In the film "Mechanical Public Enemy", it is presented that human society in 2035, in that era, robots have become an important part of human life, serving as nannies, workers and other roles, and cars have become completely intelligent means of transportation, you only need to say a destination when you get in the car, and then you can do your own thing, rest, read the newspaper or have a meeting, and leave the car to the car itself.
Such a sci-fi film world is believed to be the future travel lifestyle that everyone is looking forward to. Now it seems that 2035 is only 11 years away from us, whether it is long or short, the development of science and technology is changing rapidly, and no one can say what will change in ten years, but at least for now, autonomous driving is still very unsettling and unrealistic.
A number of car companies have obtained L3 autonomous driving licenses
At the end of last year, the BMW Group announced that it had obtained a L3 autonomous driving road test license. Subsequently, Mercedes-Benz and Zhiji Automobile have also successively obtained conditional L3 autonomous driving road test licenses in Beijing and Shanghai. For a time, L3 autonomous driving has become a new stage for car companies to show their strengths.
In the field of autonomous driving, Level 3 and Level 2 are an important watershed, Level 2 mainly focuses on intelligent assisted driving, and Level 3 has been able to achieve partial autonomous driving capabilities. Therefore, being able to obtain a L3 autonomous driving road test license also shows that we are one step closer to autonomous driving.
However, after all, it is only just in the road test stage, and there are regional restrictions, there is still a long way to go in order to really let L3 level autonomous driving technology enter thousands of households, in addition, L3 level automatic driving is not equal to full automatic driving, this is only a higher stage of intelligent assisted driving.
No matter how high-level intelligent driving is, it is just a "young body".
In the era of Internet car manufacturing, intelligence, networking and electrification have become an inseparable part of today's automobiles, and intelligent assisted driving is not only a part of intelligence, but also an important step in the development of the automobile era. It is a test of the intelligent technology of car companies, and it is also a key element to attract young consumers.
Looking at the present, Tesla's FSD autonomous driving technology and Huawei's high-end intelligent assisted driving ADS 20 and Xpeng XNGP intelligent assisted driving. Unlike the other two car companies, Tesla abandoned lidar and adopted a full-perception route, and as early as 2016, Tesla's official website released a self-driving promotion**, using Autopilot self-driving technology, vehicles can travel through city streets, highways and streets without human intervention, and finally can find a parking space. But what is surprising is that at the beginning of last year, Tesla's self-driving ** was exposed to fraud, and the whistleblower said: "Tesla has done a good job of 3D environment modeling in advance on the predetermined route and stored it in the ** vehicle system." In other words, the unmanned driving technology presented by Tesla at that time was not real autonomous driving.
Huawei's high-end intelligent driving ADS 20 adopts multi-sensor fusion perception solutions such as ultrasonic radar, millimeter-wave radar and high-definition camera, which can realize intelligent assisted driving at high speed, urban area and parking, and can be driven without relying on high-precision maps. According to the plan, Huawei's high-end intelligent driving ADS 20 in the last year.
In the third and fourth quarters, commercial intelligent assisted driving has been implemented in domestic cities.
Xpeng XNGP intelligent driving system, like Huawei, Xiaopeng also adopts the technical route of multi-sensor fusion, the intelligent driving system includes two parts: high-speed NGP and urban NGP, at present, the first phase of Xpeng XNGP capabilities mainly cover Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou three cities with high-precision maps. It is understood that in the future, the full form of the XNGP system will not be limited to high-precision maps, and can seamlessly connect various vehicle scenarios such as highways, cities and parking lots in various cities across the country.
Obviously, in the current field of intelligent driving, even if the car companies are in the first echelon, the autonomous driving technology is still relying on high-precision maps and is limited by regions. It is conceivable that in the face of complex traffic situations in reality, many times we still need to intervene artificially, so even if the high-level intelligent driving system is, the driver still plays a major role and must hold the steering wheel to be vigilant at all times. That is to say, at this stage, the intelligent driving system hyped by the executives of car companies cannot let go of the driver's hand and walk on its own, which can only be regarded as a "juvenile" and has not yet developed into a "**".
Those intimidating "smart driving".
Compared with the era when there was only ACC (adaptive cruise) and LCC (lane keeping), the current intelligent driving technology has indeed added a lot of rich functions, such as automatic parking, active identification of people and vehicles and avoidance, AEB automatic emergency braking, etc., sometimes it does help everyone reduce the burden of driving. But I believe that a large number of people still don't trust machines, thinking that driving by themselves is the most reliable.
This is not to say that the technology of intelligent driving is poor, but that there are too many cases that make everyone maintain a skeptical attitude towards intelligent driving. In 2019, a Tesla Model 3 in Autopilot crashed into a tractor truck crossing the road in Florida, USA, and the driver was tragically killed.
On August 12, 2021, a NIO ES8 owner drove a vehicle with the autonomous driving function (NOP pilot state) turned on and was involved in a traffic accident on the Shenhai Expressway, resulting in the driver's unfortunate death.
On August 26, 2021, at the Tokyo Paralympic Games, a self-driving bus hit and injured a blind athlete.
On August 11, 2022, a Xpeng P7 owner turned on the assisted driving function on the viaduct and collided with the faulty vehicle in front of him, resulting in the death of a person in the front vehicle.
These tragic accidents are all a reminder that we must always be vigilant. Know that it's not just about your personal safety, it's about the owners and pedestrians on the same road.
It's not just these immature "smart driving" that make people feel intimidating, but in this Internet era, personal privacy leakage also stings the hearts of consumers, such as Tesla employees privately sharing car owners' privacy pictures through internal information systems; NIO's user data was cracked, resulting in the leakage of millions of user data, etc.; In the age of the Internet, information is spread very quickly, and once personal privacy is leaked, it is undoubtedly equivalent to "running naked" on the Internet.
As you can see, the immaturity of intelligent driving, the inability to protect personal privacy, and the emergence of various uncertain factors, so that most people are now afraid of "automatic driving".
Autonomous driving is still a long way off
In fact, in the future, autonomous driving cannot be achieved by just relying on a smart car, just like a car, not only the engine, but also the chassis, gearbox and body need to be integrated together to be considered a car that can be driven on the road. The same is true for autonomous driving, a smart car must be combined with the intelligent road network, laws and regulations and information security system to build a "people-vehicle-road-cloud" comprehensive intelligent transportation, so that the "smart car" and the "smart road" can cooperate with each other to effectively realize autonomous driving.
Intelligent road network, the construction of smart roads, smart transportation, smart cities and other infrastructure, and smart cars can better allow vehicles to perceive road condition information to make correct response actions; Entering a new stage of unmanned autonomous driving, it is necessary to have a set of targeted traffic laws and regulations to cooperate with to ensure the normal operation of the intelligent road network and the safety of the lives and property of road participants; In the era of the Internet, personal privacy has been effectively protected to ensure the safety of our cars.
Therefore, at this stage, it is far from enough to rely on smart cars alone, and there are intelligent road networks, supporting laws and regulations, and information security systems that need to be improved urgently.
Final summary
All in all, although the domestic smart car is in a stage of rapid development, autonomous driving technology is still a "newborn", and it is still "captive" in the area with simple road conditions for training, and it will take a period of time to "develop" and "experience" from the real hands-off custody.
It is worth mentioning that the content of the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation and Development Strategy" formulated by the state earlier has set three time node goals, namely, by 2020, the technological innovation, industrial ecology, road network facilities, regulations and standards, product supervision and information security system architecture of China's standard intelligent vehicles will be basically formed; By 2025, the technological innovation, industrial ecology, road network facilities, regulations and standards, product supervision and information security system of China's standard smart vehicles will be fully formed; By 2035, China's standard smart cars will be well-known all over the world, taking the lead in building a smart car powerhouse, and sharing a "safe, efficient, green and civilized" smart car society for all people.
Among these three time nodes, 2035, when the smart car power is built, coincides with the time background of the film "Mechanical Public Enemy". Maybe by that time, people have been imagining that the driverless cars in science fiction movies will shine into reality, we can talk and laugh in the car, rest and read the newspaper, as long as we say the destination, the car itself can deliver you safely, no longer need to spend energy to drive yourself.