Car robots, gimmick or new species?

If we have to describe what people expect a car robot to look like, KITT from "Knight Rider" would probably be the winner with a high vote.

"Knight Rider" is an American TV series that was popular in the 1980s and 1990s. It tells the story of the protagonist Michael Knight, who drives KITT, a sports car with a high degree of artificial intelligence, to fight against evil forces and uphold justice for innocent and helpless people in a world where criminals are above the law.

Although the plot is a bit old-fashioned, the sports car KITT, one of the protagonists, is still fresh in the memory of many fans.

In the drama, KITT is not only a sports car, but also an artificial intelligence machine that can think and speak like a human. It is knowledgeable and can help the male protagonist solve problems. It is also very humorous and sharp-tongued, and even often quarrels with the male protagonist. Although KITT does not have a human appearance, the red light strip on its center console will alternate between bright and dark to match KITT's speech. The audience can still clearly feel KITT's various emotions from the light strip's brightness.

Back then, KITT, who could make jokes, transform, was resourceful, and could repeatedly help the male protagonist escape from danger, was the dream of many boys.

KITT, which exists in science fiction dramas, seems to be quite far away from us, but the imagination of car robots in reality can be traced back to Li Shufu’s speech during the two sessions a few years ago.

"The car in my mind is a robot." On March 6, 2016, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, described his ideal car in this way during a media interview during the two sessions. "It can drive, repair, refuel, and charge itself. It can be a secretary and security guard for people. It is very intelligent and will not cause trouble or harm people, nor will it pollute the environment. The car will become a vacuum cleaner and air purifier, which does not consume energy and is also very safe."

At that time, Li Shufu further stated that this ideal would definitely come true.

Everyone knows the sequel of the story. In March 2021, Jidu Auto, an automotive robot startup initiated by Baidu and strategically invested by Geely, was officially established. One has been devoted to the field of AI for many years, ranking first in China's artificial intelligence patent applications and authorizations, and has deep technical accumulation; the other is a leading independent brand with decades of accumulation in the field of car manufacturing.

Such a combination will naturally make the outside world have higher expectations for them than for ordinary car companies. The outside world is also curious about what car robots, which generally only exist in science fiction, look like in reality?

New species or new concept ?

On June 8, Jidu Auto held its first brand launch conference ROBODAY, officially launching its first automotive robot concept car ROBO-01 and displaying the product configuration to the public for the first time.

In terms of body design, ROBO-01 eliminates traditional door handles and other complicated components, and adopts butterfly doors for the driver and co-driver, double doors at the rear, and seamless side windows. In addition, the entire car also eliminates physical buttons such as the shift lever and left and right levers.

The ROBO-01 body is equipped with many active deformable structures, such as the "pop-up light" liftable laser radar on the front hood, the active liftable rear wing ROBOWing, the foldable U-shaped steering wheel, the liftable satellite speakers, the adaptive swan neck zero-gravity seat, etc.

The U-shaped steering wheel design of ROBO-01 has attracted much controversy. When the vehicle is in autonomous driving mode, the U-shaped steering wheel can be folded, hidden, and has a variable steering ratio. Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, frankly said that this is mainly from a design perspective. There is a long screen in front of the car. If a round steering wheel is made, the large screen will be blocked. The U-shaped steering wheel can maximize the information visibility of the ultra-clear large screen. However, due to the influence of laws and regulations, it is still a question whether this design can be mass-produced.

As the only smart car brand in the industry that fully applies Apollo's autonomous driving "unmanned" capabilities and safety systems, the birth of ROBO-01 is undoubtedly standing on the shoulders of giants. Therefore, the car's autonomous driving capabilities have also become the focus of attention from the outside world. Unfortunately, Jidu has not yet disclosed the autonomous driving capabilities of ROBO-01.

Currently available information shows that the Jidu autonomous driving system is equipped with NVIDIA's "dual" Orin X chips, and the entire vehicle is equipped with 31 external sensors, including 2 laser radars, 5 millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, and 12 cameras.

In addition, the "pop-up light" laser radar of the ROBO-01 concept car is located on the front hood, and the FOV of the two laser radars reaches 180 degrees. Jidu said that in driving scenes such as "ghosts poking their heads out" and obstructions on the left and right, the ability to identify obstacles or pedestrians crossing the left and right is stronger. However, Li Xiang, CEO of Ideal Auto, expressed doubts about this.

Jidu's smart cockpit also features full offline voice, millisecond-level response, 3D human-machine co-driving map, and full-scenario interaction inside and outside the car, which are all highlights of the new car. But overall, the ROBO-01 concept car did not bring anyone any unexpected surprises.

Xia Yiping revealed that Jidu plans to officially launch a limited edition of its first mass-produced model in the fall of 2022. The mass-produced model is 90% similar to the ROBO-01 concept car. In addition, Jidu will also release the design of its second mass-produced model at this year's Guangzhou Auto Show.

What is a car robot?

According to Xia Yiping's description, ROBO-01 has the ability to recognize user emotions and can interact with the outside world about its own status and emotions. Its robotic front face design integrates interactive AI pixel headlights and a high-recognition AI voice interaction system, and has an out-of-vehicle voice recognition function, which can achieve natural communication between "people-vehicle-environment".

At least in terms of human-vehicle communication, ROBO-01 is very close to KITT back then.

In August 2021, at the Baidu World Conference 2021, Baidu founder, chairman and CEO Robin Li formally proposed the concept of "automobile robots" for the first time. Robin Li believes that in the future, the direction of automobile evolution will be to evolve in the direction of automotive robots.

At the Baidu World 2021 Conference that year, Robin Li showed off a car robot that represents the future direction of Baidu. It has no steering wheel, no accelerator, no brake, and is a completely private space. There is not even a distinction between the main driver and the co-driver. The most important change is that it can run by itself, without the need for a human to drive.

"It's hard to tell whether it's a robot with wheels or a car with a brain. It's indeed very different from the cars we imagine now, but it's getting closer and closer to what people think a robot should do in science fiction," said Robin Li.

What exactly is a real car robot? Robin Li believes that it has three major functions:

First, it has L4 level autonomous driving capabilities, which enables free movement;

Second, accurate recognition of human-vehicle interaction and speech semantics enables the car and human to "communicate naturally", understand user emotions, and respond to user needs in real time;

Third, the automotive robot can self-learn and iterate based on the user's usage habits, continuously optimize the autonomous driving and smart cockpit experience, and achieve "self-growth".

To achieve this goal, Jidu divides the car robot into three parts: "brain", "nerve" and "torso".

Intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit related capabilities are the brain and soul, intelligent architecture JET is the nerve, and the vehicle structure and powertrain are the trunk. The full-coverage, low-latency, high-bandwidth Gigabit Ethernet loop is used to link important "organs" such as sensors throughout the vehicle and high-performance computing platforms, to meet the efficient connection of underlying hardware, AI capabilities, and upper-layer application services, and to achieve "free movement", "natural communication", and "self-growth" of automotive robots through computing power sharing, perception sharing, and service sharing.

Intelligent connected cars vs. automotive robots

In 2012, Tesla Model S was the first to adopt a 17-inch in-car display, thus ushering in the era of intelligent automobiles.

Four years later, in July 2016, the Roewe RX5, known as the "world's first mass-produced Internet SUV", was launched in Yunqi Town, Hangzhou. With the various convenient functions of the Zebra system, the Roewe RX5 quickly became a dark horse in the automobile market. In the following four years, the cumulative sales of the Roewe RX5 exceeded 700,000 units.

At that time, the biggest highlight of the Roewe RX5 was the 10.4-inch LCD screen in the center of the new car's center console, and the operating system used on this screen was the Zebra YunOS car system independently developed by Alibaba Group. At that time, the "1.0 version" of the Zebra YunOS system created a preliminary smart car through an interactive architecture with voice as the core. Although the "1.0 version" at that time could only implement relatively fixed and clear commands, its appearance 6 years ago still announced the arrival of a new era to the outside world.

At that time, some media even commented that "a small step for Roewe RX5 is a big step for the era of intelligent automobile interconnection." In the following years, Chinese independent brands competed in the intelligent track, and in the process, the pattern of the automobile market was gradually rewritten.