Author: Tian Xi
If you ask who is the biggest “dark horse” in the field of new energy vehicles in 2022, undoubtedly it is the WM Motor EX5.
Released only on December 23 of last year and began to be delivered on March 5, the WM Motor EX5 set a record of cumulative sales volume exceeding 10,000 units in just 87 days, and in June, the monthly volume exceeded 10,000 units.
On August 1, WM Motor announced the delivery data for July – 7,228 units. As of July 31, the cumulative delivery volume of WM Motor EX5 was 26,348 units.
Needless to say, the “explosion” of the WM Motor EX5 is inseparable from its excellent driving performance and unique powertrain structure, but what really sets it apart from the crowd of old and new car makers is perhaps its biggest selling point – the Huawei HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit.
When the WM Motor EX5 was first launched, the tag of “the first HarmonyOS car” attracted a large number of people to try it out. Especially after experiencing its in-car system, there was a wave of praise on the internet, “refreshing cognition”, “the best ever”, “the ceiling of in-car system”…
This inevitably raises the question, what is so good about the HarmonyOS in-car system?
Multi-function In-car System, Rising in an “Intelligent” Revolution
Before answering this question, we need to “review” the level of the car infotainment system in the past.
In the era of fuel-powered vehicles, the car infotainment system played only one role, which was the radio. The driver listened to the radio and music by operating physical buttons and knobs.
Later, with the introduction of the central control screen, the functions of the car infotainment system became diversified and some visual contents began to appear and could be switched by touch screen. With the screen, it didn’t take long for the map navigation to follow.
Development to now, the functions of traditional car infotainment systems have not changed much, generally summarized as the “three major functions”: calling, listening to music/radio, and navigation. In terms of experience, it is difficult to call them “easy to use”, especially for the navigation function. Problems such as lag and slow map updates make car owners unbearable, and they turn to directly using mobile phone navigation with a stand on the dashboard.
At this point, the car infotainment system is like a product that can be neglected. Its functions can be realized on mobile phones, and even the latter performs better.
In 2014, the appearance of Apple’s CarPlay began to turn the tide for car infotainment systems.
This is an excellent mobile phone projection product, which selects applications that are suitable for use in a car environment and presents phone contents according to the display area of the central control screen.Compared with previous in-car entertainment systems, CarPlay efficiently combines the advantages of “multifunctionality” of mobile phones and “clear display” of central control screens. Its interface is not only concise, but also runs extremely smoothly. This is particularly evident when using navigation features.
CarPlay quickly aroused consumers’ enthusiasm for in-car entertainment, gradually becoming a standard feature for joint venture and imported car models. In overseas market, Emily Schubert, senior manager of Apple’s Car Experience Engineering, mentioned in a speech that even 79% of new car buyers in the United States only consider purchasing cars with CarPlay.
Turning our attention back to China, the situation is not that straightforward.
During the ongoing automobile electrification revolution in China, intelligence has been growing, but CarPlay cannot satisfy people’s “longing for a better in-car entertainment system”.
First of all, CarPlay requires car owners to have an Apple phone, which invisibly excludes many Android phone users.
Secondly, during the mirroring process of phone content, CarPlay can cause serious overheating of the phone and excessive power consumption, which affects the user experience, even if the phone is charged while projecting.
Most importantly, CarPlay is separated from most vehicle operating systems, and it is necessary to exit Apple’s software system to enter the car’s own system. Also, the current version of CarPlay cannot support air conditioning control and vehicle information display features.
If Apple ignites the hope of “more possibilities” for in-car entertainment systems, then Chinese manufacturers have maximized this “possibility”.
Compared to Apple’s approach of extending the phone to the car, domestic intelligent cockpit players have redeveloped separate in-car entertainment systems based on underlying operating systems.
This change brings visible richness of use: the central control screen in the middle of the cabin not only covers all the functions of traditional in-car entertainment systems but also integrates with driving operations that could only be completed with physical buttons, such as seat adjustment, window opening/closing, air conditioning control, and mirror folding, in one screen.
Visual interfaces have been greatly expanded. Not only can oil/electricity levels, engine speed, and vehicle speed be displayed on the instrument panel, but also third-party video applications can provide more audio-visual entertainment functions on the central control screen, and map navigation ecology has been further opened to include recommended places such as parking, hotels, food, and scenic spots. Some manufacturers have even made customized content for different car models, such as adding the location of charging/exchange stations.
Compared to traditional cockpits, the biggest difference now is the appearance of human-computer interaction.
By using the voice assistant built into the car’s system, drivers and passengers are able to control various facilities within the car by sending voice commands. For example, when one says “open the window”, the voice assistant can recognize it and execute the corresponding operation immediately. Even for more semantically complex statements like “I’m a bit hot”, the voice assistant is able to understand the meaning and turn on the air conditioning for the passenger.
On the central control screen, this human-machine interaction is also reflected in the “see and say” function. For example, saying “navigate to XX location, and choose the second route” can be completed without touching the screen. This frees up the driver’s hands to a certain extent.
In addition, the mobile phone key is also a form of smart interaction. By simply bringing the phone near the vehicle or even using remote car networking, the car door can be unlocked in a very convenient way.
As we can see, the form and function of the car’s machine and even the entire intelligent cabin are undergoing a huge transformation and have become a part of the core value of the car.
According to IHS data, the level of intelligent technology in the cabin is the second most important factor in consumer car purchases in China, second only to safety equipment and more important than factors such as horsepower, price, and energy consumption.
Through strong research in software, hardware, and human factors, HarmonyOS car system has created ultimate performance
For the first time, the intelligent cabin has been elevated to such an important position in the market. Many players have naturally participated, and in addition to traditional suppliers in the automotive industry, new forces that emphasize self-reliance and full-stack development have also joined. Internet technology powerhouses are also joining in.
However, when it comes to praise and influence, only “HarmonyOS car system” seems to stand out.
In fact, during the M5 sales frenzy, the secondary market inquired about “HarmonyOS” and created a hype, and video evaluations related to “HarmonyOS car system” have long topped the charts on video sites.
What makes “HarmonyOS car system” so special?
汽车之心 (Car News) collected online video comments and found that “the car interface is friendly”, “the experience is smooth,” “voice assistant recognition rate is high”, “third-party applications are rich,” and “Huawei’s ecological experience is good” are the most commonly mentioned descriptive phrases.
In fact, these are the common performance results of the intelligent cabin in the three technical dimensions – hardware, software systems, and scene optimization.
On the hardware side, the computing platform of the HarmonyOS intelligent cabin is built on the Kirin chip car module, and the underlying basis ensures a very strong performance.
On the software side, thanks to Huawei’s many years of accumulation in the mobile phone terminal, HarmonyOS system’s strong optimization ability has been inherited in the car system.The advantages of the HarmonyOS car system ensure that using maps, switching between different applications, and even zooming in and out are extremely smooth on the car screen. In contrast, touch screens on other brand car systems often suffer from lagging response, slow operation, and in some cases complete system failures.
An additional feature of the HarmonyOS car system is that it leverages powerful distributed technology to achieve seamless cross-device, cross-scenario, and ecosystem-sharing experiences.
In other words, a car equipped with HarmonyOS can connect with a variety of Huawei’s hardware devices including smartphones, tablets, and smart home appliances. This also means that application developers do not need to adapt their applications excessively to achieve a huge leap in the number of available car apps.
“As a matter of fact, when the entire HarmonyOS system was first developed, Huawei was already considering this cross-device cross-terminal capability,” said a source close to Huawei’s car business unit to Autohome.
Despite having ample technological and software experience, this alone is not enough to guarantee that the HarmonyOS car system will be easy to use. “The car system is used inside the car, which is completely different from the usage scenarios of smartphones and home appliances,” said the source. Huawei’s intelligent cockpit team spent a long time developing this system for driving scenarios, involving very complex engineering disciplines.
It is understood that Huawei conducted “human factors research” for drivers to determine the functions that should be included in the smart cockpit.
For example, the driver’s visual field of the human eye is divided into three elliptical areas, from the inside to the outside, the core visual field, the efficient recognition visual field, and the comfortable recognition visual field. As the visual angle and range of view increase from the inside to the outside, the range becomes broader.
More specifically, the core visual field is roughly the area where the driver looks straight ahead through the windshield. Because it is closely related to driving safety, the “HarmonyOS car system” does not have any functional areas here to avoid distracting the driver’s attention.
The “efficient recognition visual field” is the area that the driver’s eyes can scan with a slight movement, including the instrument panel and the upper left corner of the central control screen. This is also the main functional area facing the driver.
Therefore, the “HarmonyOS car system” specifically places navigation icons in the upper left corner of the large central control screen to provide clear and efficient driving assistance. The outermost “comfortable recognition visual field” encompasses the entire central control screen, providing a rich and varied range of operations for the driver.
In fact, the human factors research behind the “HarmonyOS car system” goes far beyond this. Taking the car system onboard the Wanjie M5 as an example, the size of the central control screen, the number of icons in the shortcut bar, font sizes, etc. were all conclusions arrived at after extensive scientific research.
The reason why the HarmonyOS car system stands out from the rest of the car systems is due to its unique product logic, that is to pursue functional diversity while maintaining a moderate level of restraint.
On the central control screen of Hongmeng car, a large number of applications are integrated just like a tablet computer, however, Huawei only selects necessary information service application functions to “get on the car” and makes them in card style, such as “roadside assistance” function, which can be found by clicking the secondary menu under the icon.
This “restrained” concept avoids too many applications affecting the smoothness of the entire car system.
Human-computer interaction is also a highlight of Huawei’s cabin. The voice assistant “Xiao Yi” can accurately recognize commands and support “wake-free”, “60s continuous conversation”, “multitone recognition”, “main drive anti-disturbance”, “Sichuan dialect/Cantonese”, etc. This function comes from Huawei’s self-developed voice engine.
According to insiders close to Huawei Car BU, Huawei has made considerable optimization for the pickup speed, feedback speed and semantic recognition inside the cabin. “You can feel that the little Yi in the Hongmeng car is much smarter than the one in the Huawei phone,” he added. Nevertheless, Huawei also maintains restraint in terms of voice assistant. “We can see that the voice assistants of some brands are too sensitive, which occasionally causes misoperation, bringing huge risks to driving.”
From above, it is precisely because of Huawei’s deep cultivation in intelligent cabin software and hardware, as well as meticulous “human factors research” and driving scene optimization for drivers, that create the ultimate performance of “Hongmeng car system”.
It is no wonder that when Yu Chengdong re-emphasized at the M7 conference that “Huawei Hongmeng smart cabin is the best in the world, none other,” it did not cause the same amount of criticism as before.
Grasping the soul of the cabin, car manufacturers gather together to make phones based on the concept of “migrating mobile terminal experience and ecology to the car terminal.” Tesla, the industry leader, fired the first shot.
On March 4, 2021, a video about the Tesla concept phone Model π was exposed on the Internet. According to the car media Torque News, the phone is the car key of Tesla cars and can use Starlink’s satellite network service.
Following closely is Geely, which first announced in September 2021 to invest 10 billion yuan to create a high-end intelligent phone.By 2022, people had discovered that the mobile phone Li Shufu was planning to make would be named “Meizu”. On June 13, Hubei Xingji acquired 79.09% of Meizu Technology’s shares in Zhuhai and gained independent control.
New car makers have never been willing to be left behind.
On February 22, 2022, the media reported that former Meitu President Yin Shuijun joined NIO. Shortly thereafter, news broke that NIO was preparing a mobile phone team led by Yin Shuijun to manage NIO’s mobile phone business.
SAIC, who advocates to firmly grasp the “soul,” also revealed during the media communication meeting at the end of June that it is planning deep integration with phone manufacturers.
“As everyone is aware, the inevitable trend in the field of intelligent devices is the interconnection of all things. Smartphones and car systems are the two most important interfaces, and no one wants to give up either.” An industry insider pointed out concisely.
Li Shufu is frank on this issue. He once said that the better development of mobile phones could drive the improvement of car systems, thereby helping smart electric vehicles improve their competitiveness.
At the news conference of Xingji Era Strategic Investment in Meizu Technology, Li Shufu reiterated this view: “The future integration between the two industries of smart cars and smartphones will no longer go their separate ways but will be a comprehensive, immersive experience for multiple terminals and full scenarios toward shared users.”
Li Bin’s sense of urgency is even stronger. Recently, there have been reports that he stated during NIO car owners’ interaction: “Our mobile phone project is advancing, and we will develop a mobile phone every year, just like Apple.… The developed mobile phone will have good interactions with NIO’s in-car system.”
Prior to this, Li Bin had frequently expressed his determination to enter the mobile phone market. He once said that more than 60% of NIO’s users use iPhones, but Apple has not opened its interface to NIO, which has put great pressure on the carmaker. “The phone is the most important device for NIO users to connect to their cars. Not making our phone is like not having a key to our house in our own hands… Think about 2025 when Apple’s car comes out, and we have no defense. If we don’t prepare today, it won’t be good for us in the future.”
In fact, it’s already starting to become “not good” now.On June 7, at the 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple released the first major update to its Apple CarPlay system in 8 years since its launch. Compared to the previous form that mostly mirrored the screen of a mobile phone, the new generation system has gained access to real-time vehicle data for the first time. Displaying seamlessly on the CarPlay dashboard/central control interface, the system can now show vehicle driving speed, remaining fuel, interior temperature, and other vehicle information.
Moreover, the system has added operations for adjusting the in-car environment, such as controlling the radio, air conditioning, seat heating, and wireless charging.
One can see that Apple is also accelerating the deep interaction and integration of its mobile phones and car manufacturers’ onboard systems. As it is understood, the announcements made at the conference only represent the initial version, with more functions being continuously updated later in the year.
Domestic mobile phone manufacturers have also entered the competition. Except for Huawei, which aims to “help auto companies build better cars,” and Xiaomi, which directly makes cars, “OV” is also full of ideas about the automotive cabin business.
At the OPPO Developers Conference in October 2021, OPPO launched the cross-terminal, full-scenario system travel solution “OPPO Carlink,” which made people speculate that this was to build an ecosystem for interconnectivity among onboard system applications.
At the end of 2021, at the vivo Developers Conference, vivo released “Jovi InCar 2.0,” which has functions such as seamless connection, multi-screen linkage, smart home-car linkage 2.0, and intelligent car keys. Additionally, vivo teamed up with mainstream domestic car manufacturers to establish the Smart Car Alliance.
“You can see that everything is reminiscent of the situation in the smartphones market 5 years ago.” An internal source close to Huawei’s Automotive Business Unit couldn’t help but exclaim that onboard systems are repeating the development path of mobile terminals.
But, the difference is that this time, the competition is more intense.
Autonomous driving is already here, will the “metaverse” for intelligent cabins be far behind?
As the number of participants increases, the exploration boundary of intelligent cabins is gradually expanding.
“Game From Anywhere” is a slogan written on Tesla’s official website, indicating its clear intention to build a “game cabin.”
Not long ago, Musk tweeted that Tesla is working to integrate the Steam game platform into its cars and may perform a demo demonstration next month.
This is not the first time Musk has announced plans to build a gaming ecosystem in cars. Years ago, Tesla launched lightweight games such as Beach Buggy Racing 2 and Landlord Fight, followed by adding 3A masterpieces such as The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. This once triggered an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation into its “in-car gaming” functions.In Musk’s view, most cars in the future will be in a self-driving state, making in-car entertainment increasingly important. In fact, this view points out the development trend of the smart cockpit: in sync with the evolution of the self-driving technology.
Players in the smart cockpit industry are also catching up in China. In addition to providing conventional features such as “watching movies and singing KTV,” they are also focusing on the screens with the “triple screen” mode for the main driver, central controls, and co-driver. An additional screen is added to each rear seat to cater to the entertainment needs of each passenger.
Some have even brought the “metaverse” onto the car, such as NIO’s panoramic digital cockpit based on VR/AR technology. NIO President Qin Lihong once said that the best cockpit experience is seamless, “your screen doesn’t take up space, and VR+AR is the ultimate solution.”
Insiders close to Huawei’s car BU also revealed that the Hongmeng cockpit team is developing active, natural, and multi-scenario interactive designs.
To Volkswagen CEO Zhang Renjie, this means that the concepts of the cockpit/infotainment system will also change.
“When full self-driving is possible, we may only need to wear a VR headset to complete all in-car controls for each of us, without even needing a screen. At this point, it is not important whether we discuss the functions of the infotainment system or even call it an infotainment system,” Zhang said.
However, Zhang Renjie immediately added: “But at least two to three years, and even three to five years, the shape of the infotainment system should still exist.”
This reminder also echoes the current concerns: prematurely pursuing rich in-car interaction capabilities before achieving self-driving can easily cause safety hazards.
Yutian, a senior industry product manager, pointed out that currently, smart cars are still in a state of human-vehicle co-driving, and the functions of the smart cockpit should be developed under the premise of ensuring the safe operation of the vehicle.
“You’d better sacrifice some so-called mobility experience to ensure safety. For example, in Europe, regulations require that dynamic information display is not allowed during vehicle operation to prevent interference with the driver.”
Current regulations in China also force drivers to exercise restraint when using the infotainment system: According to the latest “Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Intelligent Networked Vehicles Management Regulations,” if a driver’s intelligent networked vehicle violates road traffic safety laws, the public security traffic management department will deal with the driver in accordance with the law.
From the early car radio to today’s infotainment systems that integrate navigation, entertainment, and human-machine interaction, the status of the cockpit is constantly improving with the intelligentization of cars.
We are not yet clear on its ultimate form, whether it will be screens covering the entire car or VR/AR glasses that combine all display and control functions.
But one thing is certain: a car will no longer be just a means of transportation, but more like a moving “smart third space,” and we are on a journey to the future.
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.