Cabin-pilot integration, who will "lead the team to eat meat"-EEWORLD

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Whether driven by the development of automotive intelligent technology, the evolution of the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture, or as a product of industry cost reduction, cross-domain integration is unstoppable, especially cabin-driver integration.

"The integrated cabin and driver is more suitable for entry-level, low-end models. The intelligent driving is equipped with basic L2 functions. The algorithm has been concretized and fixed, and the migration is relatively fast. There is no need for too many updates and iterations. It is enough to provide 8155-like functions for the cockpit." Li Changqing, chief engineer of chip development of Changan Automobile, said at the 2024 Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Developer Conference.

In line with the above view, the industry generally believes that the integration of cockpit and driver is aimed at the low-end vehicle market with a price range of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan. However, with a clear market positioning, it seems that there is no clear conclusion as to whether the cockpit or the intelligent driving will lead this integration.

It is true that the penetration rate of smart driving has increased very rapidly in the past few years, but the real difficulties in popularization behind it are worth noting.

At present, there are about 30 brands in China (including foreign and joint ventures) whose models are equipped with NOA as standard, but the four brands of Huawei, Ideal, Xpeng and Zeekr have contributed more than 75% of the market share in total.

This also means that even suppliers like Momenta and DJI, which are currently in the limelight, are still waiting for their first hit model.

In addition, from January to May this year, BYD delivered 1.0903 million new vehicles (in the Chinese market, excluding exports), and the proportion of new vehicles without any ADAS configuration (such as AEB, etc.) was still as high as 57.94%.

According to data from Gaogong Intelligent Automobile Research Institute, in the first quarter of 2024, 249,500 passenger cars with standard front-end NOA were delivered in the Chinese market, a year-on-year increase of 203.52%, of which the 300,000-350,000 range was the main force.

However, in the Chinese market, new cars priced below RMB 200,000 still account for 60% of deliveries. This means that even if NOA maintains its current growth rate, it will be difficult to popularize new cars priced below RMB 200,000, but will continue to "popularize" in the price range of cars priced above RMB 300,000.

In contrast, the smart cockpit industry chain, which completed convergence earlier, is occupying the technological advantage of cockpit integration.

As a pioneer in upgrading the vehicle's electronic and electrical architecture, the upgrade of the smart cockpit from traditional distributed ECU to domain controller has entered a period of rapid market growth.

On the one hand, driven by the rapid installation and integration of diversified and intelligent functions in the cockpit, the growth rate of cockpit domain controllers has accelerated in order to further reduce hardware costs and software integration needs.

Data shows that in 2023, 3.4901 million passenger cars with standard front-mounted cockpit domain controllers were delivered to the Chinese market, a year-on-year increase of 111.43%; in the first quarter of this year, this figure reached 1.0393 million, a year-on-year increase of 93.47%.

In addition, the proportion of cockpit domain controller configuration in the overall cockpit entertainment system host market during the same period exceeded 20% for the first time, reaching 22.83%.

In addition to the obvious popularization trend of cockpit domain control mentioned above, some cockpit Tier 1s and OEMs have also integrated gateways into cockpit domain control.

Obviously, the cockpit has a strong human-computer interaction experience attribute and is more suitable as a carrier for cabin-driver integration.

Especially compared with the domain control architecture, when intelligent assisted driving is turned on, the sudden braking behavior of the system is sometimes difficult to feedback to the driver and passengers in advance, and there is no good human-computer interaction, which can easily cause driver and passenger fright. From a technical perspective, ADAS signals are forwarded through gateways and different domains, and the delay to the user end experience is relatively poor.

By leveraging the opportunity of cabin-driver integration, the user experience can be improved by optimizing communication rates, signals, and architecture through One Box, or even One Board or One Chip. That is, the cockpit can be used to provide feedback to the user through voice, touch, gestures, and other methods, thus achieving seamless interaction between people and cars.

However, in order to tap the above-mentioned user experience potential, the cockpit needs to take on the integration of the overall cabin-pilot system.

After all, the normal operation and failure of DMS, CMS, forward-looking and surround-looking sensors will eventually be fed back to the cockpit, which means that the cockpit tiers need to have strong coordination capabilities and a full understanding of the cockpit system.

With opportunities and challenges coexisting, Tier 1s who have been deeply engaged in smart cockpits for many years are the first to welcome this wave of spring.

In particular, cockpit Tier 1s with strong system integration, functional safety development, engineering and large-scale delivery capabilities have a more prominent advantage in getting ahead.

For example, as early as this year's Beijing Auto Show, Nezha Auto, Qualcomm and China Automotive Industry Corporation jointly launched the world's first Snapdragon Ride Flex (SA8775P) cabin-driver fusion platform, which is scheduled to be mass-produced in the second quarter of 2025.

It is reported that the platform supports both digital cockpit and intelligent driving functions through a single SoC, and has strong performance and leading advantages in the processing capabilities of CPU, GPU, and NPU. It supports the realization of complex intelligent cockpit functions, including immersive 3D real-time rendering, 8K ultra-high-definition display, and ultra-low latency top sound effects, and supports ASIL-D level functional safety.

It is worth mentioning that as a supplier of automotive smart cockpits, Autolink’s products and businesses mainly include smart cockpit domain controllers, smart network software and operation services.

In 2023, its smart cockpit domain controller shipments exceeded 600,000 units, and its main customers included mainstream car companies such as Great Wall, Chery, Geely, BYD, GAC, and Nezha.

Thanks to the technology accumulation in the cockpit field over the past 10 years, Chelian Tianxia has laid out the integrated cockpit and driver products in advance, from intelligent cockpit domain controllers to cross-domain integration. Not long ago, Chelian Tianxia also announced that it had completed the D1 round of financing of several hundred million yuan, and has great potential to take the lead in cross-domain integration.

On this basis, cockpit players with capabilities such as intelligent driving and vehicle networking also have more confidence in the integration of cabin and cockpit.

For example, Beidou Zhilian, whose main business is smart cockpit domain controller, relies on its full-stack development capabilities in the field of smart cockpits and high-precision fusion positioning core technology based on Beidou satellites. It has gradually become prominent in business directions such as vehicle cockpit electronics, networked communications and positioning, and intelligent driving. The business map for the era of cabin-driver integration has begun to take shape.

Also at the Beijing Auto Show, Beidou Zhilian showcased the new "intelligent cabin-driving fusion solution", which uses Qualcomm SA8255, a new generation of high-computing chip platform, fully utilizing the chip computing power, integrating IVI, instrumentation, AVM, DMS, IMS, AI large model, APA parking, and streaming media rearview mirror, bringing users a more intelligent and safe driving experience.

It is worth mentioning that the solution has high-performance computing capabilities, can provide all-round security protection, and ensure the stability and reliability of the system. In addition, its flexible software platform supports multiple operating systems, allowing the smart cockpit to adapt to different vehicles and user needs.

In addition, Beidou Zhilian has also created Qualcomm's new generation SA8775 high-computing power cabin-driver fusion chip platform, which has comprehensively improved the functions and performance of its cockpit and intelligent driving, including high-speed NOA, HPA memory parking, L2 ADAS driving, ultra-high-definition integrated screen display, immersive games, 3D HMI interaction, etc.

Through various cockpit domain control architecture designs, operating system virtualization technologies, and hardware and software isolation solutions for multi-chip platforms, Beidou Zhilian has formed a variety of standardized and modular core development platforms that can adapt to different customer needs and chip characteristics, while taking into account performance, safety and cost, making it more adept at cabin-driver integration.

It is not difficult to find that unlike NVIDIA's pursuit of high computing power and cabin-driver integration, Qualcomm relies on cockpit chips such as 8775 to focus on cost-effectiveness, targeting mid- and low-end models, while meeting cockpit needs and providing some AI computing power for ADAS, which seems to be more in line with the current cabin-driver integration market demand.