Image source: Provided by Yika Zhiche
Autonomous driving will first be implemented in low-speed limited scenarios, which has long existed in the industry. However, in the past few years, whether it is docks, mines, sanitation, patrols or parks, the splash of unmanned commercialization does not seem to be as big as expected.
The reason why the gap exists, taking the logistics and express industry as an example, for customers, the real problem is not only to introduce advanced technologies or products, but more importantly, how to effectively integrate these technologies or products into the existing working environment and processes, improve overall efficiency and reduce costs.
However, Shu Liang, CEO of Yika Zhiche, has recently felt the change, and he believes that the unmanned delivery scenario has "infinitely close to large-scale paving".
On March 1, the "Measures for the Management of the Express Market" was officially implemented. It mentions that the courier needs to obtain the user's consent before placing the express in the cabinet or station. This requires couriers to spend more time and energy to solve the problem of communicating with C-end users, and unmanned vehicles have become the best solution to help them solve the distribution process, and at present, ordinary express network owners are willing to spend 3000-5000 rent to try unmanned cars. Shu Liang said.
Of course, he sees the opportunity not only in the scene of unmanned distribution, unmanned cleaning, unmanned patrol vehicles, grid information collection vehicles, mobile charging unmanned vehicles, in his opinion, these service-oriented unmanned vehicle industries have the opportunity to "get out of a wave of market".
Under such a judgment, Yika Zhiche has recently launched a variety of products for the three major scenarios of sanitation, logistics and security. According to the official figures, at present, there are thousands of vehicles in operation in many pilot cities across the country.
How to reduce costs and improve efficiency of service-oriented unmanned vehicles?
Unlike Robotaxi, the essence of service-oriented unmanned vehicles is a production tool.
The difference between production tools and travel tools is that, technically, the user experience of service-oriented unmanned vehicles is not as complex as that of passenger cars in closed scenarios, and the requirements for algorithms are relatively low, which is also more conducive to mass production. On the other hand, in addition to the maturity of technology, investment cost and return on investment are also key factors for the landing of service-oriented unmanned vehicles.
In other words, compared with the previous manned driving, service unmanned vehicles must be able to reduce costs or increase revenue. Therefore, it is very important for customers to reduce the cost of use and improve the efficiency of use.
One way to do this is to reduce costs at both the technical and design levels. Yika Zhiche shared its own way of reducing costs: modularization and batching. Modular manufacturing means that development modules can be reused in different scenarios and different vehicle models, thereby improving efficiency and reducing costs. The cost of mass production is much lower than that of a manufacturer that only produces one car.
To this end, Yika Zhiche proposes a set of technical core "Xinger Architecture" that can be migrated, adapted and expanded in different scenario product platforms.
Different from the traditional OEM's car-making logic, which relies on a huge supply chain ecology and relies heavily on technological processes, and is developed in a serial manner, with the "Walker Architecture", customers can use the "building block" development mode to achieve rapid switching between scenario applications, assembly configurations, and components.
"The application scenarios of the terminal unmanned car are very fragmented and detailed. The 'building block' technology route is very suitable for the route of different scenarios of the terminal unmanned car, which can achieve rapid iteration, rapid development of new products, and rapid realization of functions, so as to quickly meet the needs of different customers in different scenarios. Li Fei, co-founder of Yika Zhiche, said.
According to Li Fei, the "Walker Architecture" can shorten the development cycle of new products to less than 4 months, shorten the development cycle of customized products to less than 8 weeks, and complete the iteration of new software functions in 2 weeks. Not only that, Yika Zhiche has developed the chassis OS (operating system) of unmanned vehicles in the end scene.
Another way is to improve the attendance rate of unmanned vehicles.
Attendance has always been a core metric that customers care about. Li Fei explained, "For example, for distribution, today could have sent 1000 orders, because the unmanned delivery vehicle was broken, today the 1000 orders were not delivered, how to calculate the loss? The vehicle is a repairable product, but the repairable product must have problems, such as brake pads worn to replace is a normal thing, but the customer will not pay attention to these problems, he feels that if the development of the unmanned delivery vehicle is broken, it will be repaired, he hesitates to drag and is unwilling to purchase." ”
To this end, based on the "Walker Architecture", Yika Zhiche has independently developed an energy kit to improve vehicle attendance from various aspects such as energy supply form, energy replenishment form, independent refined diagnosis and redundancy.
In addition, based on the network data platform independently developed by the "Walker Architecture", the staff can directly dispatch nearby operation and maintenance sites according to the vehicle diagnosis results and vehicle location, and can bring accessories to the fault car site for replacement or maintenance, so as to achieve the ability to close orders within 4 hours, reduce vehicle outages caused by failures, and improve attendance.
In the future, we will focus on overseas markets and achieve self-hematopoiesis in 2025
"Our vision is to become the world's leading provider of unmanned driving equipment", Shu Liang specially emphasized, "'equipment provider' means not to do algorithms, not to do operations, the core to do a good job in the full line control of vehicles, to do a good job in the technology platform, research and development of general basic modules." ”
From the perspective of the structure of the entire service-oriented unmanned vehicle, it is divided into three aspects: chassis, bodywork unit, and automatic driving algorithm. The chassis provides the ability to move, the bodywork unit provides the ability to work, and the autonomous driving algorithm provides the decision-making ability.
In fact, looking back at the development history of terminal autonomous driving equipment, since the birth of autonomous driving, algorithms have paid the most attention to the industry, especially in the early stage, when the industry is more algorithm-oriented.
Yika Zhiche was founded at the end of 2018, when the focus of the entire industry was still on algorithms, Yika Zhiche cut into hardware, and made it clear that it would not do unmanned algorithms, Shu Liang said frankly, "The company was not favored by most people at the beginning. ”
However, as the focus of the autonomous driving industry shifts to engineering, autonomous driving must be able to solve the problem of product replication. People have gradually found that there has been a lot of accumulation of algorithms for end scenarios, but vehicles and hardware have become a core factor restricting large-scale implementation.
From the perspective of engineering, the cost of wire-controlled chassis accounts for more than 50%, and the chassis is the carrier of the operation unit and the operation carrier of the intelligent driving system, and the operation speed and operation efficiency are the main factors of operation efficiency.
While hardware is becoming increasingly important, compared with relatively mature models such as passenger cars and commercial vehicles, service-oriented unmanned vehicles are a new species born in recent years, which are quite different from existing automotive products in terms of product development, design logic, and standards and requirements for suppliers.
For example, terminal unmanned vehicles need more control service modules, higher drive-by-wire accuracy, and lower response delay. Correspondingly, wire-controlled chassis suppliers need to continuously optimize and iterate according to the quality control requirements put forward by operators and algorithm companies, as well as the problems arising in actual operation.
Therefore, it also provides an opportunity for companies focused on this track to innovate and grow. Since its establishment at the end of 2018, E-car has received equity investment from 4 financial investors and 2 industrial investors.
However, since the development of autonomous driving, everyone's expectations are no longer at the technical level, but on the landing achievements, commercial achievements, and commercial value. Therefore, Yika Zhiche has also set a goal for itself: to achieve self-hematopoiesis in 2025.
In order to complete this goal as soon as possible, Yika Zhiche said that it will focus on overseas markets in the future, and Yika Zhiche predicts that overseas markets will account for more than half of sales in the future. According to reports, at present, the unmanned sweeper and patrol car products of Yika Zhiche have been exported to the Middle East, Hong Kong and South Korea.
According to the incomplete statistics of the New Strategy Low-speed Unmanned Driving Industry Research Institute, in 2023, 63 companies will raise 73 financings for vehicle/scenario solution enterprises, with a total financing of more than 11.4 billion yuan, with the hottest layout of five tracks: unmanned distribution, unmanned sanitation, autonomous trucks, unmanned mining areas, and patrols/inspections. Among them, in the field of unmanned distribution, including terminal distribution vehicles, express logistics vehicles, food delivery robots and other product research and development, the number of corporate financing and financing is the largest, with nearly 15 cases accounting for nearly 20%.
Driven by capital and customer demand, perhaps service-oriented unmanned vehicles will usher in a wave of new breakthroughs in 2024.
(This article was first published on the Titanium Media App by Han Jingxian)