Bring together five head lidar companies to talk about the opportunities and challenges of lidar.

Easy Car News, 20021June 1 1 day, the 13th China Automotive Blue Book Forum opened the agenda for the second day at the Intercontinental Hotel in Hefei. In the afternoon, a conference was held in Hall A with the theme of "Progress and Latest Opportunities of Lidar". The project focuses on lidar, an important part of autonomous driving, and brings together five excellent lidar head enterprises in China. The topic deeply discusses the first year of laser radar boarding, the choice of technical path, the biggest challenge of the industry at present, the influence of Huawei, DJI and other giants on the industry pattern, and the competition for talents.

Guests include:

CEO of Jose Technology: Li Yifan

Qiu Chunchao, co-founder and CEO of Sagitar Juchuang

CEO of Liangdao Intelligent: Drama Xueming

Co-founder and CEO of Tudou: Bao

Chairman of Wanji Technology: Zhai Jun

First, Wosai Technology

Jose Technology is the world's leading manufacturer of 3D sensors (lidar). 20 14 was founded in Shanghai, and is committed to developing laser-based robot sensing technology. Relying on a team of nearly 500 people, we have created a series of innovative sensor solutions, taking into account the industry's top product performance, mass production design and excellent reliability.

Second, sagitar Juchuang

RoboSense is an intelligent lidar sensor system technology enterprise. RoboSense provides the market with an intelligent lidar system with information understanding ability through the closed loop of three core technologies: lidar hardware, AI algorithm and chip. RoboSense was founded on 20 14, headquartered in Shenzhen, with branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Stuttgart and Silicon Valley. RoboSense has more than 500 employees worldwide.

Three. Innovating in Datong

Tudatong Innovusion is an image-level long-range lidar autopilot and intelligent transportation solution provider. It is the world's leading 300-line laser radar high-tech enterprise, headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA, and its products are used in many fields such as autonomous driving, vehicle-road coordination, urban rail transit, intelligent high-speed and high-precision maps. At present, many domestic OEMs have tested lidar products, which are planned to be the platform standard products for L3 and above intelligent driving vehicles. In addition, Weilai Automobile announced that in the production car ET7 released in the first quarter of next year, Tudatong's lidar was selected as the standard lidar product.

Fourth, Guangming Road Intelligent.

Beijing liangdao intelligent automobile technology co., ltd was established on September 0 17. The company's goal is to make every car use lidar. Very different from the other four companies, the company does not make its own hardware, and the strategy adopted is to cooperate with various hardware manufacturers to carry out different technical routes.

Zhai Jun of Wanji Technology said that this year is 202 1, and three years later is 2024. With the development of vehicle-road coordination, autonomous driving should also be in 2024-2025. With the maturity of technology, including lidar technology, the maturity of the whole computing power, the maturity of the whole system and the maturity of the main engine factory, it should be in 2025. This is my personal estimate.

Subsequently, Bao expressed his views on Tudatong:

If the first year of lidar is defined, in fact, the first model of Valeo has already reached Audi in 20 17. We defined several indicators for the first year. First, lidar is useful and can be used; Second, there are enough automobile factories to use lidar. I think it should be next year, 2022.

There are several characteristics. First of all, some friends here and we have some plans, whether public or not. We clearly see that there will be about 5- 10 models on the lidar next year, a few may be hundreds or thousands, and a large number may be tens of thousands, and it is not just China.

Then Qiu Chunchao of Sagitar Juchuang expressed different views. As far as our own enterprise is concerned, there are three projects that need SOP this year, and there is one this month, which is really a front-end customer for direct loading and mass production. Last month, the goods were delivered. On the whole, from the curve, a customer will have tens of thousands of sets of demand next year, and there will be tens of thousands more sets. From this perspective, it may be faster. I agree that this year may be the first year and I will start climbing next year.

The last speaker is Li Yifan from Vosai Technology. Mr. Li's view is conservative and Buddhist, and he didn't point out the specific time, but explained it from another angle. I think everyone's understanding may have several meanings. The first meaning: the first attempt to do the last thing, in my opinion, it did not make a closed loop, but tried. I think the first batch may be similar to what you said in the first year, and the quantity will definitely be the largest next year. But I don't think this matter is very important, because from my point of view, I think we don't face direct consumers. We are actually a supplier. I am more concerned about how much value lidar has created for OEM and how much value it has helped OEM create for customers.

From our point of view, if lidar is a cost, can you form such an experience? Maybe you are already confident, but I'm still a little uneasy. I think this matter still needs the promotion of the industry. In other words, 2022 is only the first time in our history to get this hardware product. Is this your first experience? Frankly speaking, not necessarily.

Is it a good experience after getting this experience for the first time? Will he tell his friends in the future that the car I bought is equipped with radar? This thing is worth at least 1 10,000 to 20,000. This is a closed loop in cost. I thought that at that time, everyone would think about whether it was an effective product. I think as an industry, I think only when the experience becomes a real experience will everyone really measure it, and then we will discuss whether it is the first year. I will think it is more valuable.

Enterprises have different opinions on the selection of the first year. The earliest thought that this year is the first year, and the latest thought that 2025 is the first year. Others think that the first year is a closed loop after the products are satisfied with the users. In short, although there is no fixed number on how to choose the first year, you will strengthen your understanding of lidar as the hardware of automatic driving perception.

The second question is about the technical route. As we all know, electric cars or batteries have been promoted for so many years since 2009, and they have experienced various routes, and now they are emerging one after another. Lidar is relatively new. Similarly, lidar has different technical routes, which can be simply divided into mechanical, mixed solid-state and pure solid-state schemes.

These three types have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, mechanical development is the most mature, and the scanning speed can be 360 degrees. However, due to its large size, it is difficult to mass-produce cars, and the cost is also a big problem. Mixed solid fabric has low cost and is suitable for mass production, but the field of vision is limited, even 360 degrees is not acceptable. Pure solid fabrics will be the future development trend, including OPA optical phased array and Flash? Two technical routes, but also wait for further breakthroughs in technology to achieve mass production.

This time, Mr. Li of science and technology first elaborated.

We have an internal metaphor. When we discuss it internally, we will think that the technical route we are talking about is actually a scanning route. We only discuss how to change the technical route of the scanning part of the light direction, and the rest are not actually discussed.

The first one is these technical routes, which will essentially make different companies run farther and farther? Or do we think there is a possibility that a technical route will eventually become more practical, economical and reliable? So will the industry converge to this route? We will think that this probability will be greater, but we can't say which one.

Suppose we think that the industry will find a more practical technical route, and I think the more interesting topic is whether the technical route itself will become a barrier or if this matter is clear, it may take extended range or pure electricity. Is this the end point? Actually, I don't know. You may think that different time points have different considerations, but once we figure it out, is this thing an insurmountable obstacle or a representation? More importantly, where is the accumulation behind different companies?

Everyone can do these technical routes, and we all have them. On the contrary, we can't say which one will be the future of the company. On the contrary, we are more concerned that the essential core behind lidar is actually the chip. We will feel that different photoelectric devices and chips are placed in lidar, which is more like an engine on a fuel car. I think you can make a few doors at last, but we think the chip is, so I think this is our idea.

The next speaker is Qiu Chunchao from Sagitar Juchuang. I agree with Yifan's point of view, because I have been asked this question many times. I believe that colleagues are also asked to vomit. But there is no answer to this, and no one can say an accurate answer. It's hard to have an answer. The only thing we can do is to think more about when you will launch a product that is more suitable for this application. We should pay more attention to the market itself and its own laws.

On this issue, your's speech finally settled on two issues, one is the chip and the other is the cost. We make the following summary according to the current development trend:

First, in the future, lidar will develop from mechanical rotation to mixed solid state and then to pure solid state.

Secondly, the sensing algorithm is the "second core" of the lidar sensing system.

Third, it is expected that the industry as a whole will develop in the direction of "low cost", "mass production", "solid state" and "intelligence".

The five companies present here are all startups, four are very young startups, and one is a slightly older startup. Most of the laser radar field is startups, and some giants are involved, such as Huawei and DJI. Huawei's lidar will be assembled in the polar fox HBT model and Chang 'an's high-end model; Livox Lanwo hatched in DJI is also a lidar supplier of P5 in Tucki. When such a giant company enters the market, will the advantage of capital have an impact on the startup company?

Li Yifan said: I think the influence of capital and giant companies on the Internet industry is greater than that on the hardware industry. In the Internet industry, many times money can decide the battle, so I will subsidize you, I will smash you, and I will buy traffic. There are many things in business that can be directly affected by money, and even the only reason why many Internet companies raise money is to change the war situation.

For the hardware industry, it is good to have money, but it is more important to conform to objective laws. In the hardware industry, the big fish eat small fish is not so easy. It is likely that the fast fish will eat the slow fish in the end, and small companies will have the advantage of fast speed. It's possible. We are not necessarily faster than Huawei, but as a small company, or any small company in the world, speed is always his advantage over big companies. This is likely to happen in a small company like ours. In my opinion, this is our chance. Therefore, Mr. Li believes that the current admission of giants will not cause panic, so just be yourself.

Then Mr. Bao of Datong said:

It is a good thing for giants to enter, which shows that it has a good development direction. Apart from the difference between hardware and the Internet mentioned by Yifan, there are two characteristics: First, this is a ToB industry, and our customers are all ToB people. Our customers are very smart and have a long-term strategic vision, unlike consumers in the ToC industry, who are carried away by money when their minds are hot. In the ToB industry, customers are long-term, depending on the depth of technology. Money alone is not enough, but also depends on real performance.

Second, the lidar industry is a very new industry. When it is new, the technical route is often unclear. If there is a maze, there are too many routes to take. Even if there is more money, in this maze, the thinking is not clear and the amount is not enough.

Even the giants, when we see these companies, it seems that no one can stand up. They are more industry leaders with clear heads and clear technology. Based on this, I haven't seen these actual threats from sain mumtaz to our company.

Next, Qiu Chunchao of Sagitar Juchuang expressed his concern for giant companies.

Speaking of Huawei, are you nervous? I'm nervous. Many people think that Huawei may be a big company. It's slow, it may be difficult to turn around, and so on. Actually, we just passed by a few times. I think he is quite fierce, which is true. However, we may have different positioning and expectations for Huawei. We may think that Huawei is the next Bosch, China's Bosch, and Huawei is not a lidar company.

For me, for everyone, our lidar will die if it doesn't work well, but Huawei is different. Bosch also makes lidar. For them, lidar is only a part, but for us, it is all. Of course, Huawei's lidar team will also think that this is all he has.

Then the motive is different. I don't know much about the motivation of Huawei Lidar team. For us, we will fight this war by pulling survival to the highest standard.

As far as Huawei is concerned, since he said that he can do all-station technology, there are many ways to realize it. Maybe I can directly provide you with a whole set of solutions. Such business opportunities are very troublesome for us. However, Huawei belongs internally. If you want to do well, I don't rule out cooperating with you, and he doesn't necessarily have his own. So I think it is a relatively benign competition.

Through the speeches of the big names in the field of laser radar in this forum, we have a deeper understanding and understanding of this industry and the technology in this field. No matter when the first year of autonomous driving is, it is certain that it is right in front of us and we will witness it together. The comparison of technical routes should be based on reliability, cost and different needs of different OEMs. Competition within the industry is bound to be a necessary factor to promote the development of the whole industry. What each family should do before the decisive battle begins is to continuously enrich their products and meet the demand. We can see that the start-up technology companies in China are having fierce competition and debate with their smart driving counterparts around the world with their wisdom and courage. Can we overtake in corners and build our Silicon Valley in China in the future? Let's wait and see.