The speed of evolution crushes NIO, Xiaomi, and LiXi. What is the secret of HPilot’s growth?

Momenta may be the first to implement urban NOH in China.

Momenta's autonomous driving capabilities are growing rapidly. Judging from product implementation and function realization, it is already showing signs of surpassing NIO, Xiaobian and Li Auto.

Since May 2021, Momenta's assisted driving system HPilot 1.0 has been quickly installed on multiple models such as Wei Mocha. In March 2022, the assisted driving system was quickly upgraded to HPilot 2.0 version, and was officially launched with the launch of Tank 500.

Compared with HPilot 1.0, Haomo HPilot2.0 has stronger computing power and has added an "integrated driving and parking" intelligent scene solution, which can provide five highlight functions: smart cruising, autonomous lane changing, smart cornering, smart dodging, and automatic emergency braking.

At the same time, with the support of Momenta, Great Wall Motors has become the world's third automaker, after Tesla and Xpeng Motors, to officially launch the full-stack self-developed pilot-assisted driving system NOH (Navigation on HPilot).

According to the plan, Haomo Zhixing will launch HPilot 3.0 in mid-2022, and will become the first company in China to realize NOH in urban scenarios. It is reported that Haomo Zhixing is currently inviting key guests to take a test ride in Shunyi, Beijing.

With almost three version iterations in one year, why has Momenta's autonomous driving capabilities improved so rapidly? In the context of all traditional car companies being trapped by software shortcomings, how does Momenta empower Great Wall Motors?

01. Explosion of intelligent strength

The starting point of Great Wall Motors' layout in the direction of intelligence can be traced back to 2009, when Great Wall Motors began to research intelligent driving technology and demonstrated L3 autonomous driving technology to the public for the first time in 2015.

In 2016, the Great Wall Motors team won the championship in the China Smart Car Future Challenge. In October 2019, Great Wall Motors demonstrated L4 urban autonomous driving, 5G remote unmanned driving, fully automatic valet parking and other black technologies.

If the layout in previous years was just a warm-up, in 2020, with the help of Momenta, Great Wall Motors began to make comprehensive efforts in the direction of intelligence.

In July 2020, Great Wall Motors held a technology brand launch conference at the Haval Technology Center in Baoding, launching three major technology brands: Lemon, Tank, and Coffee Intelligence.

Among them, the Lemon platform is positioned as a vehicle platform with high scalability, the Tank platform is positioned as an intelligent and professional off-road platform, and Coffee Intelligence is the technical key that gives the two vehicle platforms a "soul".

Coffee Intelligence, as Great Wall Motors' intelligent brand, covers smart cockpit, smart driving and smart electronic and electrical architecture.

According to the plan at the time, the first model to be launched with Coffee Intelligence was the Wei brand flagship model, and then it would be gradually installed on all brands and series of models of Great Wall Motors.

At the end of 2020, Great Wall Motors held a press conference to upgrade its smart driving strategy, officially launching the new Coffee Smart Driving "331 Strategy" and setting the development goals for the next three years:

In 2021, we will achieve full-vehicle redundant L3 autonomous driving and autonomous driving with NOH capability.

In 2022, China will have the largest number of assisted autonomous driving users in the market; realize the implementation of intelligent driving on China's largest computing platform; and achieve China's first L4 autonomous driving in complex scenarios.

By 2023, L4 autonomous driving will be achieved with the most scenario coverage in China.

Standing at the present moment and looking back at the achievements in 2021, with the support of Momenta in the field of autonomous driving, Great Wall Motors' phased strategic goals have been achieved.

Throughout 2021, Haomo Zhixing HPilot 1.0 was successfully installed in many intelligent vehicle models such as Weilai Mocha, Tank 300 City Edition, Weilai Macchiato DHT, Weilai Latte DHT, Haval Shenbow, etc., and officially launched the full-stack self-developed pilot assisted driving system NOH.

Currently, HPilot is in rapid iteration, and it is expected to achieve NOH in urban scenarios in the first half of this year and NOH in all scenarios in the second half of this year. According to the trend, the 2022 goal set by Great Wall Motors will be achieved without any suspense.

From full-scale efforts to mass production, why has Momenta achieved such strong explosive power in autonomous driving in just one year?

02. Autonomous driving pioneer team

The core secret of Great Wall Motors' autonomous driving lies in the fact that it has incubated a cutting-edge team - Momenta.

Public information shows that Momenta was established in 2019 and is a subsidiary incubated internally by Great Wall Motors. Its predecessor was the intelligent driving system development department established by Great Wall Motors in 2015.

Since 2021, Momenta has completed Pre-A, A and A+ rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of more than 1 billion yuan, making it China's first autonomous driving unicorn company to achieve large-scale mass production.

In order to better adapt to technological iterations, it has become a trend for car companies to incubate independent software technology companies. Toyota, Volkswagen, SAIC, Changan, Geely and other car companies have also established software subsidiaries.

In horizontal comparison, Momenta has the fastest pace of technology implementation and iteration. Momenta's self-developed "Little Magic Box" computing platform has been iterated many times.

In 2022, Haomo.ai plans to release Mobox 3.0, whose single-board computing power will reach 360TOPS, which can be expanded to 1440TOPS through inter-board cascading.

Information previously released by Momenta shows that the average power consumption of the computing platform is only 5.5TOPS/W, and it is expected to become the world's most energy-efficient mass-produced autonomous driving computing platform.

At the same time, the Little Magic Box 3.0 can connect to 12 8-megapixel cameras, 5 millimeter-wave radars and 2 laser radars.

From this point of view, this scalable computing platform can fully meet the realization of current L3 and subsequent L4/L5 and other full-scenario autonomous driving functions.

By the end of 2022, Momenta's Magic Box will cover dozens of Great Wall Motors' passenger car models. It is expected that in the next two years, the total number of passenger cars equipped with Momenta's HPilot assisted driving system will exceed 1 million.

With the support of Xiao Mo Box 3.0, Haomo Zhixing's urban NOH will be officially launched in the first half of 2022. In the second half of 2022, it plans to deliver full-scenario NOH, and plans to launch Haomo Self-Driving HSD (HAOMO Self-Driving) in 2023.

At present, the five car companies that have the ability to implement high-speed pilot driving assistance are mainly Tesla, Wei, Xiaoli, and Great Wall Motors. Let's review the time nodes when several leading car companies launched pilot assisted driving functions:

● In June 2019, Tesla pushed NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) to domestic car owners who had chosen the FSD hardware.

● In September 2020, NIO released NOP (Navigate on Pilot) at the Beijing Auto Show and officially launched it in October 2020.

● In January 2021, Xpeng Motors' NGP (Navigation Guided Pilot) public beta version was opened to users.

● In November 2021, Great Wall Motors officially pushed the NOH smart navigation assisted driving function to Weipai Mocha users.

● In December 2021, Ideal Auto pushed the NOA navigation assisted driving function to users through OTA upgrade.

It is worth noting that, in comparison, Momenta is not the first to launch, but it has the fastest iteration.

Moreover, among the five companies that have already implemented high-speed pilot assisted driving, only Momenta and Xpeng Motors have made plans for the implementation of pilot assisted driving in urban scenarios, and both companies plan to implement it in the first half of this year.

After that, Haomo Zhixing continued to accelerate. In terms of the implementation rhythm of full-scenario pilot assisted driving, Haomo Zhixing is expected to be half a year earlier than Xiaopeng Motors. The former plans to implement it in the second half of 2022, and the latter will be implemented in 2023.

Xpeng Motors' Intelligent Driving Roadmap

It can be seen that a new pattern of assisted driving is taking shape in China. 2022 will be a critical year. With the support of Momenta, Great Wall Motors is challenging itself to become a leader in the direction of intelligence.

03. The key to the final battle

People in the industry like to compare achieving autonomous driving to climbing Mount Everest. The south slope is gentle, while the north slope is steep, representing the two factions that start from different starting points of L2 and L4 respectively. The former is represented by car companies, while the latter is represented by technology companies.

At present, it seems that the two groups of players are reaching the same destination through different paths.

L2 players, represented by car companies, are trying to leapfrog L3 and achieve truly hands-free autonomous driving, while autonomous driving technology companies that are the first to deploy L4 are facing countless unknown corner case dilemmas.

What is the key to breakthrough in autonomous driving technology?

The industry generally believes that the key to mass production of autonomous driving lies in two aspects: first, large-scale data acquisition, and second, efficient data utilization.

At present, L4 autonomous driving players are generally stuck on the first problem. Large-scale data means the need for a large-scale fleet, which comes with unaffordable heavy costs.