Today SAIC held the R-TECH Launch Event in Shenzhen with the help of Huang Renxun, the founder and CEO of NVIDIA, and Austin Russell, the founder and president of Luminar.
We’ve sorted out two pieces of core information:
- Launch New Car ES33
- Launch R-TECH
About ES33
It will be launched globally in the second half of next year and will be manufactured in a new digital factory in Lingang, Shanghai.
About R-TECH
R-TECH will invest 20 billion yuan in research and development over the next five years, with three key goals.
- Hardware: plug-and-play, interchangeable, upgradeable
- Software: purchasable, saleable, definable
- Battery: chargeable, replaceable, upgradeable
The most important thing about R-TECH is the PP-CEM full-stack self-developed high-level autopilot solution.
PP-CEM’s perception capability is composed of the following 6 aspects:
- 1 Luminar 1550nm LiDAR
- 2 4D imaging LiDAR + 6 long-range point cloud LiDAR
- 12 perception cameras
- 12 ultrasonic sensors
- 5G-V2X
- High-precision map
The only purpose of such rich perception hardware is to not miss any small object on the road.
This 1550nm LiDAR is placed on top of the car, which has many advantages over placing it on the bumper.
Not only does it have a better detection field of view, but it is also less likely to get dirty (LiDAR is very sensitive to dirt), and pedestrian collision avoidance is easier. Daily driving will not be affected by minor scratches, the only issue with placing it on the roof is that wind noise may be more noticeable, but the volume of this Luminar’s LiDAR is already very small.
Another advantage of this LiDAR is that it uses 1550nm laser. The other type of LiDAR with 905nm wavelength is run at low power to protect the eyes, but the 1550nm laser is absorbed by the transparent part of the eye before it reaches the retina, causing no harm to the eyes, so it can run at a higher power.
Higher power can directly increase point cloud resolution, increase detection distance and enhance penetration in complex environments.
The data disclosed at the launch event is the farthest detection distance of 250 meters at 10% reflectivity, and 300 lines of resolution.
From the data, we can see that this is a laser radar with excellent performance. Although more and more car models are equipped with laser radar, currently only NIO and SAIC R have chosen the 1550 nm version in China, which has stronger performance than the 905nm version. Of course, the price will also be much more expensive.
In addition, Volvo announced last year that it will also adopt Luminar’s laser radar and make a strategic investment in Luminar. According to the information published on the Luminar official website, the mass production time is 2022.
Two 4D imaging radars, one of which is located in the center of the front bumper in the conventional position, and the other location is not known.
Compared with conventional 3D millimeter-wave radar, 4D imaging radar has higher detection resolution and can capture more details. Of course, the requirements for computing power are also higher.
Covering the entire car with 360-degree perception with 12 perception cameras is already a basic operation.
In order to support the data processing of these sensors, SAIC R also chose NVIDIA’s Orin chip. With a single chip computing power of 254 Tops, NIO uses four chips with a computation capacity of 1016 Tops. It is unknown how many chips SAIC R plans to use. The press conference indicated that it can be expanded to 500-1000+ Tops of computing power.
Today, R-TECH has shown its muscles. Everything looks great from the hardware perspective, but the real experience is crucial, and software capabilities are also important. The difficulty here is not only the ability of visual perception but also the ability of multisensor fusion.
Equipped with PP-CEM’s full-stack self-developed high-level autonomous driving solution, the E33 is expected to be officially launched in the second half of next year. This time is very urgent for development. From the market perspective, there will be many new forces and traditional car companies’ products on the market in the second half of 2022. The beginning of 2023 will also be the time point for L4 autonomous driving competition.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.