Electric car manufacturer US agency investigates Tesla accidents

Status: 06/18/2021 10:49 a.m.

The US traffic safety authority NHTSA has investigated 30 accidents with Tesla models since 2016. It examines whether and how the use of Tesla’s assistance system for automated driving influenced the accidents. In recent years, accidents involving Tesla models have repeatedly raised the question of the extent to which there is a connection with the assistance system for automated driving. Does the US electric car manufacturer’s autopilot pose any particular dangers? To find out, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is currently investigating 30 accidents involving Tesla models. The accidents have occurred since 2016 and claimed a total of ten deaths. The NHTSA has now published an official list with details of the accidents investigated for the first time, as reported by Reuters news agency.

Sensational accident in Texas

Accordingly, eight new investigations have been initiated since March 2021. In three of the 30 cases, the involvement of the autopilot in the accident could be excluded, according to the NHTSA. Two final reports are ready.

An accident in Texas in April caused a sensation in which a Tesla Model S hit a tree and immediately caught fire . Two men died in the accident. It is believed that neither of them had been behind the wheel. The authority is currently investigating six other incidents from other manufacturers in which assistance systems may be involved.

Problems in china

The US electrical manufacturer Tesla is repeatedly confronted with all kinds of safety concerns, most recently in the important Chinese market.

For example, an event at the Shanghai auto show in April caused a sensation. A woman at the Tesla booth got into a Model 3 from the manufacturer and complained screaming about brake failure. It was taken away by security guards while the videos were spreading online. The Chinese market supervisory authority then intervened, and state media called for an investigation into Tesla.

Tesla is the best-selling electric car in China. The group has also been producing in Shanghai since 2019. A quarter of all Teslas now roll off the assembly line there

Produced | Sohu Technology

Author | Liang Changjun

Edit | Yang Jin

The mystery of the global drone giant DJI’s “car building” has surfaced. At the Shanghai Auto Show that opened on April 19, in addition to the hotly debated rights protection of Tesla owners and the explosive Huawei autopilot, DJI also showed its muscles in autopilot. But unlike Huawei’s call for the absolute number one autonomous driving technology, DJI’s layout in this new field is still as low-key as its founder.

Compared with Huawei and Baidu, which bet on L4 autonomous driving, DJI Automotive is taking a road of “upgrading and fighting monsters”. It gradually advances from L2, L2+ to L3 and L4, which are more difficult to land, which is pragmatic and conservative. Some insiders told Sohu Technology that DJI will not forcefully pursue high-level autonomous driving technology, and will pay more attention to the continuity of the scene.

There is no doubt that the track of autonomous driving is large enough and competition will become more and more fierce, but it will still take time for large-scale commercialization to land. With the emergence of a ceiling in the drone market, DJI’s new battle for outward expansion has just begun.

From drone to smart car

In recent years, news of DJI’s entry into autonomous driving and even car-making has been reported from time to time, but DJI has never let go of it. Until recently, on April 12, DJI officially released its intelligent driving business brand DJI Automotive. But DJI is not about building cars, but researching, producing and selling intelligent driving systems and their core components.

Sohu Technology learned from DJI insiders that DJI has established a pre-research team since 2016 to study whether DJI’s proven space intelligence technologies (sensing, positioning, decision-making, navigation, control, etc.) on drones can be applied. In a broader field, the direction of smart cars will be determined at the end of 2016. In mid-2017, the software and hardware of the on-board system will be initialized after R&D and experiments, and it will enter the formal development stage.

In 2018, DJI obtained the first batch of test licenses for intelligent connected vehicles in Shenzhen, and began to conduct normalized and large-scale tests. In 2019, DJI officially established an automotive business unit to clarify the positioning of DJI’s automotive brand and Tier 1 supplier (Tier 1). In December of the same year, the first automotive-grade intelligent manufacturing center was built, and technology began to transform into products.

It can be said that DJI is one of the first technology companies in the world to enter the research and development of autonomous driving. “But even if it has cooperated with car companies, it is still in a state of confidentiality. Most of the colleagues in the company are not aware of the existence of DJI Vehicles.” The aforementioned DJI insider said.

After five years of low-key layout, DJI’s automotive team currently has 700 people, including more than 500 core R&D personnel, 87% of which are masters and doctors, and has more than 1,000 patents in the automotive field. According to public data, DJI has invested more than 4 billion yuan in research and development in the fields of chips, sensors, lidar, and vehicle-assisted driving systems.

From the point of view, DJI can be regarded as catching up with the wave of intelligent autos. The chaos of the market has begun, and it is still expected to get a share of the pie. It is understood that at present, DJI’s in-vehicle business mainly launches 7 solutions with different configurations for smart driving and smart parking.

Specifically, it includes intelligent driving D80/D80+ covering the speed range of 0 to 80 km/h, suitable for urban expressways; intelligent driving D130/D130+ covering the speed range of 0 to 130 km/h, suitable for expressways and urban rapids road. Intelligent parking includes three scenarios: assisted parking, memory parking for the last 100 meters, and autonomous parking for the last 1 km. The corresponding solutions are P5, P100 and P1000.

From the perspective of perception configuration, D80 is equipped with 1 camera, 5 millimeter wave radars and 12 ultrasonic radars, D130 is equipped with 6 cameras, 5 millimeter wave radars and 12 ultrasonic radars, and is equipped with driving behavior recognition early warning cameras (DMS). It can then support the driver to get rid of it. At the same time, without upgrading the hardware, the D80 and D130 can open assisted driving functions for unstructured roads in urban areas.

D80+ and D130+ are equivalent to the Plus version of D80 and D130. Among them, D80+ adds 5 cameras and a set of lidar based on the D80 sensing solution, and D130+ adds 1 camera and a set of lidar on the basis of D130, both It can support the driver to take his eyes off.

In the smart parking scenario, the three solutions launched by DJI are equipped with 5 cameras, 1 millimeter wave radar and 12 ultrasonic radars. The main difference lies in whether it is equipped with lidar; among them, P1000 needs to be equipped with lidar, which can achieve medium-length Distance autonomous parking and autonomous calling.

Focus on L2+ and L3

From the perspective of DJI’s layout, for the industry’s controversial autonomous driving technology route, DJI did not choose to stand in line. Instead, it placed bets on pure vision and lidar-led routes. OEMs can choose according to their own needs. It is similar to the technical route strategy adopted by Baidu.

In the field of intelligent driving, the outside world often divides the technical level of enterprises by the level of autonomous driving. However, Xie Tiandi, director of public relations at DJI, told Sohu Technology that DJI has not tested or released a plan based on the SAE (International Society of Automata Engineers) classification of autonomous driving.

He believes that SAE is actually a hierarchical model based on “responsibility division”. This is not a sufficient condition to measure the autonomous driving system. There are many tracks covered by autonomous driving, and the difficulty, investment, scene, and market size of each track , Business models are different, and the constraints are also different. It is very inadequate to use the simple classification of L0-L5 to talk about the entire industry.

However, Sohu Technology has noticed that in the intelligent driving and intelligent parking system function tables announced by DJI, the automatic driving level is indicated. For example, intelligent driving D80 and D130 correspond to L2+ level automatic driving, and D80+ and D130+ correspond to Level 3, smart parking covers levels L2, L2+/L3, and L4. In this regard, DJI said that as a solution provider, it provides functional expectations, but the actual installation will still be customized and rated according to the needs of the host manufacturer.

It can also be seen that DJI is currently focusing on L2+ and L3 autonomous driving, while Huawei and Baidu have all launched L4 autonomous driving solutions and are accelerating commercial progress. However, some media reports said that there is actually a team in the DJI vehicle team that is engaged in cutting-edge R&D for L4 autonomous driving technology.

In fact, DJI adopts the ODD (designed operating area) technical strategy for autonomous driving functions and scenarios. The more continuous the ODD, the smoother the functions will be used. For example, D80/D80+, D130/D130+ have specific speed and area restrictions, and the smart parking solution is also aimed at scenes at different distances.

“A reasonable solution for autonomous driving requires facing reality on the one hand and not directly pursuing the so-called high level of technology. If the continuity of some scenes is difficult to achieve, the driver should be led instead of outputting poor automatic driving. Experience, this is better than the experience and safety that people think that the car can drive automatically, but have to stare at any time and take over at any time.” The aforementioned DJI insider said, but on the other hand, it must be “hard and rigid”. When the car enters a scene where the continuity of autonomous driving can be pursued, the continuity needs to be improved to the extreme, so that consumers can truly get the liberation of attention.

This is also DJI’s technical thinking. Only an autonomous driving system that balances the matrix of functional experience, safety, and cost can have the conditions to talk about advancement. To this end, DJI has also self-developed and produced a number of core components, including monocular and binocular cameras, DMS, domain controllers and their middleware, and driving behavior recognition and early warning systems. The company’s engineer team currently has 200 people.

However, DJI is not fully All-in. For example, the lidar is provided by Lanwo Technology. This is a lidar company incubated internally by DJI. Last year, it launched two products for L3/L4 autonomous driving at a price of only It is 6499 yuan and 9000 yuan, which has obvious cost advantages compared with other lidars that cost tens of thousands or even more than 100,000. It has been mass-produced and launched in Xiaopeng Motors.

In addition, satellite navigation systems and high-precision maps are also provided by suppliers. It can be seen that, while ensuring reliability, DJI’s in-vehicle solution intends to reduce dependence on external data sources such as high-cost sensors, V2X infrastructure, and high-precision maps. This is different from Huawei’s layout, and it also determines the different business strategies of the two.

Mass production will be launched within the year

DJI Intelligent Driving has a clear timetable for commercialization. Sohu Technology has learned from DJI that the D80 and D130 are expected to be mass-produced this year, while the D80+ and D130+ will have to wait until 2024; the P100 will be mass-produced next year. Compared with Huawei, Baidu, and new automakers, the process has been much slower.

At the Shanghai Auto Show, DJI also officially announced its first partner, which will join hands with SAIC-GM-Wuling to create “people’s intelligent driving”. The intelligent driving solution provided by DJI Automotive will be the first to be applied to BAOJUN brand models under SAIC-GM-Wuling, and will be mass-produced and launched within the year.

It is understood that the cooperation between the two parties is not a parts procurement model, but is based on a large number of R&D tests and road tests to jointly promote the implementation of a complete set of intelligent driving systems. This also means that DJI Automotive has taken a key step towards commercialization, and Volkswagen is also cooperating with DJI. Volkswagen Group (China) CEO Feng Sihan disclosed for the first time at the beginning of the year that it is cooperating with DJI in the field of visual information processing to develop autonomous driving based on various road scenes, and plans to carry it on the car from 2023 to 2024.

Xie Tiandi told Sohu Technology that DJI Automotive will be open to the entire automotive industry and will not distinguish or exclude the low-end and high-end markets. But in terms of specific strategies, at least for now, DJI has adopted a way of advancing from low-end to high-end autonomous driving, and low-end brands to mid-to-high end. The landing of high-level autonomous driving will take longer to verify, and commercialization will be more difficult. The consulting company Gartner reported that it will take more than 10 years for L4 autonomous driving technology to fully mature.

However, some people believe that DJI is somewhat conservative. Although it may become a strong opponent of Huawei, it has not shown similar ambitions. However, the more critical issue at present is how can DJI persuade more car companies to adopt its own autonomous driving program when the process is somewhat backward.

At the same time, this is also an extremely critical step for DJI, which has a bottleneck in the drone market, which means whether it can create a second growth curve after drones.

In the past decade or so, DJI has gradually become a global drone giant, occupying more than 80% of the global market share and ranking first among global civilian drone companies. However, after announcing that its revenue reached nearly 17.6 billion yuan in 2017, DJI has not released any performance data. Public information shows that its performance growth rate in the first half of last year has dropped from over 60% to 30%.

At the same time, DJI is also facing the unfavorable situation of intensified competition and external suppression, and there has been no obvious breakthrough in the application of drones in the industry. DJI founder Wang Tao said as early as 2016 that the consumer drone market is about to be saturated, and DJI’s revenue will reach 20 billion yuan and it will peak, but this revenue is difficult to support DJI’s US$10 billion valuation.

This may have also greatly promoted DJI’s determination to deploy autonomous driving early. Obviously, it also values ​​the prospects of this track-with a trillion-scale potential, and China is expected to become the world’s largest autonomous driving market. DJI’s expansion under anxiety is somewhat similar to Huawei, whose mobile phone business was reluctantly suppressed and started selling cars.

In addition, for DJI, whose public valuation has reached 100 billion yuan, new stories are also needed to support future valuations. Investors have repeatedly urged DJI to go public. DJI has been listed on the market many times before, but DJI has never recognized it.

At the Shanghai Auto Show, Wang Yunpeng, general manager of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Technology Department, said in an interview: “Our bragging rights have become cool afterwards.” For this new wave of car intelligence that has just kicked off, various new The gathering of old forces, how capable the low-key DJI can be, and whether it can replicate its status as a giant in the field of drones requires more verification.

After the crash of a Tesla electric car, company boss Elon Musk denied a connection with the autopilot assistance system. “Previously available data records show that the autopilot was not activated,” wrote Musk on Twitter. It was the company’s first reaction to the accident that killed two men in Texas over the weekend. Musk also pointed out in his tweet that the lane marking was missing on the road, without which the standard version of the autopilot system could not be activated. Tesla informs the customers themselves that the autopilot is only an assistance system and that the person in the driver’s seat must therefore keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times. He should also always be ready to take control.

According to the police, no one is behind the wheel

Accident investigators from the US agency NTSB, which is active in aircraft crashes, among other things, traveled to the scene of the accident to investigate. According to preliminary investigations, the police had shown themselves to be “almost 99.9 percent certain” that nobody was behind the wheel in the accident, as a spokesman for the Wall Street Journal said. The police found one of the men in the passenger seat and one in the back seat. The car burned out. The crash immediately sparked new discussions about Tesla’s safety precautions for the autopilot system. In the past, videos repeatedly appeared on the Internet showing drivers leaving their seats in traffic.

Security measures reinforced

Tesla tightened safety measures a few years ago: the software detects when the driver is not hands on the wheel and emits warning tones after a short time. Tesla and Musk always emphasize that the statistics show that overall significantly fewer accidents occur when the drivers are on the road with the autopilot system switched on. The company is preparing the introduction of new functions in the USA, such as automatic recognition of traffic light signals and traffic signs, as well as observance of right of way rules in the city. So far, some users can test the capabilities in a beta version of the software. Tesla calls this next evolutionary stage of autopilot “full self-driving” (for example: completely self-driving), while according to current criteria it remains just an assistance system. This name caused criticism.

The electric car manufacturer Tesla is threatened with a new debate about safety precautions for its “autopilot” system after a fatal crash in which probably no one was behind the wheel. In Texas, a Tesla with two occupants hit a tree, both of which were killed. The police found one of the men in the passenger seat and one in the back seat. According to preliminary investigations, it is “almost 99.9 percent certain” that nobody was behind the wheel in the accident, a police spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, among others. The car burned out.

Tesla: Hands on the wheel at all times

Tesla itself points out to customers that “autopilot” is just an assistance system and that the person in the driver’s seat must therefore keep their hands on the steering wheel at all times. He should also always be ready to take control. But videos of people leaving the driver’s seat in traffic have been appearing on the Internet for years.

The vehicle involved in the accident burned out almost completely. Image: via REUTERS A few years ago, the car manufacturer tightened the safety measures: the software now detects when the driver is not on the wheel and emits warning tones after a short time. If the warnings are ignored, the system switches off. The US accident investigation authority NTSB criticized the precautions as inadequate and the name “autopilot” as misleading. She is now investigating around two dozen previous accidents with the “autopilot” system switched on.

Unclear whether autopilot was on

Local broadcaster KPRC 2 reported that the Tesla in Texas hit the tree just a few hundred yards from the house the two men were driving from. The police restricted that it had not yet been clarified whether the assistance system was switched on at the time of the accident. But Tesla should have the data to determine that. In previous accidents, the car manufacturer was sometimes able to say how many seconds before the impact the driver last moved the steering wheel. In previous “autopilot” accidents, two cars in the USA crashed under semi-trailers, and several cars hit stationary vehicles or other obstacles. So far, however, no accidents have been reported in which no one sat in the driver’s seat. Tesla and company boss Elon Musk always emphasize that the statistics show that overall significantly fewer accidents occur when the drivers are on the road with the “autopilot” system switched on.

Xu Dan

2021-04-16 12:32:10

Source: Times Finance

After Tucson is listed in the future, the commercial vehicle autonomous driving market in which it is located may also enter the eve of large-scale landing. Image source: Tuworm Creative At a time when passenger car autonomous driving is not yet mature, the field of truck autonomous driving has given birth to “the world’s first autonomous driving stock”. On April 15th, Eastern Time, the self-driving truck brand “Tucson Future” officially landed on Nasdaq. The opening rose by more than 3%, and the opening price was US$40.25, slightly higher than the IPO price (US$40), but it began to fall after rising to US$41.5, and closed at US$40 on the day, which was flat compared to the IPO issue price. It is foreseeable that after Tucson is listed in the future, the autonomous driving track will be sought after by more capital, and the commercial vehicle autonomous driving market in which it is located may also enter the eve of large-scale landing. In response to more issues related to future business planning after the listing, Times Finance tried to contact Tucson Future, but as of press time, no response has been received. Is the “first share of autonomous driving” worth US$8.787 billion? The autonomous driving track is divided into the passenger car market and the commercial vehicle market. The former, such as Baidu, Didi, etc., directly face C-end consumers, with Robotaxi as the final commercial landing scene; The specific business scenario is unmanned autonomous driving. Tucson Future was established in 2015. In the future, it will mainly provide customers with computer vision-based commercial L4 autonomous driving solutions, high-speed scenes and unmanned transportation solutions for container trucks in the port. Headquartered in Shanghai, with branches in the United States and Beijing, the main market is currently in the United States. Tucson’s future business model has been relatively clear. In July 2020, it launched its own driverless freight network “AFN”. The ecosystem consists of fully automated semi trucks, high-definition digital map routes, strategically placed terminals, and a cloud-based proprietary autonomous operation supervision system TuSimple Connect. composition. Based on this network, Tucson’s future service models mainly include three types:

Cooperate with the shipper. In the future, Tucson will use its own unmanned vehicle fleet operating in an unmanned network to provide shippers with unmanned freight services calculated by mileage.

Cooperate with the carrier. Carriers can purchase driverless trucks, operate them in the driverless freight network, and connect to Tucson’s future driverless systems when necessary.

Fleet. Fleet owners can buy and operate their own fleet of driverless trucks. These unmanned trucks will operate in the unmanned freight network according to the mileage-calculated charging mode.

Since its establishment, Tucson has gone through 10 rounds of financing in the future, and the disclosed amount of E-round financing is 350 million yuan. In addition to the founding team, Tucson’s future largest shareholder is Sina affiliate Sun Dream Inc., which accounts for 20% of Class A shares.

As the first stock of autonomous driving, what is the market value of 8.49 billion U.S. dollars? “From the perspective of Tucson’s current financial indicators such as revenue and profit, as well as its commercialization capabilities, the market value of US$8.49 billion is relatively high. However, Tucson’s future track will have high growth, and market competitors will be relatively If there is less, there is more room for imagination in the future.” Major General Ding, an IT Internet observer, told Times Finance and Economics.

The capital market has always valued autonomous driving very high. Both Baidu Autopilot and Waymo are currently valued at around US$40 billion. However, the market for autonomous driving passenger cars is very large, and the non-commercial vehicle market can match them.

Compared with its peers, Pony Zhixing, which is also on the truck autonomous driving track, is valued at more than US$5.3 billion after the latest round of financing, and Zhijia Technology is valued at US$1 billion. Tucson’s current market value can be regarded as the leader in the future. .

From the point of view of the track, Tucson’s future potential is indeed relatively large. According to an Essence Securities report, the traditional freight truck market in the United States is as high as 800 billion U.S. dollars, with high labor costs, accounting for 43% of operating costs per mile, and the problem of aging drivers is serious. 54% of commercial truck drivers are 45 years of age or older. There is a strong demand for autonomous driving technology.

However, in terms of specific operating conditions, US$8.49 billion may be more “paying for the future.” From the perspective of revenue, Tucson will always be at a loss from 2018 to 2020, with net losses of US$45.03 million, US$84.883 million, 177 million US dollars, a total of about 2 billion yuan. And Tucson said in the future that “a lot of expenses and continuous losses will be incurred in the foreseeable future.

From the perspective of commercialization capabilities, Tucson has not yet achieved mass production in the future. The prospectus discloses that it will cooperate with Navista and Volkswagen’s Traton for pre-installation and mass production to jointly build and deliver L4 unmanned trucks. At present, the vehicle has received 5,700 pre-orders and will be put into production in 2024 as planned .

Before mass production, the level of hardware reliability is not enough, so Tucson’s future half-car test vehicle still needs to be equipped with safety officers and drivers before it can go on the road.

Who is the second “Tucson Future”?

“Like the United States, it is difficult for the passenger car market to give birth to the next Tucson in a short period of time. The commercial sector is still the direction that domestic auto-driving related companies should pay attention to and make efforts.” Major General Ding said.

The passenger car autonomous driving market is vast. Most of the players entering the game are Internet companies with strong capital. Although there have been preliminary results, companies such as Baidu and Didi have already begun road tests, but they are still far from commercialization. The process is difficult.

From the perspective of the technical route alone, the domestic car-road coordinated route is still in the early stage of equipment laying, and it is far from reaching the level of mutual perception between cars and roads and other vehicles. Moreover, the current domestic laws on autonomous vehicles are basically in a blank state.

Foreign “smart bicycles” models are also full of difficulties. Earlier this month, the CEO of waymo, a leading autonomous driving company, resigned. According to foreign media reports, internal employees said Waymo did not have much direction inside, technology stagnated, and senior leaders set goals. unrealistic.

In contrast, self-driving commercial vehicles do not carry people, involve fewer safety issues, and the road conditions are relatively simple and fixed, and are easier to commercialize. The current domestic commercial vehicle autonomous driving fields are mainly truck freight and mines.

In the field of truck freight, Zhijia Technology and Xiaoma Zhixing have respectively completed D round financing and C+ round financing, and become unicorn companies. Among them, Zhijia Technology has introduced Guotai Junan International and Hedosophia as investors, both of which can provide Its listing assists, and according to media reports, it is in the process of SPAC merger negotiation in order to go public through backdoor. However, like Tucson’s future, both have not yet achieved mass production.

However, compared with the American truck freight market, the domestic truck freight market is not mature yet. Chen Mo, the founder of Tucson Future, once publicly mentioned the reasons for prioritizing the development of the American market.

First of all, there are only test licenses in China, and operations are not allowed. If trucks do not have an operating license, they cannot transport goods and cannot be profitable; in the United States, the cost of freight hardware is declining, and labor costs are rising, but the country has not yet reached the intersection; unmanned driving needs to be combined with drop-and-hook and box-drop transportation. Mode (after arriving at the transportation point, the tractor can drop the carriage and hang another carriage, which can shorten the stop time to a minimum), but many domestic trucks and trailers are integrated, and the drop-hang and drop-box rate not enough.

There is also great potential for autonomous driving in mines, with huge market space and high risk, difficulty in recruiting drivers, and strong demand for unmanned operations. According to Chentao Capital’s calculations, the total annual market size of domestic mine autonomous driving exceeds 100 billion.

Domestic mining autonomous driving solution providers are dominated by start-up companies, because mining operations are complex systems engineering, which not only require autonomous driving technology, but also dispatch and fleet management, and Internet of Vehicles communication technologies. Therefore, domestic large-scale equipment companies tend to cooperate in-depth with driverless start-up companies.

Tage Zhixing, a leading company in this field, was established in 2016 and has now completed 8 rounds of financing. Its founder and chief scientist Yu Guizhen stated that it is confident that it will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board within 1-2 years.

However, according to Chentao Capital’s analysis, mining autonomous driving companies are still in the initial stage of commercial trial operation and field deployment testing. The work efficiency of autonomous driving has not yet been equal to that of manual driving, especially night operations have not yet carried out normal operations. Although many companies have received commercial orders, most of them are pilot projects and have not yet participated in the normal production operations of the mine.

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