Financial Services Association, January 7 (Reporter Zhang Yipeng) After the intelligent market reached the “second half,” OEMs, autonomous driving companies, and suppliers no longer held each other's opinions on the choice of autonomous driving levels, and development paths with L2+/L2++ and L3 as the main lines began to form a “united front.”

“In 2024 and 2025, the application routes for intelligent driving will gradually become clear.” Zhang Yongwei, vice chairman and secretary general of the China Electric Vehicle 100 People's Association, said that bicycle intelligence will develop rapidly and become a development model with superimposed functions. “From parking to integrated parking, to following the L3 lane, and continuously upgrading the development track, a large number of intelligent modules will be launched one after another. This is the development model for bicycle intelligence, and eventually one day it will move towards L4.”

As soon as the “Battle of Kaesong” was triggered, the city's NOA became a “litmus test”

“NOA is the correct way to open advanced intelligent driving assistance, and urban NOA is much more difficult than high-speed NOA.” The industry generally believes that to achieve urban NOA, huge data and scenario support is required. This is a complicated and extremely expensive job. “Urban NOA is the ceiling in assisted driving and is the most technologically advanced feature. By continuously refining the city's NOA function, it is possible to continuously feed back L4 technology and eventually achieve driverless driving, so it is also an entry threshold for driverless driving.” Hou Cong, co-founder and CTO of Light Boat Intelligent Aviation, said.

The “High Definition Map” became the first mountain in front of the city's NOA. High-precision map solutions seem to have an innate advantage with a relatively low technical threshold, but the attendant problems such as difficult collection, expensive data, long cycle times, and difficult iteration have persuaded more and more car companies to quit. The “heavy perception, light map” route has quietly become the mainstream choice. “Open with or without pictures!” Over the past year, this phrase became the “mantra” of Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei, CEO of Terminal BG, and chairman of Smart Car Solution BU.

After avoiding the high collection costs of high-precision maps and the difficulty of generalizing applications, the “Kaesong War” against the city's NOA was about to be triggered.

At the Quanjie M9 press conference at the end of December last year, Yu Chengdong said that the Quanjie M9 has fully upgraded the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 advanced intelligent driving system and is equipped with a newly designed 192 line lidar. Through GOD (General Obstacle Detection) Network 2.0 and RCR (Road Topology Reasoning Network) Network 2.0, it can accurately identify vehicles, pedestrians, traffic facilities, signs, piles, etc. “Without relying on high-precision maps, you can drive all over the country, and the more you drive, the better the advanced smart driving experience starts right away.”

In the same month, Zhiji Auto announced that IM AD high-speed NOA will pass through the country, and announced the IM AD city NOA schedule - the LS6 city NOA will start public testing at the end of 2023, and will be the first to be opened before the Spring Festival; in April 2024, the first version of the city commuting model will be launched; in mid-2024, the city NOA will officially enter the unmapped era; within 2024, the commuting model will cover 100 cities across the country; in 2025, it will enter the door-to-door (full-scene commuting) era to achieve the vast majority of scenarios autonomous driving.

In addition, OEMs such as Mercedes-Benz, NIO, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Avita, as well as the suppliers, have come up with plans for the city's NOA. Lei Jun also said bluntly that it will launch 100 city pilot NOA by the end of this year. On the autonomous driving circuit, the opinion that “urban NOA is a litmus test for measuring the intelligent driving level of cars” has become a consensus in the industry.

L3 promotes speeding up the industry, and enterprises are eager to try

While L2+/L2++ are in full swing, the higher-level L3 is ready to go, and will receive strong policy support in 2023.

In April of last year, Yu Chengdong made a high-profile claim that the Huawei ADS 2.0, which debuted on the AITO Q M5 Huawei Advanced Intelligent Driving Edition, is infinitely close to L3 advanced intelligent driving. The system can reduce traffic accidents caused by lack of concentration and complicated road conditions by 90%. Two months later, Yu Chengdong once again supported L3, saying bluntly that Huawei will move towards commercial use of L3 autonomous driving in 2025.

However, at the same time, there are still debates about the development of L3. Based on challenges such as handover of driving rights, high costs, and laws and regulations, some “pessimists” believe that “even after ten years, L3 will not actually be realized.”

Various opinions and differences still exist, but these have not affected the steady progress of L3, and it has even shown an acceleration trend. According to the reporter's statistics, since the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “Notice on Launching Pilot Work on Intelligent Connected Vehicle Access and Road Traffic” on November 17 to regulate the application methods, test requirements, and definition of responsibilities for L3/L4 entry and road launch pilot projects, more than 10 car brands have obtained “L3 autonomous driving test licenses”, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Qianjie, BYD, and Lotus.

“In the future, BMW will pay close attention to the requirements of Chinese regulations and is committed to developing autonomous driving systems with the highest level of safety standards, bringing L3 autonomous driving functions to the market at the right time to meet the advanced needs of Chinese consumers for smart driving.” BMW said.

The acceleration of the L3 pilot has also stirred up waves in the capital market. Over the next few days, the Internet of Vehicles sector saw several increases in early trading, with Jinyi Technology, Shenzhen Transit, Wanji Technology, Yongan Travel, Qiming Information, and Desai Seaway “all the rage”.

The simultaneous development of L2+/L2++ and L3 has further expanded China's leading edge in intelligent connected vehicles. According to the Canalys report, in the third quarter of 2023, global sales of 630,000 light vehicles equipped with L2+ driver assistance functions (ADAS) reached 630,000 units, with a carrying rate of 3.1%. Among them, Germany, the United States, and China, the three markets that already have L3 assisted driving, account for 85% of global sales of vehicles equipped with L2+ ADAS, reaching 14,000 units, 170,000 units, and 350,000 units, respectively.

“The Chinese market's L2+ penetration rate ranked first in the world for three consecutive quarters, reaching 5.7% in the third quarter. Global sales of light vehicles equipped with L2+ ADAS are expected to reach 2 million units in 2023. In 2024, sales will double to 4.5 million units, and the penetration rate will increase to 5.5%. Among them, the Chinese market will maintain its leading position in the world.” Canalys reports.