On September 27th, FEVAN held a small media communication meeting. Attendees included Mr. Xue Jiong, General Manager of FEVAN Automobile’s New Retail Operations Center, Mr. Wang Yongqiang, General Manager of FEVAN’s Automobile Product Technology Center, Mr. Xu Lu, Chief Operating Officer of FEVAN Zhi Dian, Dr. Jin Jieyu, Chief Scientist of FEVAN Zhi Jia, and Mr. Lu Yu, Chief Experience Officer of FEVAN Zhi Cang. During the meeting, they provided answers to questions regarding FEVAN’s technology and products that the audience was concerned about.
Product related questions
Q: What are the expected monthly sales of FEVAN R7? Will you set a competitor as a benchmark?
Xue Jiong: From my perspective, as a company, we hope to sell as many FEVAN R7s as possible to allow more users to experience our products. Our most important goal for the year is the high-quality delivery of FEVAN R7. We want to provide users with high-quality products, channel experience, and service experience.
Despite being affected by the epidemic in the first half of the year, we still upgraded all channels and expanded new channel models. We also established a new team, established a professional and reliable sales system, and improved sales efficiency and user experience optimization for marketing and development.
I believe that sales is just a number. If high sales are not supported by a high-quality experience, it will be short-lived. We hope to do a good job in high-quality delivery so that users can really feel that FEVAN Automobile is a company that values its users and puts user value first.
Q: This company (“Jetson”) has a registered capital of 4 billion yuan, of which SAIC accounts for 37.5% and Sinopec accounts for 25%. In this cooperative relationship, what role will FEVAN play? As an energy company, they will definitely focus on energy transformation, and as you just mentioned, in this energy transformation, their appetite should not be limited to a single brand. What about the follow-up?
Xu Lu: Vehicle-to-grid separation is not only FEVAN’s strategy but also SAIC’s strategy. As we all know, FEVAN is a wholly-owned subsidiary of SAIC, which is committed to new energy vehicles. FEVAN is at the forefront of paving the way. On this basis, “Jetson” is a public platform that will not only integrate SAIC’s subsequent models and FEVAN but also open up to other industries. This is something that can be worth looking forward to in the future.
Q: How does FEVAN Automotive operate its users? What are the advantages of FEVAN Automotive compared to other automakers? What is FEVAN’s user profile?
Xue Jiong: The traditional model used to be that automakers sell cars to dealers, and dealer complete user operations. Originally, car purchases were made from dealers. Now the entire vehicle can be purchased through the app. The biggest difference between the two business models is that it is direct.We used to sell our cars through dealerships, but now we have the technical capabilities to directly reach our customers. Whether it’s through mobile apps or the flexible electronic architecture of our vehicles, we can provide scenarized services based on customers’ periodic needs. This data can also provide more algorithms for future vehicle models and development.
Wang Yongqiang: From the perspective of order analysis, those aged 30 to 40 should be considered mainstream target customers, which is not too far off from the overall car-buying environment.
Q: How did RisingAuto distinguish itself and stand out as a premium brand?
Wang Yongqiang: Looking at the overall trend of product development, vehicle intelligence – including cockpit, driving, and electrical systems – is definitely the direction that future products will develop towards. On this basis, some materials are particularly important; today it might be 8155, tomorrow it might be 9-something, but if it comes out, I will definitely use it. Although costs must be taken into consideration, they must be allocated in areas that customers care about.
Intelligent Driving
Q: Can Dr. Jin talk about the characteristics of RisingAuto’s intelligent driving technology?
Jin Jieyu: Regarding questions about intelligent driving, I will answer them from three perspectives. First, in terms of the hardware configuration of RisingAuto R7’s intelligent driving system, the whole lineup comes standard with chips and other sensors that provide ample processing power for Full Fusion algorithms, which is a full fusion algorithmic system.
In addition, RisingAuto R7’s intelligent driving system also has the autonomous and adjustable MY PILOT attribute, allowing users to customize various styles of intelligent driving, such as comfort, standard, and sport. This is based on the vehicle’s actual environmental conditions and user preferences.
Finally, the most important characteristic is the central touch screen and instrument panel, which display a rich and real-time perception information through 3D graphics. This includes surrounding traffic participants, such as pedestrians and other vehicles, as well as detailed scene reconstruction such as sidewalks, crosswalks, stop signs, traffic lights, and road signs. These can be interactively overlaid with intelligent driving features.
Q: If MY PILOT is set to comfort mode, will it affect the frequency of lane changes? For example, will the number of lane change maneuvers decrease?
Jin Jieyu: Yes, there is a correlation. The pace and frequency of lane changes will decrease in comfort mode. For example, when lane changing space is narrow, a more aggressive approach may be used in sport mode.### Q: What is the arrangement of confidence for the results after both front and rear fusion of R7 perception? How to ensure that the fusion results obtained are mutually confirmable?
Jin Jieyu: This is a very good point that you just mentioned, which is the problem of conflicts in fusion.
The most likely place for conflicts to occur is in the different sensor types in rear fusion. The attribute dimensions of the objects or observed objects themselves are different, which is easy to cause conflicts. This is also why traditional ADAS has a very obvious boundary in terms of continuity, making it difficult to achieve good continuity. However, in products that are well done, all scenarios can be tested and evaluated repeatedly to pass. It is very difficult to continuously improve the function without exiting and maintaining continuity.
The advantage of front fusion is that the powerful chip is used, and the specifications provide different dimensions of observations from different data. But when processing, all dimension information is integrated. At this time, it is relatively easy to obtain comprehensive observation results.
When front and rear fusion are mixed, there is a problem that can be easily solved, which is that different sensors and the combined perception results actually add the same properties.
For example, the independent sensing results of 4D imaging radar. When the sensing results of 4D radar and camera are combined, it actually avoids purely orthogonal properties in rear fusion, that is, completely unrelated properties. In fact, there are overlapping parts in the attributes, which relatively speaking, makes the precise, comprehensive, and real-time depiction of the entire environment through full fusion possible.
Q: I want to know what the upper limit of the current hardware, including software and hardware systems, is? Does it have city navigation assistance later?
Jin Jieyu: You must grasp the absolute ability to use the powerful part of the chip inside, in order to do a good job of intelligent driving ability.
Secondly, you must have your own full-stack self-developed algorithm to drive the data. Without these two points, we have not seen great breakthroughs with a pure vendor solution.
Regarding city navigation assistance, in the subsequent OTA upgrades process, we will continuously expand new scenarios, and do some small spoilers, including passing through intersections, city navigation, more abundant perception presentation, and highlighting some styles in urban areas. With the upgrade of OTA, these functions will be continuously unlocked.
Q1: What is the consideration behind the location of lidar? Q2: 4D millimeter wave radar is regarded by the industry as the perception hardware that promotes C-end intelligent driving functions. As the first product in China to carry mass-produced 4D millimeter wave radar, what are the ability boundaries of Flying Fish R7? What is the ultimate ability boundary of the 5G lidar solution?
Sorry, there is no Chinese text provided in the original Markdown text.Jin Jieyu: Firstly, there is a natural advantage to placing it on the top of the car – to better leverage the capabilities of the lidar from a higher perspective, especially for the front and obscured objects.
As for the second question, the mmWave radar falls slightly short of the traditional lidar in terms of sensing capabilities, because the lidar is simpler, more direct, and has a smaller noise. But, based on years of industry experience and a deep understanding of sensor capability boundaries and applications, we chose a certain sensor.
With the use of the 4D mmWave radar, we have done a lot of work, such as conducting machine learning networks to learn similar dimensions, processing the entire road structure and static obstacles in time-series, etc. Hence, we have increased the speed of identifying static obstacles of all models to 80 kilometers per hour in the testing data in just one month. All these are due to our ability to process algorithms or data.
Regarding the capability boundaries, I think everyone can look forward to them. I believe that in all models that use Orin chips, we have progressed very, very quickly. At present, RISING PILOT can place the neural network with BEV multi-thermal imaging of 360-degree imaging; this is why we dared to open the SR interface at the first time to provide users with very rich and real-time perception information. And as our technology advances, this information will become more and more reliable.
Intelligent Cabin
Q: The interior of the cabin seems to have some traces of borrowing, is this the case? We experienced intelligent driving, especially the up and down ramps and high-precision maps. Is it possible to receive any prompts when in areas with high-precision maps or without them?
Jin Jieyu: The navigation assistance can indeed only be activated when there is a map because it needs to match the navigation map with the high-definition map. When there is no high-definition map, or when the area without high-definition map coverage is entered, the entire car will switch to the LCC mode. The entire switching process is very smooth and natural.
Wang Yongqiang: What I want to say first is that we did not deliberately borrow from other brands. In fact, the current intelligent cabin design was determined at the beginning of the R7 project. The three-screen display was the first solution we determined.
Lu Yu: Let me add that why we chose such a design. Firstly, it is based on the needs of the user, the usage scenarios, and what kind of content we want to provide to the user through the three-screen. Through this product design, we must choose 8155, we must choose a three-screen display, and we must match the display with our intelligent driving fusion.
Q: Has any improvement or enhancement been made to the convenience of using the large screen in the Feitian R7?Lu Yu: When designing the Feovan R7 cockpit, we didn’t abandon the physical buttons. We provide users with the necessary physical buttons, such as seat adjustment and 360-degree lay-down, on the car doors and central control. At the same time, we provide users with more convenient interaction through our immersive interactive large screen and direct language interaction, which can provide a better experience than physical buttons.
Q: We are using the 8155 chip, what is the advantage of using it? Why did we choose Huawei’s AR-HUD program in the end when we had similar comments about Huawei before?
Lu Yu: Firstly, many car brands and products use the 8155 chip as it can provide more abundant computing resources. Like smartphones, the experience varies between different manufacturers using the same chip. Feovan OS is specially designed to match the hardware, from the basic software to the QNX+ Android system and the hypervisor system, as well as the application scheduling and the presentation and interaction of the intelligent driving content. This maximizes the advantage of the 8155 chip.
Secondly, we have developed the RISING MAX 3+1 giant screen system and placed great importance on Huawei’s leading capabilities in AR-HUD and its compatibility with RISING MAX. This combination provides the best match for driving and entertainment experience with Huawei’s AR-HUD ability, including the industry’s largest field of view, high contrast, and high resolution.
Battery Swap and Energy Supplement
Q: As the establishment of battery swap stations takes time, will users face difficulties now? Also, what are the three most attractive features of the Feovan R7?
Xue Jiong: Feovan R7 has the function of battery swapping, and the battery can be charged, swapped, and upgraded. For the current situation where battery swap stations are yet to be established, Feovan has its own public charging station layout, including Feovan premium charging stations, Feovan preferred charging stations, and over 530,000 third-party charging stations, for power supplement convenience.
Regarding the three most attractive features of Feovan R7, firstly, the RISING MAX 3+1 giant screen system is impressive, secondly, the battery swap and separation of car electricity in the RISING POWER Feovan Energy Program is intriguing to customers, and lastly, the RISING PILOT Feovan all-in-one high-level intelligent driving feature is exceptional.Q: What is the handling process for battery purchases when users choose the vehicle-electric separation scheme? Who does the battery belong to after the user completes the purchase? How is a used car battery calculated? How should “Two Barrels of Oil” cooperation be understood?
徐璐: As we know, whether it’s a phone or a car, batteries inevitably have an irreversible degradation issue and will eventually suffer from battery degradation.
So, what is the battery swap service? One of the benefits of battery swapping is the ability to freely upgrade the battery pack, such as switching between 77 degrees Fahrenheit and 100 degrees Fahrenheit as needed, while adjusting the monthly rental accordingly. This type of experience is diverse.
As for why giants like China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), CATL, and SAIC Motor Corporation have joined forces with JNEV, it is because the various parties’ demands have been unprecedentedly unified at the separation point of car and power. Additionally, everyone hopes to form a new commercial ecosystem through this.
For instance, Sinopec and CNPC, along with the country’s accelerated implementation of the “double-carbon” goals, are vigorously promoting the scale development of new energy business and transforming gas stations into comprehensive energy supply stations. Thus, their demand for transformation aligns with ours perfectly.
Q: Regarding battery swapping rights, how is the price of battery swapping calculated? How much is the monthly rental for a battery lease? Under what conditions and through what means can a user buyout the battery? How can we transition between renting and buying the battery? Are there any requirements for price and time limits? Can the rental be used to offset the battery price? Can I swap batteries while making a buyout? Additionally, what about policies and regulations?
徐璐: After a user buys the R7 separation edition car, they will have to pay a monthly rental fee for battery leasing, as well as enjoy related charging services. These charging services can be from Flyco’s own charging station, or from public charging stations, which will not affect the user’s daily driving and charging experience.
Q: It is roughly understood, but users want to know more specifically. Is it currently inconvenient to discuss?
徐璐: Please stay tuned for Flyco’s official announcement.
Q: Right now, the first car owner will receive one year’s worth of 1,500 kWh free electricity and two years of free privileges. How will fees be levied after that? Are there specific plans for building battery swapping stations in cities? Are there specific plans for battery swapping stations? Besides, the previous discussion mentioned the problem of battery swapping station assets. In the future, will battery swapping stations be open to the entire SAIC system so that everyone can share them? Lastly, is there an official policy for the used exchange in the car-electric separation model?
徐璐: First, please pay attention to our official release for the pricing question. We plan to build 40 stations in 2022, 300 stations in 2023, and 3,000 stations in 2025. The initial 40 stations will be located in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, and Zhengzhou, and will continue to expand nationwide based on Flyco’s store distribution and car owner hotspots.
For the third question, our battery swapping stations are jointly built and laid out by JNEV through cooperation with partners such as Sinopec, CNPC, and SAIC, and will first be shared among multiple brands within SAIC.
(Note: This translation preserves the HTML tags in the original Markdown text.)Regarding the fourth question about replacement. We understand that the growth and acceptance of a new product takes time. We highly respect and consider users’ concerns throughout the entire life cycle. Therefore, our comprehensive plan includes various aspects of real-life situations that users may encounter such as insurance and second-hand cars, and these services will be gradually implemented.
Q: Regarding the future of battery replacement, do you think it is a short-term customer solution or a long-term, sustainable plan that can coexist with charging stations? Do you have plans to become the standard maker and promoter of battery replacement and make it a widely shared solution in the future?
Xu Lu: We believe that electric vehicles have reached a tipping point and will definitely become one of the most important choices for consumers. However, there are two bottlenecks in the way of energy supply. One is technology, and the other is the entire energy ecosystem.
On the technological aspect, the technical specifications, stability, and reliability of different vehicle models and chargers are still uneven. Even after the introduction of the 800V standard, many chargers from as early as 15-16 years ago may not be compatible. This eventually results in an inconsistent charging experience for users, which is the bottleneck at the technological level.
On the ecosystem level, the number of charging stations, coverage area, and charging duration have also created problems. In addition, China has a vast territory, and power consumption is faster in the winter in the north, which may require more frequent charging, and these problems may be difficult to solve entirely in the short term.
Therefore, We provide a combination of charging and battery replacement solutions, and we have introduced strategic cooperation with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation to further expand the energy supplement network. Ultimately, we provide users with more choices and a better experience in the energy supplement scenario.
In a model of collaboration with multiple stakeholders, standardization is a prerequisite, and we hope to become a national standard. In other words, we hope to ensure functional and durable implementation in technology while making the user experience even smoother and more acceptable. Gradually, we hope to promote battery replacement so that more people and brands can choose it. Based on this foundation, we will gradually promote it and help China’s new energy automotive industry develop faster at the 2C end of the market, which is a slow bottleneck, so that the entire industry can move forward.
Wang Yongqiang: I would like to add that, on the one hand, slow charging has significant benefits for extending battery life. But more importantly, battery replacement and energy storage can be bundled together. If you have seen the smart grid project that we have been doing, there is insufficient power during the day, and there is waste of power at night. I believe that our partner, China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation and China National Petroleum Corporation, will also consider this issue.
Energy conservation, including balancing power output during the day and at night, can be achieved through the mutual cooperation of battery replacement and energy storage. Therefore, I think this is also an important consideration behind the scenes, not just about cars or customers but also about thinking about technology from a higher and farther perspective on environmental issues.
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.