Recently, I had the privilege of participating in the media test drive of the Flyin R7. After a day of driving, the Flyin R7 gave the impression that it was not like the previous models of SAIC Group, mainly in software and interaction, such as:
- The UI design and information display logic of the car system is similar to that of new power enterprises;
- The calibration of the single pedal mode is very close to Tesla;
- The execution efficiency of the voice system is very high. After the instruction is recognized, the action has already started when the system responds.
In addition, when we opened the bottom floor of the R7 trunk, we also found the intelligent driving computing hardware of this car – two Orin-X chips. The easy-to-open location, neat design, and modular appearance also make people wonder if the R7 will have the ability to upgrade hardware in the future.
However, objectively speaking, perhaps because the epidemic disrupted the release rhythm of this car, the attention this pure electric SUV from SAIC’s new generation platform and architecture received in the early stage was not proportional to its own configuration level.
What is the plan of the Flyin brand, and what is the long-term plan for Flyin’s products? With many questions and some feelings and curiosity during the test drive, I participated in the media group interview during the Chengdu Auto Show. The guests interviewed this time were:
- Wu Bing, CEO of Flyin Auto;
- Liu Chen, General Manager of Flyin Auto User Development Center;
- Hu Xiaofan, Chief Product Officer of Flyin Intelligent Driving Co-creation Center.
Let’s summarize the highlights of this information at the beginning:
- The R7 will be delivered at the end of October, and will be equipped with high-speed navigation assisted driving upon delivery;
- The launch rhythm was delayed due to the epidemic. The team mainly hopes to deliver a complete and high-quality product to users. The verification and testing of the product have not stopped until now;
- Flyin currently has 141 brand fast charging stations and more than 1,000 cooperation rights for priority charging;
- Flyin has a bolt-type battery swapping patent, which can complete the battery swapping in two and a half minutes during the testing phase. The vehicle can be charged, swapped, and upgraded;
- The two Orin-X chips of the R7 are arranged on the negative first floor of the trunk. The ability to upgrade intelligent driving chips was considered during the initial design of the vehicle;
- The Flyin car system software did not adopt the Zebra system, but was developed from scratch by the Zero Beam team;
- The R7’s positioning is aimed at the top players in the segmented market (Model Y), but there are enough differences in product details;
- The front-end research and development of the intelligent driving team has about 500 people, and this intelligent driving system used by the R7 has been developed for two and a half years;
- Flyin’s positioning is high-end intelligent pure electric, and high-end mainly refers to high computing power, high hardware, and high quality. The three main factors considered for intelligent driving hardware selection are performance, stability, and user experience.## R7 Product Communication
Positioning and Product Advantages
Q1: What are the advantages of the R7 in comparison with its competition, and why has the release of the R7 been delayed for so long? Faway’s positioning within SAIC’s brands is in the middle to high-end, and now SAIC has another brand, IM, so how does Faway position itself? Does it want to improve its brand positioning through the release of the R7?
Liu Chen: The main reason for the delay of the R7 is that we want to deliver a more complete and higher-quality product. Actually, the team has not stopped verifying the entire product until now. We don’t want to deliver a car that is a futures contract, so the R7 will have high-speed navigation assist function when it is delivered, and will have advanced automatic parking via OTA in the following months.
In terms of product positioning, the Faway R7 is a mid-to-large-sized SUV. The positioning of the Faway R7 itself is an intelligent and advanced pure electric SUV, with “intelligent driving” and “intelligent cabin” being the core features, and “advanced” referring to high computing power, high hardware quality, and high overall quality.
Recently, many friends have also commented that their first impression of the R7 is that it is beautiful and looks a bit like a larger Model Y. In fact, the R7 was designed to target the No.1 player in the segmented market, but (compared with Model Y) it has differentiated product details and strategies.
The R7 uses the largest 43-inch widescreen triple screen display currently available in domestic brands, with the global top AGC XSY-glass integrated cover, and strength 6 times that of ordinary soda-lime glass. The central control screen is a 15.05-inch OLED screen, with a pixel density of 200 PPI and a refresh rate of 60 Hz, with smooth touch response.
Both the 10.25-inch instrument screen and the 12.3-inch co-pilot screen use MiniLED material, which can achieve finer regional luminous adjustment and effectively improve screen brightness and contrast, while controlling the display of dark areas, better addressing the pain points of users when the screen brightness is insufficient under strong light on both sides.
The R7 also uses Huawei’s global first mass-produced Augmented Reality Head-Up Display (AR-HUD) flat-panel system, with the largest field of view of 13° x 5° and the industry’s highest resolution of 1,920 x 730. After projection it is equivalent to a 70-inch screen at a distance of 7.5 meters.### Translation
R7 is the world’s first vehicle equipped with a Luminar 1550 nm LiDAR, and we have also used the Continental 4D imaging LiDAR and an 8 million pixel ADAS camera, all of which are very advanced. In addition, to fully tap into the potential of hardware, algorithms in software are crucial, and we are the first to propose the concept of full fusion. We believe that full fusion will be a new trend in the industry in the future.
Wu Bing: Currently, the Chinese new energy market is in the stage of defining the brand through product, as the traditional automobile brands have already been mature and have built their brand values into their products. In fact, the brands for Chinese new energy vehicles are not more than five years old, and we believe that R7 can represent the positioning and perception of customers for the future Flyby brand.
From the perspective of Flyby, we have not adjusted our brand positioning. Our positioning has always been high-end intelligence pure electric vehicles, which is our core feature. We did not say it is high-end, nor did we say it is mid-to-high-end. We used the term high-end intelligence, which is our differentiating competitive advantage.
- First, starting with R7, we will plan our products based on six elements: high-end, intelligence, pure electric, luxury, comfort, and safety.
- Second, we believe that a brand is composed of four aspects: brand, product, channel, and experience. Today, you have seen our product. What I want to emphasize is that offline, we hope that you can perceive Flyby as a high-end intelligent brand through the transmission of our brand, communication with our offline and online channels, and your experience.
- Third, SAIC Group has many brands, and we believe that in the next 10-15 years, new energy intelligent vehicles will enter a fast-track development stage. We hope to use more brands to target different consumers and different target groups. Therefore, we hope that through R7, our brand building, channel construction, and operational experience, consumers can feel the Flyby R7’s differentiated brand value.
As for the final positioning, what distinguishes it from being high or being low, is that we will use products to shape the brand positioning, as I mentioned earlier. In the future, there are great opportunities for all new brands that participate in the market.
Furthermore, there is no hot-selling product every day, and companies must have the right values. Companies with long-term value orientations are more likely to create hot-selling products, which will last longer. The first battle is important, but it is not the deciding factor.
One-Pedal Mode
Q2: Here’s a question about test driving. I’m a very experienced user of one-pedal driving, and I can honestly say that R7’s one-pedal mode is the best among domestic brands. When the vehicle’s speed drops by 10 km/h, it switches from electric braking to mechanical braking, and finally to pulling the handbrake. You can barely feel the transition from electric braking to mechanical braking. How is this achieved?Liu Chen: This issue was considered during the product development, and we hope to hand over the choice to users by providing a single-pedal mode switch. Single-pedal mode has many advantages, including braking pads, energy consumption, and switching speed when braking.
The most important thing is to respect the user’s choice and provide diversified and personalized product extensions, which is similar to our concept in intelligent driving. Many manufacturers are now subtracting from the user, but do users really need these subtractions? I think today’s consumers are becoming more and more knowledgeable and value products more. Today’s users have completed in-depth research on products on the Internet and search ends. Their concept of products may be deeper than ours. Therefore, it is worth considering how to explore users’ demands from the C-end and co-creation perspective. The single-pedal mode that you see is just the tip of the iceberg, and is one of the user experience scenarios that we create starting from user scenarios.
Returning to the concept of car manufacturing, SAIC’s reputation and driving quality for traditional fuel cars, including the pedal calibration you mentioned, are very solid. Now that we are electrified, the experience still needs to be solid. Truly good technology should be solid but also meticulous.
Can the smart driving chip support upgrades?
Q3: After opening the trunk of the engineering vehicle, I saw the Orin-X module inside. Was it specially placed in this position to consider the possibility of future hardware replacement and iteration?
Hu Xiaofan: You have a keen observation. In addition to software, hardware and algorithm design, we also consider the entire vehicle. When we designed this plan two years ago, we were thinking that autonomous driving would have significant development in the future, and its chips, computing power, and modules have different depths. We have left enough possibilities in the architecture of the entire vehicle, in terms of position, space, and all other plans, for possible new developments in a few years, whether it is module or computing power upgrades. So the answer is yes.
Considerations for the hardware configuration of R7 smart driving
Q4: I would like to ask about the considerations for using high-spec hardware such as LiDAR in R7. Is it to deal with certain unique scenarios?
Hu Xiaofan: When selecting hardware, Mr. Wu said a sentence during the press conference that everyone knows about software-defined cars. Hardware sets the ceiling for software. During the software upgrading process, we hope to use the best hardware. We think we need to bring enough sincerity to users, and we should not consider costs but rather achieve the following points with hardware and sensors:
- First, performance;
- Second, stability;
- Third, bring users a better experience.
After this, we must use the best software to fully utilize the performance of the hardware. When we set up this plan, we decided to use an fully-integrated high-quality solution. Here, we use a 4D imaging LiDAR, which has a perception distance of 350 meters, while conventional mmWave radar is only 210 meters.The imaging radar can detect the height of an object, with higher detection accuracy than conventional millimeter-wave radar. The imaging radar can also output the data of the current surroundings and target synchronously, which, in combination with machine learning, improves the detection ability and accuracy in scenarios like detecting static objects and passages and thoroughfares.
Regarding the advantages of our hardware in special scenarios, here are a few examples:
Firstly, for ramp recognition, we have a recognition of the entire field with road edges in addition to road lines, which is not only based on visual recognition but also on imaging radar. By constructing the concept of imaging through the LiDAR and building three-dimensional contours, we can identify the driving status and trends of the front and rear vehicles in real-time during ramp recognition. This allows us to safely merge with the front and rear vehicles on the ramp.
Secondly, through perceiving static obstacles, such as construction sites on highways, we have fused this perception into an entire solution that can actively switch lanes in recognition, detection, and functionality. Not every obstacle requires braking because braking can also be a hazard; other cars may be approaching from behind. When there are no cars on the adjacent lane and at a permissible speed, the vehicle will automatically switch lanes to avoid the obstacles. Additionally, through full fusion algorithms among different sensors, with clear vision and recognition in rain, snow, fog, and different weather conditions, as well as an electro-optical distance view, sensors can provide better visibility when human eyes cannot.
Thirdly, during situations where it is difficult to recognize some vehicles, like trucks, the separation of dynamics and real-time recognition outperform many current intelligent driving solutions. This is also the reason why we present the full fusion solution today.
What are the configurations of R7’s intelligent driving?
Q5: The investment in R7’s automatic driving hardware is high-end. However, will there be a mid-range and low-end configuration, and will it be standard throughout the series or only for the top-end version?
Hu Xiaofan: As mentioned in today’s product launch, the laser radar of R7 is optional while the other version uses an imaging millimeter-wave radar with 4 enhanced long-distance point cloud corner radars and 12 cameras. Both versions use the full fusion algorithm we developed in the intelligent driving team.
This solution is independently developed by our intelligent driving team and has many unique features. The full-fusion algorithm uses multi-task and multi-feature neural networks to output a detection result. Subsequently, independently detected results from multiple sensors are integrated and evaluated comprehensively. Then, full-element fusion and posterior fusion are carried out. In this stage, the detection performance with laser will be slightly inferior to that without laser.There are still imaging radar and point millimeter wave radar outputs in the full fusion, covering 360 degrees of point clouds. The visual output of the entire set of cameras is the same in both configurations. The laser plays a bigger role in this scenario. Even though one sensor fusion is missing in the post-fusion, it does not affect the entire algorithm. In other words, we have already considered one more sensor and one less sensor in the algorithm, and the OTA upgrade will also be updated accordingly, ensuring that the push to users is a full push.
To provide better perceptual information synchronization between users and cars, we designed scene reconstruction in the instrument panel and central control (also known as environmental visualization display in 42Mark). This is a full-element output of the perception fusion system, which can show the recognition and detection results for the car, pedestrians, and lane lines. When the user is driving and encounters a target, such as a vehicle approaching from the rear or front, or turning, and there is a certain risk, the instrument panel and central control will turn yellow, and eventually to red to warn the user.
Brand, R&D and Power Supply
Intelligent Driving R&D Team
Q6: RisingAuto’s intelligent driving R&D is now called the Intelligent Driving Co-creation Center. What does co-creation mean? It says “more than one thousand people.” As far as I know, XPeng, which is probably the largest automatic driving full-stack self-developed team in China with high-precision map evolution, has around 800 people. How did we allocate our human resources?
Hu Xiaofan: I will honestly answer your question about the number. Mr. Wu Bing said at the press conference that there were more than 500 people, and the more than 1,000 people included the test personnel deployed by the team in various cities.
The algorithm is led by Chief Scientist Dr. Jin, who has many years of experience in algorithm research and mass production at home and abroad. We also have Dr. Yu, who is responsible for user experience and has worked in Germany and China for many years, serving various consumer business user experience research. Therefore, we also have in-depth technical strategy discussions among several experts in the overall user experience considerations.
Wu Bing: Our full fusion high-level intelligent driving system, from hardware selection to software development, to algorithm pattern formation, is all developed by RisingAuto.
In fact, we have done a lot, but we talk less about what we have done. Our team has gathered very high-quality hardware and software in the industry. We have achieved full fusion advanced intelligent driving through more than two years of development, which is actually not easy. During the epidemic, more than 100 people in our intelligent driving team did not return home in the second quarter, and they faced not only technical challenges but also physical and mental challenges. We regard the smart cabin and intelligent driving as the two core advantages and core assets of our future ultra-intelligence strategy, and continue to invest, precipitate, and develop in this area, which is what I want to emphasize.
Full fusion high-level intelligent driving can have or not have lidar, but it does not affect the overall application of advanced intelligent driving on RisingAuto R7. Therefore, everyone can rest assured that we will not spend so much money on so many people just to sell a few hundred cars and do some advertising. Otherwise, I might as well invest in advertising directly.### Battery Replacement Planning and Concept
Q7: What are Flyvolt’s plans and strategies for battery replacement?
Liu Chen: During the early stages of the brand, battery replacement should not only be a service, but also an important part of the entire product definition. For current industry technology, battery replacement is also facing various choices. Flyvolt has chosen the fast swap technology route based on product value, user demands, and industry trends, as we believe that battery swapping technology will become one of the inevitable trends.
We currently do not have specific information regarding electric power technology, but it can be said that all of our products currently have the concept of fast swapping. However, there are only a few companies in the industry that are capable of achieving fast swapping. Our fast swapping also involves many exclusive patents.
As we all know, consumers in the industry currently embrace and are anxious about fast swapping, with anxiety stemming from the safety and reliability of the large battery during the disassembly and installation process of continuously tightening and loosening screws. Therefore, the core of this technology now is how to accomplish these tasks in a very short unit time. Currently, the single battery swapping time tested is around two and a half minutes.
However, in the electric power technology, the core point is not to pursue the ultimate, to be honest, consumers can accept a two and a half or three-minute battery swapping time. However, the viewpoint is still as mentioned before, we try to make the technology as solid as possible, ensuring the reliability of the entire product. We are very confident in this area of patents.
Wu Bing: To add a few more points, since R7 is Flyvolt’s flagship vehicle model, we give as much choice as possible to consumers. Smart driving allows for custom settings and in terms of battery replacement, we fully give consumers the choice. Liu Chen just mentioned that in the future, it will support fast swapping features. At the same time, we can also support fast charging, so our battery replacement is rechargeable, replaceable, and upgradable.
Up to now, Flyvolt has deployed 114 brand charging stations and more than 1,000 benefit charging stations (priority reservation charging) nationwide. Before R7 was launched, we had made full preparations for the deployment and preparation of these stations.
The battery pack can also have the function of upgradeability, allowing for different batteries to be selected. The reason for emphasizing this point is that in terms of selecting the technology route, especially for R7, we hope to give more choices to users. Of course, we may face more challenges, but in order to provide customers with a better experience, we see rechargeability, replacement, and upgradeability as the core technology route options for Flyvolt’s battery replacement and swapping.
We will communicate further with everyone in the future. Flyvolt R7, as the first model, carries a lot of new technology for us, including global, industry, and SAIC Group shareholder’s first experience with operations and integration. Therefore, we believe that Flyvolt R7 can bear the position of Flyvolt’s first flagship SUV brand.
Final Thoughts# RisingAuto R7: A Refreshing New Model for the SAIC Group
RisingAuto R7 has been unveiled as early as last year under the codename ES33, highlighting its core feature – intelligent driving. Beyond that, R7 embodies the latest technologies from SAIC Group, including its cabin design, the three electrics, and the vehicle platform. It marks the first model that fully embraces it all from inside to outside, from software to hardware, for the RisingAuto brand.
The outbreak of the pandemic and the surge of new energy products this year pose great challenges to RisingAuto, as the loss of the first-mover advantage could impede spreading its message. Facing competitions from newcomers and Tesla, RisingAuto R7 has shown its competitive edge both in ability and differentiation. However, the most significant problem for RisingAuto is how to increase its brand awareness and build trust and security among consumers. SAIC has had some setbacks in this regard in recent years.
For instance, the pancake-wire hairpin motor has been promoted heavily by many automakers in the last year, but it was already adopted in ER6 two years ago, even at an eight-layered winding motor. Meanwhile, the rear axle of RisingAuto R7 utilizes a direct jet oil-cooled permanent magnet motor, which delivers the power of 250 kW, ranking it among the top independent brands, along with Huawei’s DriveONE flagship motor.
Unfortunately, SAIC’s efforts have gone unnoticed, as it has accumulated few commendations in the C-end market of the new energy market, and customers are not eager to promote it. Also, previous-generation conventional vehicles lacked attraction in the blue-ocean market, resulting in missing out on a golden opportunity to make a good name in the market. Newer models just arrived this year when the new energy market is highly competitive, and homogenization has infused into technology and configuration.
RisingAuto benefits from the abundant resources and support offered by SAIC, including technology and capital, but brand influence is something it has to build from scratch.
During the communication meeting, RisingAuto’s team acted rationally in response to the situation, acknowledging that it is still in the growing phase, and pinned their hopes on the predominance of the product.
When introducing the intelligent driving team, Wu Bing said, “Is there any other company with a 500-person team that has worked on intelligent driving for two years and would not talk about it? If it were the opposite (exhibition hall), they would have said it already. Our philosophy is to make things that consumers like, not just to impress investors. In the end, it’s about products and reputation that prevail, not just slogans.”
In retrospect, those growing quickly in the previous years indeed support Wu Bing’s belief that “the Chinese new energy market is still in the phase where products define brands.”
However, as product qualities shoot up rapidly, and price wars intensify, setting a high fence with product branding becomes harder than ever. To succeed, not only must one deliver excellent products quickly but also at a low cost.For any enterprise, including Fei Fan, this is a more difficult road than marketing and communication, and it is also the most practical path to verify long-termism.
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.