Tesla FSD will enter China, can domestic car companies still fight? According to media reports, "Chen Kele, deputy director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Promotion Department of Shanghai Economic and Information Committee, said that in the next stage, Shanghai will further deepen its cooperation with Tesla, promote the layout of functional sectors such as autonomous driving and robots in Shanghai, and jointly build a technology industry cluster with core technological advantages and facing the global market."
This news has also been interpreted by the outside world as a signal that Tesla FSD is about to enter the China market. If so, then an overseas "catfish" is finally coming.
Tesla has been deeply involved in the field of autonomous driving for a long time, but can the late FSD still penetrate the smart car market in China? After all, during the absence of Tesla FSD, intelligent driving, including Tucki NGP, Huawei NCA, and even Jidu PPA, a company known as "automobile robot", has been accelerated, and China’s wisdom has changed.
The competition is raging, and the domestic intellectual drive is "anti-"roll"Tesla
Tesla is not only the leader of new energy vehicles, but also the promoter of autonomous driving. Since the release of Autopilot in 2014, Tesla’s assisted driving system has become a pioneer in assisted driving worldwide with its leading landing, rich functions and continuous OTA upgrade. When it comes to smart driving, Tesla is second to none.
However, times have changed. Standing in the smart car market in 2023, in the face of the fully blossoming domestic intelligent driving system, Tesla not only no longer occupies an overwhelming advantage, but even has the impression of being overtaken.
At present, almost all domestic smart cars already have very mature intelligent driving functions in high-speed and parking scenes, and are making efforts to assist driving in urban scenes.
For example, when Tucki launched Xmart OS 4.2 in March, it simultaneously released the first-stage capabilities of XNGP, and many of its models can open point-to-point city NGP (Intelligent Navigation Assisted Driving) in Shanghai’s high-precision map coverage area. In April, Huawei released the HUAWEI ADS 2.0 system. In the third quarter of this year, the urban NCA will realize the landing of 15 cities without maps, and in the fourth quarter, 30 cities without maps will be added.
When the limited edition of ROBO-01 lunar exploration was released in October last year, Jidu released the point-to-point navigation assistance PPA simultaneously. According to the official introduction, Jidu PPA has the high-level intelligent driving ability of "multi-domain integration" in high-speed domain, urban domain and parking domain. When ROBO-01 is delivered, the available scene coverage of PPA will reach the leading position in China. The proportion of cities in the scene of users using cars is much higher than that of high-speed and parking, so the "multi-domain integration" of PPA is the only way for high-level intelligent driving.
In addition, car companies such as Ideality, Weilai and even the Great Wall (mainly relying on its subsidiary) have similar promotion plans for urban intelligent driving.
It can be seen that Tesla, which once dominated, is full of uncertainty in the face of the competition in China’s smart driving market in 2023.
The competitive advantage of domestic intelligent driving is not only reflected in the localization of better understanding of China road conditions, but also in the leading hardware configuration. Take Tucki Expressway NGP as an example. By the end of August 2022, its accumulated mileage has reached 36.9 million kilometers. The concentration is backed by the technical empowerment of Baidu Apollo, which is not only the L4-level automatic driving ability, but also accumulated more than 50 million kilometers of test mileage. Complex "China characteristics" such as ghost probe, jam, and take-away riders all form a strong data advantage, which makes domestic intelligent drivers better understand the driving habits of China car owners and better adapt to the complex road conditions in China.
The hardware foundation determines the function of the upper software, and the domestic intelligent driver has been "armed to the teeth", and there are many volumes to be rolled. Among the representative brands of domestic smart driving, 500+TOPS computing power, 30+ sensors and laser radar are all embarrassed to take out their hands without being paired. For example, Aouita 11 is equipped with three lidar, Weilai ET7 and four Orin to pull the computing power to 1016TOPS. In addition to dual Orin X+ dual lidar, Qualcomm 8295 chip is the first to be equipped with the image convergence.
In addition to the efforts in configuration and function, the domestic intelligent driver has made multiple redundancies in safety. For example, two sets of automatic driving system perception schemes of "vision+laser radar" are applied in Jiji, which can work independently and be a safe backup for each other. In addition, the convergence has also achieved "cabin-driving integration". When the intelligent cabin domain control is extremely ineffective, the intelligent cabin domain control can take over the driving task, realize safe parking, and fully ensure the safety of intelligent driving. In addition to technology, it is the efforts made by China’s high-priced smart driving products in the popularization of science and technology.
Domestic intellectual driving technology equality,It is by no means a toy for a few people.
It must be said that Tesla’s software payment model has not only changed the business model of the traditional automobile industry, but has also been imitated by major manufacturers. However, Tesla FSD’s subscription price of 64,000 yuan is really not cheap.
The high price has discouraged many users. According to previous data, the opening rate of Tesla FSD in China is 1%-2%, and the opening rate in the global market is only about 11%, and it continues to decline. Moreover, at present, the domestic FSD is not a "complete body", which can be said to be a "castrated version" function.
Musk is also aware of this problem. In May this year, he released the news on his Twitter. Tesla will plan to provide all car owners in North America with a free one-month FSD fully automatic driving experience package, provided that the FSD is highly smooth and safe.
In fact, smart cars in China have also formed a relatively mature software payment ecology, and various optional packages for cockpit, software services and smart driving are extremely rich. At the same time, local smart car companies are also exploring new ways of playing, bringing leading functions to more users with the concept of universal technology.
Just like the limited edition of Jidu ROBO-1 lunar exploration, the official gave away many user rights and interests including high-level intelligent driving, charging and recharging, vehicle warranty, three-electricity warranty and so on for the users of lunar exploration, and they enjoyed it for life. Among them, the value of high-level intelligent driving is not less than 60,000 yuan, and it has achieved the first "following people but not following cars" mode in the industry, and you can continue to enjoy this right even if you change cars.
Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, even publicly stated that intelligence is standard in all departments, from the entry version to the high version, including laser radar and 35.6-inch integrated bottle. This move is tantamount to directly opening a new stage of high-level intellectual driving for science and technology inclusiveness in the domestic market.
In April this year, Ideality quickly followed suit, announcing that NOA software and services in the ideal AD Max 3.0 city will be free for life, and every AD Max user will upgrade the NOA in the AD Max 3.0 city and NOA at high speed for free.
The technology popularization of domestic smart cars is not the "backstab" of Tesla model, because technology should be popularized on a large scale instead of being lofty. With the hardware configuration and intelligent scheme of the centralized ROBO-01, there is no complicated "high-low matching" distinction. This uncomplicated and unconventional mode is not only completely different from other new domestic forces, but also a localized continuation of Tesla’s minimalist technology temperament.
Leading intelligent driving technology brings excellent driving experience to more car owners, which is the greatest significance of scientific and technological progress. At the juncture when FSD is about to enter China, a competition between local high-level intelligent driving and "overseas catfish" is also brewing.
