From January 9th to 12th, local time, the 2024 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2024), which can be called the "Spring Festival Gala of Science and Technology", was grandly held in Las Vegas. Judging from the official data, there are 3,200+ companies participating in the exhibition, and the number of participants will exceed 130,000.
In recent years, with the transformation of automobile companies into technological innovation companies, automobile manufacturers are no less enthusiastic about participating in CES than professional auto shows, and the concepts, technologies and products they display have always been the focus of previous CES, attracting the attention of the industry and consumers.
At this year's CES, the industry believes that the display of electric vehicles, which used to occupy the C position, has taken a back seat. So, what are the highlights and highlights of this year's automobile circle?
Automotive + AI, car companies are vying to introduce large models
This year, the most eye-catching thing is undoubtedly the spark of artificial intelligence (AI) and automotive technology. Although this topic has been mentioned for many years, in the past 2023, the explosion of ChatGPT has ignited the trend of artificial intelligence, awakened the world's new recognition of artificial intelligence technology, and shocked that the amazing productivity created by large models may change thousands of industries.
Car companies have embraced large models with great fanfare, not only in-depth layout at the technical level, but also exploring the landing opportunities of large models through various user scenarios such as intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving. From the perspective of the landing situation, in view of the natural similarity between ChatGPT's dialogue capabilities and assistant attributes and various AI voice assistants, the current exploration of large model landing scenarios by car companies mainly focuses on the field of intelligent cockpit focusing on user perception, especially in-vehicle voice assistants. Large models are on the car, the on-board voice assistant has been fully upgraded, and car companies have begun to explore and try, and domestic car companies are at the forefront, including ideal, Xiaopeng, Weilai, Geely, etc.
In the middle of last year, Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft officially announced that they were working together to test the in-car ChatGPT artificial intelligence, and will start testing it for about 900,000 car owners. Although the cooperation between Mercedes-Benz and Microsoft is known as the first application of ChatGPT in the automotive field, there are also opinions in the industry that Mercedes-Benz is still slower than domestic car companies. At CES 2024, Mercedes-Benz once again made efforts to release the latest generation of MBUX human-computer interaction system, and said that it is using AI to provide "human-like" interaction through MBUX virtual assistants, thereby reshaping the digital experience of occupants, which will synchronize with the user's driving style and emotions to "empathize".
BMW also said at the show that it is building a new generation of "smarter" personal assistants, which are based on the generative AI technology provided by Amazon's Alexa large model, claiming to "understand you and your car better". This capability will be available in the new BMW OS 9 system. And BMW also assures that generative AI will neither take over the user's actions nor steal the user's information.
Not far behind, Volkswagen announced at CES 2024 that its existing IDA voice assistant will introduce ChatGPT AI technology and use it in a range of new models. Volkswagen noted that in-car assistants can already perform operations such as controlling infotainment systems, navigation, and more, and by adding ChatGPT, Volkswagen will support interaction in a more intuitive and interactive language.
Screen hegemony, reshaping cockpit human-computer interaction
As a multi-faceted space that carries emotion, technology, and interaction, the intelligent cockpit has become the best entry point for creating automotive product differentiation. At CES 2024, the innovation of car manufacturers and technology manufacturers around the intelligent cockpit has also attracted much attention.
2024 marks the 50th anniversary of Volkswagen Golf, for which Volkswagen has given golf a "makeover". It can be seen from the ** Golf GTI that the interior renewal is the focus, especially the upgrade of the center control screen, which is equipped with 12 according to the model level9-inch or 15-inch multi**OLED touch screen, and the instrument is 10The 25-inch LCD screen has more comprehensive display information, providing functions such as navigation, multi-**, and speed limit reminders.
Starting from the upgrade of Volkswagen Golf, many leading companies are now taking the display screen as the key entry point, hoping to subvert the interior cabin design and create an innovative focus for the car that is enough to attract attention and stimulate user emotions.
At the exhibition, Continental unveiled a Crystal Center Display created in collaboration with Swarovski Mobility. The ** display is based on MicroLED technology, with a unique three-dimensional crystal facet developed by Swarovski Mobility and a 10-inch display that seamlessly embeds into the premium crystal casing to create a visual sense of floating.
LG Display showcased its ultra-large P2P (Pillar to Pillar) display solutions for software-defined vehicles. It is reported that it can be used on the dashboard 12The 3-inch P-OLED and the 34-inch P-OLED used in the ** screen are naturally connected, as if a large display is attached to the entire dashboard, showing a high-end design sense; The 48-inch P2P LTPS LCD provides passengers with car-related information at a glance through a large screen that runs through the instrument cluster, and also allows users to easily experience various in-vehicle infotainment functions.
At the BOE booth, the Geely Galaxy E8 and the ultra-luxury GT SUV Aston Martin DB X 707 were also unveiled. Among them, Geely Galaxy E8 is equipped with BOE's world-first 45-inch 8K on-board screen, which redefines the intelligence of the cockpit and brings a visual immersive experience to drivers and passengers.
Complementing the display, AR devices are believed to unlock great potential in the car. As long-time partners in the AR and automotive space, Xreal and NIO are showcasing state-of-the-art in-car AR entertainment experiences at CES. It is reported that the NIO ES8 at the Xreal booth is equipped with AR glasses jointly developed by Xreal and NIO, which effectively reduces the user's demand for automotive screens. The release of NIO's ET5 in 2022 formalized the partnership between Xreal and NIO. NIO users have created a rich library of movie resources and a PanoCinema panoramic digital cockpit, and with the help of NIO Air AR glasses, NIO users can enjoy a 130-inch equivalent virtual screen viewing experience while driving.
Xreal and the BMW Group are working together to explore the next generation of automotive intelligent AR experiences. At CES, BMW is demonstrating for the first time how AR glasses can bring a rich driving experience to the future. According to reports, viewers can participate in a tour of Las Vegas hosted by BMW and experience Xreal AR glasses on the way. In doing so, they can see how in-vehicle information, including navigation directions, hazard warnings, entertainment content, charging station information, and reversing assist visualizations, is embedded in the real-world environment with the Xreal Air 2 glasses.
Cross-domain convergence is getting closer
With the blessing and empowerment of AI and AR, the intelligent cockpit is rapidly evolving into an emotional space centered on user interaction and experience. The next upgrade trend is that the intelligent cockpit will be further integrated and linked with autonomous driving, bringing consumers a deep experience and participation in scenarios through cross-domain and cross-function, which is also regarded as the core point of the next competition of smart cars. In terms of car manufacturers, including SAIC, Aion, and Xpeng, they have released a new generation of first-class computing + regional control architecture.
Cross-domain integration is a breakthrough in the evolution of electronic and electrical architecture, through the gradual integration of different functional domains in the car, the four domains in the car (cockpit, driving, body, and gateway) can be put into one chip, and multi-functional support can be achieved through chip integration, helping Tier1 to achieve more intelligent function integration in one vehicle. To this end, the leading companies in the automotive chain have also taken advantage of the trend to launch competitive solutions.
At CES, Qualcomm and Bosch announced the automotive industry's first in-vehicle computing platform capable of running both infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) functions on a single system-on-chip (SoC). The new in-vehicle computing platform that integrates cockpit and ADAS functions from Bosch is based on the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC.
Bosch said that the core of its new cross-domain integration platform for cockpit and driver assistance is the chip. With the Snapdragon Ride Flex SoC, Bosch's new in-vehicle computing platform enables a rich user experience with infotainment, vehicle lifecycle management, digital instrument clusters, and ADAS functions such as object traffic lights, lane detection, automated parking, intelligent personalized navigation, voice assistance, multi-display control, and camera radar and ultrasonic data processing.
Magna and LG Electronics will also showcase a new cross-domain platform at CES 2024 that integrates Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), Autonomous Driving (AD) and In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) technologies. The partnership, which began in 2023, successfully integrates the cross-domain cockpit computing system into a single system-on-chip (SoC) by integrating the combined technical capabilities of LG and Magna, providing OEMs with a flexible and cost-effective solution to support multiple IVI systems and ADAS AD domain integration. LG Electronics' platform offers a new experience and more intuitive interaction for drivers and passengers through a dedicated human-machine interface (HMI). Using advanced automotive displays, digital instrument clusters, augmented reality head-up displays (AR-HUDs), and visualization software, the platform drives further innovation in the driving experience. At the same time, the solution can also be customized to meet the integrated communication and IVI system needs of different OEMs.
It is worth emphasizing that Aptiv demonstrated to the world the first cross-domain converged computing platform based on China's high-performance single system-on-chip. It can cover the three control domains of intelligent cockpit, intelligent assisted driving and automatic parking, and supports multi-screen interaction, ** navigation and voice assistant, lane marking and traffic light recognition, parking position and obstacle perception and other functions. Dr. Yang Xiaoming, President of Aptiv China and Asia Pacific, said: "Aptiv's integrated cabin and berthing solution is built by Aptiv's R&D team based on local system-level high-performance chips, which can better leverage the advantages of local development and delivery, quickly respond to market demand, and bring more comprehensive performance improvement and cost advantages to vehicle customers through the overall solution of software and hardware integration. ”
Black Sesame Intelligence also brought the industry's first intelligent vehicle cross-domain computing solution to CES 2024. Black Sesame Intelligence is the first company in the industry to propose the concept of cross-domain integration and launch chips. According to reports, the C1200 family, the first high-performance cross-domain computing chip series of the Wudang series, has won the first place in China and even the industry in a number of indicators, with the industry's highest MCU integrated computing power and integrated 10 Gigabit network hardware acceleration capabilities to help customers achieve more intelligent function integration in one vehicle. At CES 2024, Black Sesame officially announced the C1200 family of mass-produced chip models, including the C1236 that supports single-chip NOA driving and parking integration, and the C1296 that supports multi-domain integration. At the booth of CES 2024, you can go straight to the demonstration of the C1200 series with a single chip to integrate multi-domain functions, including the integrated demonstration platform for cabin and parking, 6V BEV perception display, vehicle data exchange display, hard isolation and GPU rendering display, etc.
Write at the end
In the past few years, CES has been focusing on the big theme of electrification and intelligence, but when electrification has come, or the future of so-called advanced autonomous driving is still unclear, the new things they can bring will naturally decrease, and consumers' concepts have also changed, from focusing on the macro trend to pursuing the practical meaning of "for me", so this year's CES focuses more on the details of the user's actual experience.
Behind the surprises brought by the exhibition, there are also some companies that are absent, the most unexpected is the collective absence of the three North American giants Ford, GM and Stellantis, which are actually the "hosts". Stellantis has made it clear that it will be absent from CES 2024 for the reason of "saving money". It can be seen that the appearance of the automotive industry in 2023 will continue to be staged at this CES exhibition.
Proofread by Zhao Yue).