Easy Car News, on June 11th, 221, the 13th China Automotive Blue Book Forum opened the agenda for the second day at Intercontinental Hotel Hefei. The topic "Progress and Latest Opportunities of Lidar" was held in Hall A in the afternoon. The topic focused on the important component of autonomous driving, lidar, and brought together five excellent domestic lidar head enterprises. The topic discussed in depth the first year of laser radar boarding, the choice of technical path, the biggest challenge of the industry at present, the influence of joining giants such as Huawei and DJI on the industry pattern, and the competition for talents.

Guests include:

CEO of Wo Sai Technology: Li Yifan

Co-founder and CEO of Sagitar Juchuang: Qiu Chunchao

CEO of Liangdao Intelligent: Drama Learning Ming

CEO and co-founder of Tutatong Innovusion: Bao Junwei

Chairman of Wanji Technology: Zhai Jun

I. Wo Sai Technology

Wo Sai. Founded in Shanghai in 214, it is dedicated to developing laser-based robot sensing technology. Relying on a team of nearly 5 people to create a series of innovative sensor solutions, taking into account the industry's top product performance, mass-produced design and outstanding reliability.

ii. sagitar juchuang

RoboSense is a Smart LiDAR Sensor System technology enterprise. RoboSense provides an intelligent lidar system with information understanding ability for the market through the closed loop of three core technologies: lidar hardware, AI algorithm and chip. Founded in 214, RoboSense is headquartered in Shenzhen and has branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Stuttgart and Silicon Valley. RoboSense has more than 5 employees worldwide.

iii. Innovusion Tudatong

Tudatong Innovusion is an image-level long-distance laser radar automatic driving and intelligent transportation solution provider. It is the world's leading 3-line laser radar high-tech enterprise, headquartered in Silicon Valley, USA, and its products are used in many fields such as automatic driving, vehicle-road coordination, urban rail transit, smart high-speed and high-precision maps. At present, many domestic OEMs have tested lidar products, which are planned to be used as platform standard products for intelligent driving vehicles of L3 and above. In addition, Weilai Automobile announced that on the production car ET7 released in the first quarter of next year, Tudatong's lidar was selected as the standard lidar product.

iv. Liangdao Intelligent

Beijing Liangdao Intelligent Automobile Technology Co., Ltd. was established on September 1, 217. The goal of the company is to make the laser radar available in every car. It is very different from the other four companies in that the company does not make its own hardware, and the strategy adopted is to cooperate with various hardware manufacturers for different technical routes.

Zhai Jun of Wanji Technology said that this year is 221, and three years later it will be 224. With the development of vehicle-road coordination, automatic driving should also be in 224-225. 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 225. This is my personal estimation.

Then Bao Junwei of Tutatong expressed his opinion:

If we define the first year of laser radar, in fact, the first model of Valeo has been put on Audi in 217. We define several indicators for the first year. First, laser radar is useful and can be used; Second, there are enough car factories to use lidar. I think it should be next year, 222.

There are several features. First, some friends here and we have some plans, whether it is public or not. We clearly see that about 5-1 models will be equipped with 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.

Qiu Chunchao of sagitar Juchuang expressed different opinions. 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 loaded directly and oriented to the front-end customers of mass production. Last month, the goods were delivered. On the whole, from the curve, there will be a demand of tens of thousands of units for one customer next year, and it will be tens of thousands more. 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 was Li Yifan of Wo Sai Technology. Mr. Li's views were more conservative and Buddhist, and he did not point out the specific time, but elaborated from another angle. I think everyone's understanding may have several meanings. The first meaning: the first time I tried to go to the last thing, in my opinion, it didn't make a closed loop, but tried. I think the first year of the first batch may be about the same as what you said, and the volume will definitely be the largest next year. But I don't think this matter is very important, because from my point of view, what I think is that we are not oriented to direct consumers. We are actually a supplier. I am more concerned about how much value lidar has created for OEMs and helped OEMs to create for customers.

from our point of view, if lidar is a cost, can you form such an experience? Maybe you are already very confident, but I am still a little uneasy. I think this matter still needs to be promoted by the industry. In other words, the first year of 222 was only the first time in our history to get this hardware product. Did you get this experience for the first time? Frankly speaking, not necessarily.

Is it a good experience after getting this experience for the first time? Will he tell his friend later that this car I bought has a radar installed on it? This thing is worth spending at least 1, to 2, yuan. This is a closed loop in terms of cost. I think at that point, everyone will think about whether it is an effective product. I think as an industry, I think that only after the experience becomes a real experience will everyone really measure it, and then we will discuss whether it is the first year or not. I will think it is more valuable.

various enterprises have different opinions on the selection of the first year. The earliest one thinks that this year will be the first year, and the latest one thinks that 225 will be the first year. Others think that the first year will be discussed after the products are satisfied by users and form a closed loop. In short, although there is no fixed number on how to choose the first year, you will be firm in your knowledge of lidar as an automatic driving sensing hardware.

The second question is about the technical route. For many years, electric vehicles or batteries, which everyone knows better, have experienced various route disputes since they were promoted in 29, and now they are endless. 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, the mechanical type is the most mature, and the scanning speed is fast, so it can detect 36 degrees in all directions. However, due to its large size, it is difficult to mass-produce cars, and the cost is also a big problem. Mixed solid-state fabric has low cost and is suitable for mass production, but the field of vision is limited, and 36 degrees will not work. Pure solid-state fabric 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 Wo Sai Technology explained it first.

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

the first one is whether these technical routes will make different companies run further and further in essence. Or do we think there is a possibility that a technical route will become more practical, economical and reliable in the end? Then the industry will converge on 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 one and converge to that technical route, I think the more interesting topic is whether the technical route itself will become a barrier or whether if this matter is clear, it may take an extended range or pure electricity, which is the end? Actually, I don't know. You may think that there are different considerations at different time points, but once we figure it out, is this thing an insurmountable barrier or is it 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 become the future of the company. On the contrary, we are more concerned that the core of the essence behind the lidar is actually the chip. We will think that different optoelectronics and chips are placed in the lidar more like the engine is placed in the fuel truck. I think you can do whatever you want when you make several doors at the end, but we think the chip is, so I think this is our thinking.

The next speaker was Qiu Chunchao from Sagitar Juchuang, and I quite agree with Yifan, 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 is difficult to have an answer. The only thing we can do is to think more about when and for what application do you launch a product that is more suitable for this application? We should think more about the market itself and its own laws.

on this issue, your speeches finally settled on two issues, one is chipmaking, and the other is cost. According to the current development trend, we make the following conclusions:

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

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

thirdly, it is expected that the whole industry will develop towards "low cost", "mass production", "solid state" and "intelligence".

The five companies present here are all start-ups, four of them are very young, and one is a little older. Most of the laser radar field is start-ups, and some individual giants have intervened, such as Huawei and DJI. Huawei's lidar will be assembled in the polar fox HBT model and the high-end model of Chang 'an; Livox Lanwo, which was hatched in DJI, is also a laser radar supplier of P5 in Tucki. When such giant companies enter the market, will the advantages of capital have an impact on startups?

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, in many cases, money can determine the war situation, so I will subsidize you, I will smash you, and I will buy traffic. There are many things that can be directly affected by money in business, and even the only reason why many Internet companies finance money is to change the war situation.

For the hardware industry, it's good to have money, but it's more important to conform to the objective laws. In the hardware industry, it's not so easy for the big fish to eat small fish. It's very likely that the fast fish will eat the slow fish in the end, and small companies have the advantage of being fast. This is 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 exist in a small company like ours. This is our opportunity as I see it. Therefore, Mr. Li thinks that the admission of giants at present will not cause panic, so just be yourself.

Then Mr. Bao of Tudatong said,

It is a good thing for the 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. Our customers are very smart and have long-term strategic vision, unlike ToC industry consumers, they are dizzy with money when their minds get hot. In the ToB industry, customers are long-term, depending on the depth of technology. It is not enough to have money, but to look at the real performance.

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

Even the giants, it seems that no one can stand up to these companies, and they are relatively clear-headed and technically clear-headed leaders in the industry. Based on this, I haven't seen these actual threats from sain mumtaz to our company.

Next, Qiu Chunchao of Sagitar Juchuang expressed his attention to giant companies.

Are you nervous when it comes to Huawei? Nervous, I am. Many people think that Huawei may be a big company. It is slow, it may be difficult for it to turn around, and so on. Actually, we've just passed a few times, and I think he's 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 all people, our lidar will die if it doesn't work well, but Huawei is different. Bosch also works in lidar. For them, lidar is only a part, but for us, it is all. Of course, Huawei's lidar team will think that this is all.

then the motivation is different. I don't know much about the motivation of Huawei lidar team. For us, we will fight this battle with the highest rule of survival.

For Huawei, 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 complete set of solutions, and such business opportunities are very troublesome for us. However, Huawei belongs internally. If you want to do well, I don't exclude working with you, and he may not all have his own. So I think it is a relatively benign competition.

We have a deeper understanding and knowledge of this industry and the technology in this field through the speeches of the big names in the field of laser radar at this forum. No matter when the first year of autonomous driving is in the end, it is certain that it is just around the corner and we will witness it together. The comparison of technical routes should be decided according to reliability, cost and different needs of different OEMs. Competition in the industry must be a necessary factor to promote the common development of the whole industry. What each company should do before the final battle is to continuously enrich its products and meet the needs of OEMs and users, and reduce costs while ensuring reliability as much as possible. We can see that the start-up technology companies in China are engaged in fierce competition and debate with their wisdom and courage with their counterparts in intelligent driving all over the world. Can we overtake in corners and build our Silicon Valley in China in the future? Let's wait and see.