Rabbit Year’s First Post: Talking about NOP+ and Assisted Driving Experience

Yesterday I took a glance at the accumulated mileage of NOP+ which reached 3598km. After the Spring Festival, NOP+ mileage for 775 vehicle owners should be considerable.

During this Shanghai trip, I used NOP+ almost all the time and gained some new understanding of it.

1. I had never experienced NOP+ on four-lane or more highways before. On the Quanzhou section of the Shenhai Expressway, NOP+ displayed an extremely aggressive lane changing strategy. At that time, my wife was driving and I was resting on the side seat. I overheard her saying, “Wow, it (NOP+) really likes overtaking.” I looked up and saw NOP+ weaving in and out of the lanes on the four-lane highway. Previously, on a three-lane highway, it would only switch from the first lane to the second or from the second to the first. On a four-lane highway, it can move between the first, second, and third lanes. However, it does not stay long in the third lane and only uses it as a passing lane. In the long term, it relies on the first and second lanes. I must say that the efficiency of NOP+ is really outstanding, almost approaching that of human driving.

2. There are too many breakpoints in the high definition map, especially on the Fujian-Zhejiang section of the Shenhai Expressway. The frequent prompt “High-precision map restricted, assisted driving will exit soon” appears, and after exiting, the system resumes within a distance of several hundred meters to several kilometers. This kind of experience with breakpoints is really not good. Comparing with the basic ability of NIO Pilot, I still prefer the performance of NOP+. Although NIO Pilot does not have the problem of high definition map matching, the experiences of centering, lane changing, following and cornering are not as good as NOP+. The steering wheel keeps correcting, shaking and swaying. If I had to choose, I would choose to use NOP+ to drive while paying close attention to the road conditions.

There is one more point. After the breakpoint prompt, the vehicle often initiates a lane change. At this time, just when the vehicle initiates the lane change, NOP+ exits, and the lane is lost. This situation may cause novice drivers to panic. I suggest adjusting this mechanism.

3. NOP+ will still exit in heavy rain. When I was heading to Shanghai on the 14th, it rained heavily after I arrived in Zhejiang. NOP+ was basically unusable due to the heavy rain. You can refer to the video. After the dashboard prompt “Assisted driving will exit soon due to poor visibility in heavy rain,” NOP+ will be quickly exited and cannot be restarted for several tens of kilometers.4. During the whole trip, there was a deviation in the vehicle trajectory caused by a high-precision map freshness issue, which was also experienced by Xiaokang. It was obvious from the high-precision map on the instrument panel that the three lanes of the vehicle became two lanes, and then it directly drove onto the ramp. It was supposed to go straight, but found something was wrong and immediately took over to return to the main road. At this time, the instrument panel also changed, showing that the number of lane lines recognized by visual identification was normal, which indeed proved that it was a problem with the high-precision map. After this incident, a one-click report was made immediately.

   The reply is: This issue may be caused by incomplete coverage of the high-precision map, and the relevant department has been reported for repair.

   More than a month has passed since the previous problem occurred, and NIO has been working with map suppliers to solve the high-precision map freshness issue. However, the update cycle of the high-precision map is indeed relatively long, so for 775 car owners who use NOP+, it is important to always keep an eye on it and take over when necessary.

   Previously, Harry mentioned at the NOP+ launch event that among all the issues reported by users during the trial use of NOP+, there were no unknown problems, which is quite good. The current problem lies in the resources and timeliness of problem solving and the optimization of the user experience. NOP+ still has a long way to go.

   Of course, I think the existence of NOP+ is crucial for my long-distance travel this time, and it is one of the reasons why I chose to drive ET5. It directly reduces a lot of driving fatigue and is the basis for driving more than 1700 km per day.

   I will continue to travel during the Spring Festival and continue to experience NOP+. How is everyone’s experience with NOP+? Welcome to discuss!!

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.