Author: Rezz
I often ask myself what the dividing line is between the new era and the new world of automobiles. Is it the emergence of new electric vehicle powers or the future explosion of new batteries and AI technologies at some uncertain point in the future?
Recently, IM Auto held a conference called “The Origin of the New Smart World”. I wonder what IM Auto considers to be the starting point for the new era and new world of automobiles.
If we say that in the Internet era, the explosion of products, traffic, and user orientation were all random Brownian motions, it seems that IM Auto is playing with whatever concept is popular, such as the first mass-produced car powered by blockchain technology, the development of the metaverse, mining raw stones for user equity, and the integration of sound, light, and electricity in the supercar mode…
Through these hot concepts, IM Auto is attempting to explore new ways of playing and new origins for intelligent automobiles from five dimensions: intelligent driving, scene intelligence, social ability, continuous evolution, and co-creation.
How to Make Intelligent Driving More “Human-like”?
Today, to promote the flag of defining a new era of intelligent automobiles and reopen the gate to the new world of automobiles, the most fundamental feature of a car must first be done well – safely and efficiently transporting passengers from point A to point B.
As someone who loves driving and is willing to endure long journeys, even if they are far away, assisted driving may be the least considered aspect when I choose a car. However, it is still difficult to ignore the efforts and innovations in the field of intelligent driving.
After all, intelligent driving is the most thorough overturning of the traditional relationship between human and car since the birth of the automobile 136 years ago. It allows cars to return to the original intention of pursuing freedom, liberating drivers’ hands and eyes, and starting the origin of truly free travel. Because of this, it has become the core competition track for intelligent automobile brands to strive for technological innovation.
In terms of intelligent driving, IM Auto uses the AI super algorithm enabled by the L4-level algorithm platform to give L7 the advanced ability to deal with complex road conditions such as “cutting in by vehicles” on congested roads, “evasive action against large vehicles with different shapes”, and “sharp curves” using only the visual fusion solution.
As a result, IM L7’s intelligent driving system has software and hardware upgrade capabilities. Users can exchange data rights for upgrades to the laser fusion intelligent driving system, which includes high-precision laser radar and high-computation Orin chips. Through continuous iteration and evolution of software and hardware integration, IM Auto tries to create a “personal AI driver” for each user, making the intelligent driving experience “more human-like”.
To achieve the “more human-like” experience, we can learn from the video displayed during the launch event.
At the launch event, IM demonstrated a video of L7 driving with its intelligent driving assistance system on the high-speed ring road in Beijing. It can be seen that the algorithms of the artificial intelligence in L7 take very conservative and slow braking actions when dealing with aggressive vehicles on the road.
Perhaps some people may think that this slow braking is too “meat-oriented”. However, for road sections with fast driving speeds and high traffic density like the high-speed ring road, this may actually be a better solution.
In fact, the most frequent and easily angered pain point in city driving is cutting-in and traffic jams. In busy road traffic conditions, when a driver cuts in, the vehicles behind him must brake, and this braking wave spreads backward little by little.
Vehicles are like liquid flowing in a pipeline, and deceleration and braking are like waves gradually spreading. If the first car reduces its speed by 10%, then due to the need to maintain a safe distance and the lag of conditional reflex, the tenth car will reduce its speed by at least 20%. As a result, after a few kilometers, it will inevitably cause traffic congestion. This phenomenon is called the “butterfly effect” or “caterpillar effect”: a small reason causes a larger reaction at the end of the chain.
When encountering a traffic jam, sometimes an overly aggressive driving style, slamming the brakes and then accelerating again, causes a “wave” of congestion.
Correspondingly, if the first batch of decelerating vehicles only brake conservatively and slowly, and the speed fluctuation is slight and quickly resumes cruising speed, then downstream vehicles will be less affected by the wave, reducing the probability of congestion.
Intelligent driving systems with conservative strategies on sections with dense traffic flow can not only ensure safety and riding experience but also maximize the reduction of traffic congestion caused by sudden braking wave transfer.
The ultimate goal of advanced intelligent driving assistance is not only to transport passengers from point A to point B but to balance safety, comfort, and traffic efficiency in the process. After ensuring safe driving, the next goal of intelligent driving is to improve the road traffic environment and alleviate congestion, isn’t it?
Social Abilities
As a model targeting young groups, IM has set many social capabilities for L7, such as the Carlog function that can record the scenery outside the car at any time, the intelligent vehicle language system that can interact with the environment through lights, etc.The function I love most is actually Carlog. As a car self-media person, being able to record the roadside scenery while shooting test drives and seamlessly integrating it with the smooth lines of the car into the lens is definitely every cameraman’s dream.
During the product launch, we also saw the real shot of Carlog in mass production. Through high-quality ultra-billion-pixel technology and a unique perspective of nearly 180° ultra-wide-angle wide format, it captures the beautiful scenery along the way. What’s more important is that it can be shared with one click through the in-car application. Therefore, there is no need to set up a camera or find an angle while driving, and you can always pay attention to whether there are cars coming in the opposite lane on narrow mountain roads to avoid safety hazards.
For me, compared to the “essential” demand of Carlog, intelligent light language may be more like an experience of freshness.
The DLP light projection headlight and ISC flow light overlapping intelligent interactive light language of intelligent vehicles far exceed the lighting function itself. They can achieve the functions of pedestrian mode and handwriting, which indeed increases the playability of car lights.
However, should I say that with the courtesy pedestrian function, can’t I say hello politely or make a gesture friendly through the window? I don’t know if this function is for social celebrities to show off and express their love to friends, or to save social phobia people from facing embarrassment when dealing with people face to face. But the most suitable application scenario I can think of now is to project light language to the security guard in the parking lot: “I have done the nucleic acid test and it is negative.”
Scene Intelligence Goes from Software to Hardware
In addition to intelligent driving and intelligent cockpit, smart people have also extended their intelligent hands to driving experience.
In addition to the common preset scenes such as comfort mode and sport mode on the car, the power to define the scene is handed over to the user: the system can automatically switch mode according to the user’s usage habits and adjust it to the most comfortable state according to the road conditions. And through the all-round linkage of sound, light, and electricity in the supercar mode, it maximally reproduces the pleasure of driving a supercar for the user.
Next, L7 can also flexibly switch between almost different driving and riding experiences through the form of downloading “data packages”, including all core experience elements such as the overall vehicle chassis state, power experience, braking foot feel, and human-computer interaction, which can all be changed accordingly.For users who like to try new things and are sensitive to driving experience, the increasing number of scenario experience modes may mean changing new fun at will. However, for those who are afraid of trouble and not sensitive to the driving experience, the surprise brought by this function is limited.
Dual Evolution Capabilities of Software and Hardware
I don’t know when new energy vehicles, even all new cars that can be called intelligent cars, began to compete with computing power and running points like smartphones. But when it comes to the real leader in cloud computing, cloud storage, and cloud network security, Alibaba Cloud is undoubtedly the one.
Backed by Alibaba, the IM car adopts the “cloud-based data super factory” created by Alibaba Cloud. Through globally high-scoring IaaS computing, storage, network, and security systems, it not only provides globally leading ultra-high data security, but also eliminates the bottleneck of required computing power. This makes it possible for IM cars to achieve sustainable and in-depth evolution of intelligent driving and ubiquitous intelligence.
Especially in the field of intelligent driving, Alibaba Cloud provides high-reliability and high-efficiency technical support for the whole process of IM AD’s data acquisition, annotation, uploading, computing, and AI training, by offering high-performance elastic computing, low-latency network, and efficient cloud storage solution for hot and cold layer.
How to Play the Co-Creation Metaverse of Cars?
To be honest, I have never quite understood how the metaverse and car manufacturing are closely related to each other. If there are only a few connections between them, it may be related to web3.0 and user co-creation of cars.
Therefore, IM car proposes the gameplay of “value internet”: as a pioneer of diversified co-creation, it uses cutting-edge blockchain technology for user co-creation in the automotive field, and takes the “original stone valley user data rights and interests platform” as the core. It constructs a brand-new production relationship. Initial users can obtain more “original stones” by driving longer distances, and can convert these stones into user rights and interests such as installing three laser radars and faster and stronger computing chips through the mall.
From this point of view, it really feels like playing a game of upgrading equipment by defeating monsters. It seems to have added a connection between virtual and reality to the purely virtual user co-creation, allowing users to redefine their cars under limited conditions.
Speaking of redefining smart cars, we have to mention the entire technology industry. Talking about technology, we have to mention the universe-level company that is the world’s top market value, Apple. Talking about Apple, we have to mention Steve Jobs, the father of Apple who left us ten years ago and the significance of his groundbreaking creation of the iPhone, which is a landmark product.Actually, many times users are not sure what their real needs are. With the rapid replacement of intelligent products, what new features are worth buying the latest version? Steve Jobs created the iPhone out of thin air, which seemed immature at the time. As we all know, the iPhone has dominated sales, while Nokia and BlackBerry gradually disbanded from the stage.
Similarly, Tesla’s minimalist cabin and single-pedal mode didn’t originate from user needs, but gradually influenced the entire industry after being introduced. Isn’t the large integrated center screen of the Tesla Model 3 equivalent to the Apple iPhone 4 in the automotive world?
In the era of smart cars, automobile manufacturers always seem to try to transfer the definition and decision-making power of functions to users through co-creation. This seems to be the biggest lie of consumerism, “the customer is always right.” However, making a car, especially making a smart car, is too complex, and it is a huge system engineering project. It is better to use the limited rights to use software and hardware to exchange data rights and enhance the connection between smart cars and users.
Finally, returning to the question I raised at the beginning: Is there a clear dividing line in the new era of automobiles and the world? The answer is universally no, because the era we live in is changing dramatically every day. We are silently swept away by the torrent and easily lost in lies such as “major breakthroughs,” “cross-era innovation,” and “redefinition.” In fact, the changes that truly affect human life are unobtrusive.
In the second decade of the 21st century, the development of technology has also entered a slower pace, so more and more people will re-examine the huge changes in human technology and society in the past century. Of course, we will not refuse to change, and we will embrace and examine new ways of playing with smart cars.
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.