Weilai Baijian: Although LiDAR is expensive, China's supply chain has the ability to optimize costs

At the NIO Innovations NIO Innovation Technology Online Salon, NIO unveiled the ET7 500-meter ultra-long-range high-precision lidar.At present, NIO continues to develop its full-stack self-developed software, hardware, operating system, and sensor systems, including LiDAR and many other fields.

NIO's smart electric flagship sedan ET7 with autonomous driving capabilities has officially started delivery in March 2022.The world's first mass-produced 1550nm LiDAR was also used for the first time.

Today, as an important part of NIO's autonomous driving, Aquila's super-sensing system, its ultra-long-range high-precision LiDAR has finally been mass-produced, helping NIO to go further in the field of autonomous driving technology.This 1550nm lidar can not only provide depth information to the vehicle, but also stably and reliably achieve a detection distance of 500 meters.

At the media conference, Bai Jian, vice president of Weilai Intelligent Hardware, said that the 1550nm ultra-long-distance high-precision laser radar can be said to be one of the most eye-catching components in the Aquila Weilai super-sensing system.This lidar has the farthest detection distance among similar products in mass production so far. It is not only difficult to be greatly affected in rainy and foggy weather, but can even achieve a fixed gaze function with a regional resolution of 0.06°×0.06°.

Looking at the master set of this 1550nm lidar, the Aquila Weilai super-sensing system is equipped with 1 ultra-long-range high-precision lidar, 7 8-megapixel high-definition cameras, 4 3-megapixel high-sensitivity surround-view cameras, 33 high-performance sensing hardware including 1 enhanced driver perception, 5 millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic sensors, 2 high-precision positioning units, and V2X vehicle-road collaboration help vehicles achieve fusion perception and define mass production Standard for autonomous vehicle perception systems.

1550nm lidar is of great significance for assisted driving and autonomous driving, especially safety.Bai Jian said that this lidar is just the beginning of the ET7, and it will continue to iterate after that.

In addition to lidar, NIO autonomous driving and assisted driving need to work together with other perception hardware, such as cameras and autonomous driving system algorithms and operations, and all aspects in between need to be iterated.

Bai Jian pointed out that at the mass production level, lidar is indeed expensive, but the capabilities and design level of China's supply chain are sufficient to do this well.NIO's industrialization team will work together with Tudatong's industrialization team on the road to mass production of lidars to ensure consistency and reliability in the production process.

"At present, the lidar on NT2 is really valuable. With the mass production scale, its sinking space and strength will be very considerable, and continuous and rapid cost optimization will come as promised," Bai Jian said bluntly.

It is reported that NIO's ES8, ES6, and EC6 models do not have lidars, because they use different algorithms and are responsible for the development of three independent R&D teams. Each operating system will continue to iterate.Although the hardware is different, the underlying software may be open to each other.

According to Yiou Automobile, the mileage of NIO Pilot assisted driving has exceeded 440 million kilometers, of which NOP pilot assisted driving has reached 167 million kilometers.In the future, the ultimate goal of NIO's autonomous driving technology is to provide users with a completely relaxing point-to-point autonomous driving experience, or NAD.

Yiou Automobile believes that in the future, self-research capabilities will become another key factor in measuring the core competitiveness of OEMs.NIO will also jointly design circuit boards with Tudatong, and continue to promote operating systems such as ICC chassis domain controllers and ADAS computing platforms.NIO NOP+ will also start delivery in the third quarter.