Li Yanhong remarked that "unmanned vehicles will be mass-produced next year," and Tencent is also chasing

(Original caption: Is driverless tickets already in production?

GAC Group has released a self-developed iSPACE concept car.

Wu Wei Hongshe

On November 16, 2017 Baidu World Congress was held in Beijing. Li Yanhong, chairman of Baidu, made a keynote speech at the conference.

Xinhua News Agency

Southern Metro News just this week, China's smart driving field is not calm. On November 16, Baidu's chairman and chief executive officer, Li Yanhong, stated at Baidu World Congress: “The driverless ticket has already arrived and the mass production of unmanned vehicles will be far behind.” On the same day, deputy party secretary and city of Guangzhou Municipal Committee Mr. Wen Guohui, witnessed by Tencent's chairman of the board of directors and chief executive officer Ma Huateng, and others, Tencent handed the Guangzhou Automobile Group and released the iSPACE Smart Concept Electric Vehicle independently developed by Guangzhou Automobile Group in Guangzhou.

At the same time, there are already relevant plans at the national level. The Ministry of Science and Technology convened a new generation of artificial intelligence development planning and the launch of a major science and technology project on November 15. One of the plans is to build a national artificial intelligence open innovation platform for autonomous driving. For the "entrepreneurs" in the field of smart driving, what kind of competition will usher in?

Li Yanhong announces mass production of unmanned vehicles next year

After more than a year of fire, the most concerned about smart driving is still mass production. As a BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) one of the earliest among the input, Robin Li is quite confident, he revealed at the Baidu World Congress on the 16th, Baidu plans at the end of July 2018, "in cooperation with Jinlong to achieve the first L4 level Small-scale production and trial operation of minibuses." Not only that, Baidu will also launch L3 unmanned vehicles with JAC and BAIC in 2019 and Chery in 2020. The L3 is also highly automated and requires a safety officer to handle emergency situations while driving. In July this year, the test that had Li Yanhong eating the ticket was also accompanied by a safety officer.

Relatively slow beat Tencent has already had moves. Not long ago, Bloomberg reported that Tencent has developed its own autopilot system and has already got a prototype. For this issue, the Southern Metropolis Daily interviewed Lin Songtao, vice president of Tencent, and Zhang Jian, director of Tencent's AILab (Tencent Artificial Intelligence Laboratory), but both said they did not respond to the issue. However, Nandu reporters discovered that Tencent has issued several “autopilot” job postings, including senior back-office development engineers and product managers for autonomous driving data platforms.

In contrast, Alibaba currently focuses more on new categories and formats of “no people” such as new retail and unmanned stores. In the field of smart driving, more BATs are fighting for B (Baidu) and T (Tencent).

According to foreign media reports, foreign companies may be one step faster. According to sources, Waymo, an unmanned vehicle company owned by Alphabet, has already put a completely unmanned L4 unmanned vehicle on the road.

In terms of venture capital, several smart driving experts who have gone away from Baidu have successively started their own businesses. The track chosen is still unmanned vehicles. Among them, former senior vice president of Baidu Wang Jing founded Jing Chi, former vice president of IDL Baidu, and none. Yu Kai, one of the promoters of the People's Driving Project, created the "Horizon" and so on. At the same time, Baidu and Tencent have not reduced their investment in unmanned driving companies. Weima Motors was recently exposed to a new round of financing. In addition to Baidu’s leadership, Tencent also tried to enter it. The list of investors for Weilai Motor also includes Baidu and Tencent.

Tencent does not do subversive

Although Tencent did not mention the autopilot system, its related actions were more and more frequent. Nandu reporter learned from the scene of the Guangzhou Auto Show that the iSPA CE Zhilian electric concept car jointly developed by Tencent and Guangzhou Automobile was the first concept car equipped with the Tencent car joint “AIinCar system”.

Southern Reporter learned that according to the GAC Group's product development plan, GAC and Tencent will start custom development at the front end and rear end of the car, and plans to achieve mass production in 2018. In addition, various models of GAC Futures will also be equipped with vehicle-mounted intelligent network-connected terminals jointly developed by both companies. Zhongxiang Ping, vice president of Tencent, revealed: "In the future, the smart driving system will also be used in Guangzhou Automobile's GS4, GS3, GM8 and other mass-produced vehicles as well as a variety of future models of GAC."

However, this concept car is not far from "unmanned". Tencent said it will use Tencent's platform capabilities such as security, content, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence to enhance the driving experience of its owners. Ma Huateng said, “Tencent is to be an enabler, not a subversive, of China's intelligent network industry,” and its purpose is to provide solutions that will make the car a smart terminal for future life.

In fact, the landing of this concept car was less than 10 days away from Tencent's “AIinCar System”. At the Tencent Global Partner Conference 2017 on November 8, Tencent announced the launch of Tencent’s “AIinCar System” to open up its AI-based connectivity and ecological resources. The first batch of cooperation vehicles includes GAC, Chang’an, Geely, and BYD. Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Co., Ltd. has five car manufacturers.

Nandu reporter learned that the AI ​​services provided by Tencent include intelligent voice services, scenario services, content services, social services and operational value-added services. Some analysts believe that from this point of view, what Tencent does is actually a smart car networking service platform rather than the smart driving technology itself. For entrepreneurs, they can use Tencent's platform resources to reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, rather than directly with the big companies.

“We have built a basic structure from a high-precision map, scene data, and a simulation platform to a platform.” Su Kuifeng, director of the Autopilot Lab at Tencent, mentioned that Tencent’s idea of ​​autonomous driving is based on user experience and demand. It is the opening of the car and the cloud that will export Tencent's resources and capabilities to its partners.

The future of smart driving is not just transportation

The national level also hopes to promote the development of smart driving. On November 15th, the Ministry of Science and Technology held a “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan and the Launch of a Major Science and Technology Project” in Beijing, announcing the establishment of a new generation artificial intelligence development planning promotion office, and announcing the opening of the first batch of four national new generation artificial intelligence. List of innovation platforms, and clearly stated that “Based on Baidu’s construction of a national new generation of artificial intelligence open innovation platform for autonomous driving, relying on Alibaba Cloud to build an urban brain, a new generation of artificial intelligence open innovation platform, relying on Tencent to build a new generation of medical imaging national artificial The intelligent open innovation platform relies on the establishment of a new generation of intelligent voice, national artificial intelligence open innovation platform by HKUST's Xunfei Corporation. This shows that smart driving is highly regarded by the state and the government.

“We are now paying more attention to the customer's highway similar to the L3 solution. We believe that the current technology maturity is enough to support the application of automatic driving.” Su Kuifeng said that if the distance is 2 hours, of which 80% is half Closed roads, that is, high-speed roads, save this part of the time, separate from driving, and focus on other better things.

What should be smart driving in the future? Zhang Fan, vice president of the Automotive Engineering Research Institute of Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd., told Nandu that the entire smart driving industry is in a period of rapid development and change. He believes that smart driving will become a very important means of solving traffic problems in the future, but not all. “Sometimes, driving can be very tired, and smart driving can help people solve tired problems. Besides, apart from their hands, Liberation, smart driving can also do something, this is the opportunity for future development."

Zhang Fan believes that smart driving will provide a space for the future, just as mobile phones are not used to make phone calls more often, but play games, send WeChat, and watch movies. “The car in the future may also be like this, it is not only from a A to B transportation, but also a personal driving space."

"Investing through the secondary market"

Yi Yi Consulting Group CEO Zhang Yi believes: "(Driving without driver) is an outlet, but the threshold is a bit higher. It is an important field of artificial intelligence, is a new field of technology industry. Its entry barrier will be more High is considered an outlet, but the threshold is too high for ordinary entrepreneurs to enter.

From an investment point of view, Zhang Yi believes that when investors select targets, they mainly look at three points. “The accumulation of technology, the layout of the industry chain, and the long enough time to wait are the three conditions. Because (driving without driver) Investment opportunities are very long, so it will not be so fast. The best thing is that if investors want to invest in this block, they will invest in the secondary market instead of investing in the primary market."

Produced by: Nandu Caibian Command Center

Coordinator: Nandu Maker News Studio

Written by: Southern Reporter Li Bingru

Intern Zhao Zhengling