Comparative analysis of the evolution of electronic and electrical architectures of mainstream car companies

Xpeng Motors' third-generation electronic and electrical architecture realizes Gigabit Ethernet + central computing + regional control. Source: Xpeng Motors

5. Great Wall Motors’ Electronic and Electrical Architecture Development Roadmap

The third-generation electronic and electrical architecture developed by Great Wall Motors in 2020 includes four functional domain controllers - body control, power chassis, smart cockpit, and smart driving. The application software is independently developed and has been mass-produced and applied to all models of Great Wall Motors. The material cost of the models has been optimized. For example, the new Haval H6 has optimized 300 meters of wiring harnesses, with a total length of 1.6 kilometers, close to Tesla Model 3, and a weight reduction of more than 2 kilograms. Starting from GEEP3.0, Great Wall Motors has achieved the ability to independently develop all application layer software. The upper-layer application software of the four domain controllers, and even some of the underlying and underlying integrated software are also independently developed by Great Wall Motors.

Great Wall Motors' electronic and electrical architecture mass production roadmap, source: Great Wall Motors

The fourth-generation electronic and electrical architecture to be launched in 2022 will further centralize vehicle control software to achieve efficient integrated management, high safety and reliability, and faster demand response.

The fourth-generation architecture has three computing platforms: central computing, smart cockpit, and advanced autonomous driving, plus three regional controllers (left, right, and front). The fourth-generation architecture will be first installed on Great Wall Motors' new electric and hybrid platforms, and will be gradually expanded to all models. The central computing unit of the fourth-generation electronic and electrical architecture integrates the body, gateway, air conditioning, power/chassis control, and ADAS functions across domains. Its main control chip has a computing power of up to 30KDMIPS, which can efficiently ensure the control and response of the system. The GEEP 4.0 architecture has a mature visual processing chip solution, 18-way CAN FD, 4-way LIN, 11-way vehicle Ethernet, as well as 64GB storage and 1GB memory configurations to prepare for the computing power and communication requirements brought by future functional integration. The three regional controllers are standardized control units responsible for integrating peripheral MCUs. At present, most of the software algorithms of the three regional controllers have been moved to the central computing unit and developed by the Great Wall Software team. This architecture introduces SOA design methods and concepts, creates a software layered infrastructure platform, and provides modular standard service interfaces. The advantage is that it can provide building block disassembly and assembly, decouple software and hardware platforms, improve software reusability, and enable the car to achieve functional iteration and upgrade throughout its life cycle. Users can dynamically subscribe to upgrade vehicle service functions according to their needs and preferences without waiting for software upgrade batches. At the same time, SOA can also flexibly deploy intelligent scenarios, and standardized interfaces can realize open services, build the Great Wall Motors crowd innovation ecosystem, and work with developers to provide users with full-scenario smart travel services. GEEP 4.0 supports firmware over-the-air upgrades, software over-the-air upgrades, and remote diagnosis; it also supports all ECU OTA functions of the vehicle, including power chassis systems, audio and video entertainment systems, body systems, intelligent driving systems, etc. The cloud diagnosis method based on the new architecture brings convenience to after-sales service. Based on the deployment of vehicle-side and cloud-side functions, remote diagnosis of vehicle fault information can be realized, and the vehicle can be repaired remotely. While ensuring the timeliness of diagnosis and maintenance, the diagnostic knowledge base can intelligently identify, analyze, and match the optimal maintenance plan, effectively solving the shortcomings of insufficient staff and limited technology in 4S stores, and truly solving problems for users quickly.

The fourth-generation electronic and electrical architecture of Great Wall Motors, source: Great Wall Motors The development of the fifth-generation electronic and electrical architecture of Great Wall Motors started simultaneously with the fourth generation. The fifth-generation architecture will highly concentrate the vehicle software in a central brain (one brain), and is scheduled to be launched in 2024. It will achieve 100% SOA and complete the construction of a standardized software platform for the whole vehicle. The central computing module cockpit chip and the intelligent driving chip currently used by Tesla are separated, and it is not a one brain solution. Judging from the current trend of the world's leading intelligent chip manufacturers, the integration of intelligent driving chips and cockpit chips into one is the general trend, but the one brain solution has high requirements on the software capabilities of the OEM.

Great Wall Motor's next-generation car-cloud integrated intelligent ecological architecture, source: Great Wall Motor Great Wall Motor's electronic and electrical architecture has a fast iteration speed, which will provide a "foundation" for the implementation of self-developed intelligent core technologies. The rapid iteration of the electronic and electrical architecture is also strongly related to the company's goal of maintaining a leading position in intelligence. In terms of intelligence, Great Wall's typical winning weapons are: 1) Momenta's full-stack self-developed autonomous driving technology. 2) Wire-controlled steering technology that will be put into commercial application in 2023. In terms of full-stack self-developed autonomous driving solutions: Great Wall Motor's Momenta will realize the city pilot assisted driving function within 2022, or compete with Xiaopeng Motors in the pace of implementation of the city pilot function. In terms of hardware, HPilot3.0 has a strong computing power of 360TOPS, and the whole car is equipped with 12 cameras and 2 laser radars, 5 millimeter-wave radars, and 12 ultrasonic radars. One of the reasons why Momenta's city pilot function was first implemented is that it adopts a heavy perception solution instead of a heavy map solution, which is not restricted by urban high-precision maps. The Haomo Intelligent Driving City Pilot Plan will be SOP in June 2022, and can be effectively deployed in more than 100 cities across the country, which has great advantages in geographical scope. Haomo Intelligent Driving has a large overall deployment range, many models, and a large number of models, and can maintain high-speed continuous iteration based on more data. In 2022, it will undertake the development of high-level assisted driving for 34 models to be launched by Great Wall Motors, accounting for nearly 80% of Great Wall Motors' models to be launched throughout the year. Among these models, 30% are standard and the rest are high-end. On the execution side of autonomous driving: the intelligent upgrade of automobiles and the centralization of electronic and electrical architectures, at the same time, the traditional automobile chassis needs to be upgraded by wire control to adapt to the development. The chassis control system is strongly related to the execution link of autonomous driving. The wire control chassis mainly includes wire control steering, wire control braking, wire control shifting, wire control throttle, and wire control suspension. Among them, wire control steering and wire control braking are the most core products for the execution side of autonomous driving. The current major wire control braking manufacturers in the world are traditional Tier 1 such as Bosch, Continental, and ZF, and the entry threshold is very high. In mid-2021, Great Wall Motors released its first intelligent steer-by-wire chassis, which was designed independently by Great Wall Motors, including core hardware such as electronic mechanical steer-by-wire, steering gear, motor, simulator, controller, and the entire software system. This is the country's first steer-by-wire technology that supports L4+ autonomous driving and will be officially put into commercial use in 2023.

6. SAIC Zero-Bundle Electronic and Electrical Architecture

Zu Shijie, chief engineer of SAIC, believes that the core technology of automobile products is the electronic and electrical architecture, which must be mastered by the vehicle manufacturers. As the core of the automobile, the electronic and electrical architecture will define many relevant standards that are completely different from before, because the automobile was a closed system in the past, and the automobile in the future will be an open system. After the popularization of self-driving cars, car companies will bear the responsibility for driving safety accidents, and safety technology can only be mastered by themselves. From this point of view, car companies must also firmly grasp the electronic and electrical architecture and central control system in their own hands, including the vehicle operating system, basic application and service software architecture on the electronic and electrical architecture, which must be fully understood and integrated. From the perspective of control over the whole vehicle product, Zu Shijie believes that the controllers on the original automobile products are independent of each other and embedded. It will not be a big problem for the whole vehicle company to hand over some of them to the supplier. In the future, the control system on automobile products will be unified, and the whole vehicle company must master the central control system itself, otherwise it will lose control over the automobile products. And gradually integrating and unifying the originally highly decentralized control functions is a correct and difficult path that car companies must take. SAIC's high-end pure electric smart car brands Zhiji and Feifan are equipped with a full-stack 1.0 version of the electronic and electrical architecture. The full-stack 1.0 electronic and electrical architecture has three domain controllers, namely central computing (vehicle control and data fusion), intelligent driving, and intelligent cockpit, while also retaining a large number of distributed modules. In July 2021, the independent research and development of the "ZeroBeam Galaxy Full-Stack 3.0 Technology Solution" was launched to further centralize and support L4 and above autonomous driving. It is planned to be installed on Zhiji and Feifan under SAIC in 2024. The ZeroBeam Galaxy full-stack 3.0 electronic and electrical architecture uses two master-slave high-performance computing units, namely HPC1 and HPC2, to realize intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent computing, and intelligent driving backup functions, plus 4 regional controllers to realize the relevant functions of different regions to fully support L4 and above intelligent driving technologies. The underlying narrow operating system (OS) is upgraded from heterogeneous to homogeneous; the backbone communication bandwidth is expanded to gigabit or even 10 gigabit; the smart car data factory fully realizes digital twin mirroring, continuously consolidates the cloud, pipe, and terminal smart car network security protection system, and accelerates the self-learning, self-growth, and self-evolution of smart cars, making the car a true carrier and entrance for direct connection to users, a mobile AIoT platform, and a digital experience space.