, it can be confirmed that what is defined by the software is not the traditional body structure such as the A-pillar, B-pillar, longitudinal beam and front bumper, nor the non-networked components such as tires, wheels, doors and seats, but it is to define new concepts and reset existing functions with the purpose of improving vehicle performance and user experience.

For example, the scope defined by software includes control centers and execution units, such as vehicle-mounted ECUs, wiring harnesses, and interfaces; it also covers network architecture, service architecture, and operating systems, such as application software, underlying protocols, virtual technology, and even logical operations.

If "software defined" is placed in a three-dimensional coordinate system, the X-axis is logic, which determines the functions and relationships between software and hardware; the Y-axis is communication, which builds a bridge between application software, virtual technology, operating system and hardware, and the cloud; the Z-axis is user experience, which is the ultimate goal of all logic and applications, communications and instructions.

From this, we can see that software defines the system architecture and central nervous system of the vehicle, not the car itself. In other words, the car still exists independently.

However, in the context of intelligence and interconnection, when software becomes the "nerve center", improvements in application software, virtual technology and even communication speeds can all enable a completely different user experience.

The software can adjust the settings of the air suspension (not considering factors such as manufacturing cost and installation space for the time being), and the vehicle's driving performance can be "arbitrarily adjusted" between comfort and sportiness; the software can change the settings of the seats and the feedback of the touch screen, and the humanization and intelligence of the vehicle will also be immediately revealed...