Smart cockpit, waiting for the C position

After a century of ups and downs, the positioning of automobiles has undergone dynamic changes, from traditional mechanical products to today's smart partners.

In just a few years, the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and 5G has made cars more and more intelligent, while also giving birth to a blue ocean of "space".

Cars are endowed with the attributes of a "third space". The experience of the car space largely determines whether it can capture the hearts of consumers.

Consumers' understanding of cockpit needs has gradually evolved from simple physiological safety needs to personalized and self-satisfaction. Consumers' requirements for intelligent cockpits are getting higher and higher, which also makes the industrial chain of intelligent cockpits more diversified.

At present, the smart cockpit industry chain can be divided into upstream software suppliers such as in-vehicle maps, in-vehicle operating platforms, operating systems, and hardware suppliers such as cockpit chips, and midstream software and hardware integration suppliers such as in-vehicle information display systems, infotainment systems, and cockpit domain controllers, and downstream integrated assembly and production OEMs.

Different from the traditional linear supply chain structure of Tier 2, Tier 1, and OEMs, the smart cockpit involves the integration of many software and hardware, as well as the provision of solutions. Therefore, suppliers will constantly switch their identities based on the different product types they provide, resulting in the continuous expansion of product boundaries.

Coupled with the strong involvement of Internet technology companies, a competitive landscape has now been formed with traditional suppliers, Internet technology companies, and OEMs as the three major players.

Tier 0.5 becomes a key hub

Multi-screen, large screen, and connected screen are no longer new terms.

The smart cockpit industry is developing rapidly, with its penetration rate gradually increasing. What users directly perceive is the changes in the display system.

In the "2021 China Automobile Cockpit Intelligent Development Market Demand Research Report", iResearch conducted a survey on the cockpit function penetration rate of newly released passenger cars (including facelifts) in China in 2021. The data showed that the market penetration rate of central control color screens, touch-screen central control screens, and smart steering wheels was far ahead, exceeding 90%.

Although HUD, a component of the intelligent display system, has a penetration rate at the bottom of the list, its development potential should not be underestimated.

EoAuto believes that considering multiple factors such as driving safety, interaction and intelligent experience, the popularization of HUD is inevitable.

The HUD industry is represented by companies such as Continental, Visteon, and Foryou Group. Among them, Foryou Group owns a number of patents in the HUD field, and its business covers C-HUD, W-HUD and AR-HUD products and solutions. Its products have been installed in models of many automobile companies such as Great Wall and Dongfeng.

With the changes in the form of cockpit components and the development of technology, interaction has become the soul of the smart cockpit experience. Human-computer interaction in the cockpit is actively connecting applications with drivers and passengers to enhance the user's cockpit experience.

The penetration rate of intelligent voice is increasing rapidly, becoming an indispensable part of the smart cockpit.

In this field, technology is also developing rapidly. For example, the Feiyu audio system released by iFlytek in November 2021 can realize common navigation, vehicle control, and entertainment control, as well as health monitoring and advice through the voice of drivers and passengers.

As voice interaction matures, multimodal interaction is also on the agenda. Visual interaction is gradually gaining favor among users and has become an important selling point for cars.

The driver's driver monitoring system (DMS) and passenger monitoring system (OMS) have also become the focus of users. According to a survey by iResearch, more than 40% of users expressed interest in and demand for vital signs monitoring functions.

Demand drives technological innovation. For example, the I-CS intelligent cockpit system launched by MINIEYE in 2021 can provide vehicles with in-cabin perception solutions, including DMS, OMS, object recognition and human-computer interaction systems.

The transformation and development of display systems and the diversification of interactive needs have also led to higher and higher requirements for chips, and "one chip, multiple screens" has become an industry consensus. Different from the previous situation where foreign consumer semiconductor giants such as Qualcomm divided the market, the independent chip industry is rising rapidly.

In May 2020, CoreDrive Technology released the 16nm X9 smart cockpit chip. By March 2021, it announced that the X9 chip had received orders for one million pieces, with customers covering joint ventures, independent brand car companies and Tier 1. In December last year, CoreDrive Technology released the first domestically produced 7nm smart cockpit chip "Longying No. 1".

Many traditional suppliers are continuously expanding their businesses, and many of them can not only provide traditional underlying software and hardware, but also become suppliers of smart cockpit integrated vehicle systems. For example, Yanfeng can provide both component products and "all-in-one" solutions, and PATEO can also provide smart cockpit products with complete software, hardware and cloud solutions.

A number of Internet technology companies have flocked into the market, relying on their own existing software and hardware genes. Together with the industry, they have spawned a group of new Tier 0.5 suppliers, becoming a connecting bridge between OEMs and upstream traditional suppliers.

Bringing capital into the group and ecological migration

In the era of software-defined cars, software services have become a new high value, and the construction of a software ecosystem has become particularly important.

The accumulated user ecology and Internet technology have given a number of Internet technology companies sufficient "bullets", and the construction of the underlying operating system and in-vehicle application ecology has become a good channel for them to enter the smart cockpit market.

User needs are becoming increasingly diversified. Traditional hardware upgrades alone can no longer meet the needs of automakers to create differentiated competition. Cockpit OS, cockpit application ecosystem, and in-vehicle mini-programs will become the core capabilities that automakers strive to build.

In the past, there were not many options for in-vehicle OS. It can be said that for many years, QNX, Linux, and Android divided the world into three parts.

After years of development, QNX, Linux, and Android each have their own strengths: QNX is relatively secure and stable; the Linux system has a high degree of flexibility in customized development, making it suitable for OEMs to carry out customized development based on it; the advantages of the Android system are reflected in compatibility and application ecology.

In recent years, the successive efforts of companies such as Huawei, Baidu, and Alibaba have subtly pried open the high barriers.

Huawei's Hongmeng OS is a distributed operating system based on a microkernel for all scenarios. It can be expanded on demand to achieve a wider range of system security. At the same time, the Hongmeng OS car system can support functions such as one chip, multiple screens, and multiple concurrency. It also has the characteristics of low latency, which can reach milliseconds or even sub-milliseconds at the fastest.

AliOS and Xiaodu OS also have a lot of room for development in voice interaction systems, AR navigation, and car payments.

However, AliOS is developed based on the Linux kernel and is deeply customized on the underlying architecture system. Huawei's Hongmeng OS is independently developed, and EoAuto sees another possibility for domestically produced independent OS.

At the level of the cockpit application ecosystem, the construction of the smart cockpit application ecosystem provides content providers with good vehicle-side landing scenarios and scenario-based service capabilities. Internet technology companies have a relatively complete application ecosystem and have begun to deploy in-vehicle application sectors.

Following Internet companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, ByteDance also announced in 2021 that its Volcano Engine would begin building its own application ecosystem.

Baidu Apollo's light cockpit technology solution focuses on connections with the cloud and mobile phones; Alibaba's application ecosystem is based on cloud computing and focuses on global coordination. Applications such as Tmall and Alipay have been installed in vehicles and have achieved certain results. Tencent's car-connected smart cockpit ecosystem solution focuses on driving, services, and entertainment.

ByteDance's Volcano Car Entertainment application ecosystem integrates ByteDance's content system, including TikTok, Toutiao, Tomato Novels and other mobile applications that are familiar to people in their daily lives, and migrates them to car computers.

In order to respond to user needs more quickly and connect cars to more service scenarios, in-vehicle mini-programs have become a niche market that a number of companies are targeting.

With the advantage of being lightweight , the in-vehicle mini program can quickly divert mobile phone users to the vehicle, which is an extremely important role of the in-vehicle mini program.

Because of their accumulated user groups and the ability to quickly integrate mobile applets into vehicle-mounted systems using their technological advantages, as well as adaptability, reputation and other reasons, companies such as Huawei, Alibaba, and Baidu have already taken a step ahead in the field of in-vehicle applets.