Intel's dream of autonomous driving is gradually becoming brighter

With the implementation of 5G, a large number of new technologies will emerge;
Intel is also seizing this opportunity to make some money;
autonomous driving is one of its areas, and as of now, Intel's positioning in this area is pretty good;
the author believes that the heavy investment in acquiring Mobileye can pay off in the long run.

As 5G is implemented, many new technologies will emerge, so there will be more opportunities for Intel to make money. Only part of 5G is related to the mobile phone market, but Intel has given up the 5G modem business. But I believe that the demand for 5G is far more than just 5G chips, but also includes areas such as autonomous driving. So far, Intel is very well positioned in this regard.

A Brief Analysis of Autonomous Driving

There are 6 levels of car autonomous driving. We will not introduce L0 in detail. It is completely driven by the driver and belongs to pure manual driving. The car is only responsible for executing commands and does not intervene in driving. Including braking, steering, throttle and power transmission, the driver needs to judge the danger.

L1 is a standard driving assistant, which can sometimes help the driver complete certain driving tasks and can only help complete one driving operation. The driver needs to monitor the driving environment and be ready to take over at any time. At this stage, this technology has been popularized and is used in many commercial vehicles in China. For example: a car is equipped with a lane keeping system and a cruise control system.

Currently, L3 is more advanced. The first car to support full L3 level is Volkswagen's Audi A8, which provides the function of independent wheeling in traffic jams or heavy traffic on the highway. However, its maximum speed is only 60 km/h.

Volkswagen and Tesla are currently accelerating the layout of L4. L4 takes over most of the driving system. As long as the departure and destination are entered before departure, the vehicle can be completely handed over to the autonomous driving system. For example: laser, radar, high-precision map, central processor, smart roads and traffic facilities. But the driver must be able to control at any time so that he can intervene when necessary.

In this regard, it can be seen that apart from the "colorful" promises, people seem to be far away from this market. However, the future is closer than many investors think.

Before that, we need to know which companies are upgrading from L3 to L4, or eventually to L5. In order for self-driving cars to be able to drive in highway traffic, the technology along the highway must also be improved.

Although radar systems can detect vehicles and other road users ahead, it is not easy for traffic lights and traffic signs to be detected by sensors. In order to achieve error-free recognition, the infrastructure for autonomous driving still needs to be upgraded. In response, Intel is developing new technologies for communication between traffic lights and vehicles and between vehicles.

This is V2X or vehicle-to-everything communication. V2C is a form of technology that allows vehicles to communicate with the moving parts of the transport system and is made up of the following components: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-road (V2R), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), vehicle-to-network (V2N) and vehicle-to-person (V2P). To make all this possible, a decisive development is needed, and 5G is often cited as the decisive factor in this regard.

What Intel is doing right

With the help of 5G, a brand new market will emerge with an astonishing market size. In 2017, the global 5G chipset market was valued at US$1.21 billion and is expected to reach US$9.22 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 41.2%.

Overall, after a period of accelerated growth in the late 2020s and early 2030s, 5G global sales are expected to reach $12.3 trillion by 2035. Qualcomm looks set to dominate much of the 5G megamarket with its very diverse 5G applications.

But here too, Intel did something right.

First, it abandoned its 5G smartphone modem business and focused on opportunities in  4G and 5G modems in PCs , IoT devices, and other data-centric devices. The company also launched 5G chipsets for cars, including:

• Wind River® Helix™ CarSync, an intelligent over-the-air (OTA) update management software package;

• Intel® Go™ 5G Automotive Platform, which provides gigabit-speed connectivity between vehicles and mobile networks;

• Intel® Network Edge Virtualization (NEV) SDK, a network functions virtualization (NFV) platform for mobile edge computing (MEC) applications and services;

• Intel® Vehicle Solutions Platform, an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) platform for applications.

Secondly, in March 2017, Intel announced plans to acquire Mobileye for $15.3 billion. The company produces software that performs sensor fusion, analyzing data from camera sensors as well as radar and LiDAR sensors. Autonomous driving requires a lot of system redundancy to deal with unexpected situations, and Mobileye's Road Experience Management is a high-definition map that accurately locates the vehicle relative to road boundaries and intersections in all situations. According to Mobileye, this solution is a unique, low-cost solution for building and quickly updating real-world HD maps.

Third, through Mobileye’s reinforcement learning of driving policies, the company aims to provide the human-like intuition and behavior required of human drivers in multivariable situations. With this in mind, Mobileye has achieved many industry firsts:

2007 Camera and radar fusion;
2010 Pedestrian detection warning;
2011 Camera-only forward collision warning;
2013 Camera-only automatic cruise control (ACC); 2015
Hands-free assist, 2016 Crowd-sourced HD maps;
“Zero Vision” through new prevention system using RSS.

It is expected that more than 100,000 vehicles will be equipped with MobileEye's L3 by the end of 2019. In addition, the company said that although the L4 system will begin production in 2021, many of its technologies and innovations may soon be purchased by consumers related to the system.

 
Intel 2019 Q3 Financial Report

The above data shows that Mobileye continues to grow at a double-digit rate and is likely to become a key growth pillar in the future. However, in the long run, although Mobileye still accounts for a relatively small proportion of Intel's total sales, Mobileye should be viewed as a long-term investment.

Summarize

Intel is working hard to gain a foothold in the future, and autonomous driving is a prime example of this. In the long run, the expensive acquisition of Mobileye will definitely pay off.

Just like the previous technological revolutions, there are always people who are happy and people who are worried. It is better to be moderately vigilant than to be blindly optimistic. Although Intel's glory in the PC era is difficult to reproduce, and many powerful competitors are likely to make it difficult for Intel to move forward, in the long run, Intel's future is still full of potential.