When the fantasy in the movie comes into reality, will “robots” become the final form of cars?

As one of our daily means of transportation, cars also carry the dreams of many people and the happiness of many families. We have some novel imaginations about the future evolution of car capabilities, and many film and television works have intuitive depictions of this.

Human beings have never stopped fantasizing about future travel life. Whether it is amphibious cars that can fly into the sky and into the sea, or car people that can transform their forms, they all represent everyone's expectations. So, what should the cars of the future look like? When will we be able to turn our imagination into reality? At this year's Baidu Create 2021 (Baidu AI Developer Conference), Robin Li seemed to point out a new direction for the industry, that is, car robots, and the time node will be 2023.

Human imagination of cars lays the foundation for future development

Before discussing the topic of future automobile development, let’s review the crazy imagination of human beings about travel methods. For example, in The Fifth Element released in 1997, cars have left the ground and can fly between high-rise buildings in the city; in Minority Report released in 2002, cars can travel in a three-dimensional space like a maglev train and complete fancy “stair climbing”; in Speed ​​Racer released in 2006, cars are given thinking by software, and the prototype of artificial intelligence cars is formed; in the Transformers series released since 2007, the concept of “Autobots” makes us think about the future development of automobiles.

These movies can be said to have predicted the future development direction of automobiles to a certain extent. With the advancement of technology, these imaginations are gradually turning into reality. For example, the scene of shuttling between high-rise buildings can be realized in the hybrid flying car Transition released by Terrafugia, a subsidiary of Geely in 2019; the artificial intelligence car with thinking in the movie is also the early form of our current smart car cockpit, right? The concept of Autobots created by "Transformers" perfectly interprets our expectations of the capabilities of future cars.

Smart driving and smart cabins: the era of cars moving from electrification to intelligence

Back to the real world, what stage has the automotive industry reached? From the perspective of car companies' product planning, new energy vehicles have the potential to completely replace fuel vehicles and are moving towards the second half of intelligence. It can be said that new energy vehicles are the best intelligent carriers, and intelligence will also be an unstoppable trend after electrification. Intelligence is changing the business model of the automotive industry. Users are no longer "what you see is what you get" when purchasing. More and more people believe that the powerful product core of automobiles can drive the expansion of human boundaries.

In the era of intelligence, smart driving and smart cabin technologies are on the rise. We can compare autonomous driving to the technology of machines replacing human driving, using sensors (radar, cameras) to replace human eyes, algorithm chips to replace human brains, and electronic control to replace human hands and feet, and finally realize the control of cars by machines and realize unmanned autonomous driving. The smart cockpit is equipped with intelligent/networked on-board equipment or services (such as digital instruments, voice & visual interaction, etc.), making the interaction between "people-car-road-cloud" richer, and the information of each system can be fully integrated, so that users can get the best experience that can be customized.

In general, smart cars allow passengers to have more free time in self-driving vehicles. Smart cockpits bring new service scenarios, transforming cars from a single means of transportation into a smart mobile space, further improving human-computer interaction.

Car robots, the future form of car development in the real world

Through the imagination in film and television dramas and the real portrayal in real life, we seem to be able to see the future development trend of automobiles. In this regard, at the just-concluded Baidu Create 2021 conference, Robin Li also gave a clear judgment, that is, "automobile robots."

What exactly is a car robot? Robin Li used Jidu as an example. Jidu believes that the vehicle of the future is actually a car robot, which will realize ROBOTIC, the interaction between robots and humans; EMOTIONAL, the emotional connection between machines and humans; FUTURISTIC, the future trend.

What capabilities should automotive robots have? Robin Li mentioned the product concept of "free movement, natural communication, and self-growth". "Free movement" means achieving L4-level autonomous driving capabilities; "natural communication" means human-vehicle interaction in the smart cockpit, achieving human-vehicle interaction in multiple scenarios and accurate recognition of voice semantics; "self-growth" means that automotive robots can achieve self-learning and iteration, and continuously optimize various experiences of autonomous driving and smart cockpits.

The realization of each capability requires sufficient and secure technical support. As a strong backer behind Jidu, Baidu has done a lot of work in these three dimensions: whether it is speech recognition, NLP (natural language processing), computer vision technology, etc., the accumulation and depth are among the best in the world.

Jidu will inherit Baidu's technological genes in the fields of artificial intelligence and the Internet, create a trustworthy, self-evolving car robot, and provide users with an ultimate experience that exceeds expectations. At the same time, Robin Li also expressed his confidence in Jidu's future and his expectations for Jidu's car robot. He also announced at the conference that "Jidu will announce its first concept car in the first half of 2022 and will mass-produce and deliver its first car robot in 2023."

In conclusion:

When a car can be like a friend, freeing your hands to help you drive; talking to you in natural voice, establishing an "emotional connection" with you; and even self-learning and iteration, such an experience will undoubtedly make the originally cold industrial product a warmer companion, and life will be more lively and fun.

Time moves faster than we think. In the era of "software-defined cars", there is always infinite motivation and design imagination to drive us to face the present and move forward. With the rapid development and maturity of technology, "car robots" may be called our "new counterparts", crossing the boundaries of species and age, turning the impossible into possible and the unreasonable into reasonable.