Why is intelligent chassis technology the new battlefield of intelligence?

If the first half of new energy vehicles is electrification and the second half is intelligence, then in the second half of intelligence, the battle has spread from intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit to intelligent chassis. Many people believe that intelligent chassis is an important technical field leading to autonomous driving and an important technical barrier for Chinese automobiles to break through the technical shackles of overseas companies.

Not long ago, the 2024 China Intelligent Chassis Technology Seminar was held in Beijing. The seminar was hosted by the China Automotive Evaluation Institute and co-organized by NIO.

Why NIO?

Because in terms of chassis technology, NIO is already in the first echelon of the entire automotive industry.

In less than ten years, NIO's intelligent chassis technology has undergone three generations of upgrades

From NT1.0 to the current mass-produced NT2.0, and the NT3.0 under development, these are the three stages of NIO's layout and thinking on the intelligent chassis.

NT1.0 made some breakthroughs in chassis performance and driving mode. This stage started from 2015 to 2016. At that time, the market environment was that the popularity of electrification was not very high, so there was no good reference for chassis intelligence in the world, and NIO entered a "no man's land". However, NIO was the first to apply "CDC + air suspension" on a large scale in the mainstream price range of 500,000 yuan, catching up with the hardware level of fuel vehicles in the 600,000-800,000 yuan range, and building its own chassis technology standards.

NT2.0 is the first to bring the smart chassis into the AI ​​era. On the one hand, NIO continues to consolidate the user experience of the smart chassis, and on the other hand, it is making AI-enabled layouts. Based on China's first and only vehicle-wide operating system "SkyOS·Tianshu", it integrates the chassis, smart cabin, and smart driving, and realizes the free use of the computing power of four Orin smart driving chips to achieve a car-cloud integrated architecture, and ultimately realizes the implementation and application of functions such as 4D full-domain comfortable navigation and rear-seat exclusive enjoyment, bringing the only driving experience in the same class that is both easy to drive and comfortable to sit in for models such as ET7. At the same time, it also accelerates the arrival of the AI ​​era of China's smart chassis.

NT3.0 has once again entered the blank area of ​​intelligent chassis. NIO has once again completed the technology iteration and led the industry development. At this stage, NIO took the lead in releasing the Tianxing chassis, applying the fully active hydraulic suspension, which not only fully iterated the core actuators of the chassis, but also enabled by AI to continue the evolution of the AI ​​chassis. The NIO ET9 ( parameters | inquiry ) just filed with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is the complete embodiment of NIO's AI intelligent chassis technology capabilities under the NT3.0 platform.

Why does AI intelligent chassis make it both “easy to drive” and “comfortable to sit in” without contradiction?

Taking the current NIO ET7 as an example, let’s take a look at what experience upgrades NIO’s intelligent chassis technology has brought.

For cars, "good to drive" and "good to sit in" are coupled to each other. In the era of passive chassis, most products can only seek a balance between the two, but few models can take into account both good to drive and good to sit in. The reason is that the requirements for the chassis are different in different driving scenarios. For example, when turning, we would like to have a more stable control, and when driving at a normal steady speed, we would like to have a more comfortable ride.

What the smart chassis can do is decouple "easy to drive" and "comfortable to sit in".

The NIO ET7 has a 4D all-round comfort navigation function (which can be turned on or off on the car screen), which is the core function of the NIO AI smart chassis.

4D all-domain comfort navigation allows the vehicle to sense the road conditions and bumps 500 meters ahead in advance, and then perform feedforward adjustments based on the local end-to-end AI capabilities of the chassis, allowing the vehicle to respond with different chassis states in different road conditions.

This capability has a very critical one that no other car company has solved, which is the vehicle-cloud integrated architecture. The data of each vehicle is uploaded to the cloud to form group intelligence, and then decentralized to each NIO, so that each NIO model has the ability to "see from afar" and identify road bumps.

There are many technical solutions that can sense the road conditions ahead through the vehicle, such as Mercedes-Benz's "magic body control", which can "preview" the road ahead. However, this technical route is easily affected by weather, and the distance of "preview" recognition is limited. In addition, the road conditions are complex, and the vehicle can see but may not have time to make chassis adjustments.

So why can the NIO ET7 perceive "500 meters in advance"? The reason is that NIO has a set of 4D road data from a "God's perspective". All car owners participate together, and through the multi-sensor fusion perception of their own vehicles, they identify road events, and then train in the cloud to generate this set of "road 4D data" that all car owners can share. At the same time, NIO updates the bump comfort layer on a daily basis, so it can perceive in advance and prepare for air suspension or CDC damping. Realize the decoupling of "easy to drive" and "easy to sit" under different road conditions. Therefore, the NIO ET7 is the only model in its class that has achieved the ultimate attribute of "easy to drive and easy to sit".

Why is NIO at the forefront of intelligent chassis technology?

Dr. Xiao Baihong, head of NIO's vehicle application software department, mentioned a word during his sharing, which I think is the answer to this question - start with the end in mind.

NIO always thinks and plans from the end to the beginning.

Just like the “hundred-story building” theory mentioned by Li Bin of NIO, the “beginning” of many NIO projects is due to the clear “end” planning. Intelligent chassis technology is no exception.

As early as the chassis development stage of the NT1.0 platform, due to the data closure between different suppliers, it was impossible to achieve coordinated control between chassis actuators. This problem further strengthened NIO's determination to develop the entire suspension system in-house.

NIO currently has at least four capabilities that have laid a solid foundation for the research and development of intelligent chassis technology.

First, it is computing power freedom. NIO's NT2.0 platform models use four Orin chips. There have always been external voices questioning whether NIO needs so much computing power. With the development of smart cabins and smart driving, the competition for intelligence has come to the smart chassis, and computing power will one day become a bottleneck. NIO's pressure on computing power is smaller. Moreover, before computing power became a bottleneck, NIO also used one of the Orin chips to realize "group intelligence", which is one of the important capabilities for creating "4D full-domain comfortable navigation".

第二，是全栈自研。今年，NIO IN上发布的SkyOS天枢系统，是行业首个整车全域操作系统。这标志着蔚来在多个领域的全栈自研成果，可以通过天枢系统，进行跨域融合，整体效率和体验都会大幅度提升，尤其是对于智能底盘的升级优化，将会更加显著。

Third, it is the cloud database. NIO can use desensitized data to build road data in the cloud that includes four dimensions: horizontal, vertical, vertical, and time, thereby realizing a car-cloud integrated architecture.

Fourth, it is AI capability. During the development of NT3.0, NIO has used AI technology to explore the development of intelligent chassis.

The interaction and integration of these basic settings or basic capabilities have enabled NIO to achieve its current achievements and brighter prospects in smart chassis.

In the second half of intelligence, why should we fight for "smart chassis"?

We believe that the competition for smart chassis technology is, on the one hand, a competition for technological discourse power.

近年来，智能化和电动化趋势显著，在自动驾驶技术的驱动下，底盘结构也向着智能化、集成化的方向转型，智能底盘的重要性在于，它承载着电动化和智能化深度融合的作用，在全球汽车产业中，也是非常确定的发展方向。

In fact, in the current new stage of chassis intelligence in China, most OEMs can basically complete the research and development and application of intelligent chassis as long as they are willing to invest, but it is not easy to realize AI empowerment on the basis of intelligent chassis. On the one hand, the deep application of AI technology from the bottom layer requires car companies to have higher full-stack self-research capabilities, and at the same time, it also puts forward higher requirements for the construction of systems, architectures, and vehicle-side hardware. Breaking such technical barriers is the key factor for NIO to achieve technological leadership.

Therefore, we see that many domestic and foreign automakers are actively exploring and developing smart chassis. What characteristics should a smart chassis have and what kind of experience can it bring to consumers? Whoever develops the technology first, builds the industrial chain first, and launches the product first will have the right to speak on the technology.

In this no-man's land, the right to speak in technology is essentially not just a competition between companies, but also a competition between countries.

On the other hand, it is a battle for users’ minds.

At the seminar, I was impressed by a point made by Mr. Han Lu, a senior media professional. He said that consumers in general have a high tolerance for experiences that cannot be compared. The driving experience brought by the smart chassis is one of them.