The tide of automobile intelligence is surging. As the key factor to realize the differentiated competition of smart cars, smart cockpit has become the hottest field in the automobile industry. In particular, large technology companies have entered this track one after another, and the integration of various new technologies has enabled the intelligent cockpit to open up more imaginative space.

Intelligent cockpit acceleration 'boarding'

On July 27th, at the new product launch conference of HarmonyOS OS 3 and Huawei, Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of terminal BG and CEO of smart car solution BU, announced that the first pure electric vehicle M5 EV equipped with HarmonyOS OS smart cockpit of AITO brand, which was deeply empowered by Huawei, officially opened a small order and will be officially released in September. Looking at the recently unveiled new cars, the smart cockpit has almost become the standard, and all car companies unanimously use smart cockpit technologies such as multi-screen linkage, VR and projection as the selling points of new cars.

In fact, at present, mainstream car companies are making efforts in smart cockpits. Not only new energy vehicles, but also many fuel vehicles have been equipped with smart cockpits. The data shows that the penetration rate of smart cockpit has reached 50.6% among the newly released passenger car models in China in 2021, and the price range of the model with the highest penetration rate is 200,000 to 250,000 yuan.

From low-level buttons to high-level digital LCD instrument display, one-core multi-screen, HUD (Head-up Display System), streaming media rearview mirror, from the button-type operation to the current electronic and even posture operation, the intelligent cockpit is rapidly evolving. However, the development of automatic driving technology, which is also an important symbol of automobile intelligence, is relatively slow. Statistics show that the penetration rate of passenger car driver assistance system is about 37% in 2021, of which L1 accounts for 21% and L2 accounts for only 18%.

In the direction of automobile intelligence, why is the popularity of the automatic driving technology that was originally expected to fade away, but the intelligent cockpit 'comes from behind'?

Ma Jun, a double-employed professor at Tongji Automobile College and School of Design and Creativity, and the founder of the Human-Vehicle Relationship Laboratory, told reporters that the intelligent cockpit has suddenly become hot in the past two years, and the driving force behind it is actually an investment institution. 'Capital has a keen sense of smell. Investment institutions have found that it is difficult to quickly break through the autonomous driving technology, but the new technology, new ecology and new business model around the intelligent cockpit can run faster, and the key is to realize it quickly. Moreover, many mature technologies in other industries, such as wearable technology, vital sign detection, millimeter-wave radar, digital twinning and other technologies that have blossomed in other industries, can be grafted onto the platform of intelligent cockpit, and there is more room for development. This will be a market of hundreds of billions or even trillions, a new outlet and a new blue ocean. '

According to the forecast of IHS, a professional automotive research organization, by 2030, the global smart cockpit market will reach USD 68.1 billion; According to ICVTank's forecast, China's smart cockpit market will reach 103 billion yuan in 2025, and according to the current growth rate, China will become the largest smart cockpit market in the world.

The research of the European think tank shows that among the reference factors affecting car purchase, intelligent experience has been ranked fourth, second only to quality, performance and design factors. As consumers' needs are upgraded from physiological needs such as safety and comfort to psychological needs such as emotion and belonging, intelligent cockpit, as an extended scene of social relationship between drivers and passengers, will become more and more important in the future.

Technology cross-border empowerment in Dachang

'The intelligent cockpit is the entry point for the traditional automobile industry to evolve into an ecological industry, which can derive various new business models.' Ma Jun said.

This is one of the reasons why large technology companies have crossed the border of automobile industry in recent years. Intelligent cockpit is mainly composed of hardware and software and human-computer interaction technology. Hardware includes LCD instrument panel, HUD, display screen and chip, while software includes operating system and middleware. Human-computer interaction technology includes speech recognition and touch recognition. It is not difficult to find that, compared with traditional car companies, big technology companies occupy technical advantages in these fields.

On July 27th, Huawei officially released the HarmonyOS OS 3 system, which can be expanded to 12 devices, including cars, mobile phones, tablets, PCs, watches and smart glasses. Not only the super desktop function of the linkage between the mobile phone and the car can automatically synchronize the mobile phone application to the car, which further enriches the application ecology of the car, but also the smart watch can check the car condition information, unlock the car door, open and close the window, open the car search mode and other operations with one button. The central control screen of the smart cockpit can also control the air conditioner, lighting, etc. at home through the linkage of smart home devices. According to reports, HarmonyOS Eco has more than 2,000 partners, and the shipment of eco-equipment has reached 170 million. In fact, after the launch of AITO M5 equipped with HarmonyOS intelligent cockpit, Xiaoyi intelligent voice assistant's natural continuous dialogue ability, smooth interaction in cockpit control, efficient intelligent split screen and other features have won unanimous praise from users and media, and even some organizations have evaluated that the intelligent cockpit equipped with HarmonyOS system is 'the ceiling of the car'. 'Although everyone has these functions, the reserves of technology are different, and the experience brought to users by implementation is different.' Wang Yanzhen, president of Huawei's smart car business, said, 'The full-scene collaboration of HarmonyOS OS around the smart cockpit is its greatest value point.'

At the previous Apple Global Developers Conference held on June 7th, Apple released a new in-vehicle system CarPlay, which can not only carry entertainment and navigation functions in smart cars, but also adjust most of the electronic functions of cars, such as temperature setting, seat heating, window door control, etc., and can adapt to the screen ratio of all cars. Previously, CarPlay was separated from the operating system of most vehicles, which meant that users had to leave the Apple software system to enter the car's own system. The new system solved this problem. This is undoubtedly a major leap forward. According to Apple, the updated CarPlay will be able to connect to the car's core driving system more deeply, and will communicate with the vehicle system in real time in a 'privacy-friendly way' to display driving information such as speed, oil level and temperature. The industry believes that since then, CarPlay's role has not only been 'the extended screen of iPhone', but also an intelligent car system that has been explored to the vehicle function control layer.

Like Huawei and Apple, Xiaomi is regarded as the next catfish in the field of intelligent cockpit. According to media reports, Lei Jun will take Xiaomi's engineering prototype to a public event in August. The millet ecology with 'own traffic' has basically taken shape, and cars are only a part of the ecology. The 'millet model' is to bring relatively high-end advanced and low-priced hardware products to the market, so that users can feel the temptation of cost performance, and at the same time, improve the experience through software and services, and surpass the psychological expectations of customers. It is this model that makes Xiaomi 'catch up' in the fields of mobile phones and home appliances. According to industry analysis, in the automotive field, Xiaomi's brand, offline stores, supply chain, engineers and other resources have certain reusability, which can save the time and cost of building brands, offline retail online stores and supply chain. Compared with the traditional car companies that are struggling to develop their ecology, the high-tech technologies such as AI, big data and cloud computing that the automotive industry is eager to integrate are the strengths of technology companies.

'In the future auto industry competition, the smart cockpit must be a battleground for military strategists.' Ma Jun said, 'As the entry point of user ecology, whoever grasps the user will grasp the opportunity.'

Seize the opportunity of industrial transformation

'Smart cockpit is the starting point for the automobile industry to realize thousands of people and flowers.' Ma Jun believes that China has the opportunity to take the lead in the global auto industry through smart cockpit.

Looking at the development of China's intelligent cockpit industry chain, domestic suppliers are relatively mature in car engine, LCD instrument, HUD and application software, but foreign manufacturers still dominate in chips and operating systems. In recent years, with the strong entry of big technology companies such as Huawei, Baidu and Xiaomi, China's smart cockpit industry chain is undergoing tremendous changes.

'At present, China can be regarded as the first echelon in the global smart cockpit field. Among them, Huawei's HarmonyOS OS Intelligent Cockpit has a full-scene interactive and intelligent capability, which is very leading in domestic and foreign markets. ' Wang Yanzhen, president of Huawei's intelligent car selection business, said that the future intelligent cockpit ecology will not be defined by a single car model, but by the entire intelligent car industry. It is necessary for all partners in the industrial chain to exert their respective innovation advantages and work together to build it together.

In IHS's report 'Intelligent Cockpit Market and Technology Development Trend Research', the ultimate form of intelligent cockpit will be an intelligent mobile space. With the breakthrough of human-computer interaction and cockpit perception technology, intelligent cockpit will also enter a new stage of multi-mode interaction, multi-screen integration, active content service and internet of everything. Future traffic and car usage scenarios will be further expanded. Based on the vehicle location and status information, it will provide users with multiple functions such as information integration, entertainment, ordering and interconnection, and promote the real evolution of cars into 'the third living space'.

Although there are pain points in the intelligent level, homogenization, data collection, integration and sharing in the field of intelligent cockpit, the future development of intelligent cockpit has a very big imagination. Whether it is traditional car companies, new car-making forces or technology giants, they are all trying to compete for the right to define smart cars through the relevant technical layout of intelligent cockpit.

In order to comprehensively promote the technological progress of automobile intelligent cockpit industry, promote the integration and innovation development of automobile intelligent cockpit industry, and promote the research and development of key technologies and large-scale industrialization of automobile intelligent cockpit, China Automotive Engineering Society recently formally established an intelligent cockpit working group, led by the International Institute of Automotive Engineering Technology Innovation Strategy of China Automotive Engineering Society, to organize cross-industry professional forces to carry out in-depth strategic planning, technical route, standard compilation, collaborative innovation, communication and cooperation, talent cultivation and other work of automobile intelligent cockpit. As an expert member of the working group, Ma Jun told reporters that the establishment of the working group is to help all participants in the automobile industry to jointly build a new blue ocean, establish corresponding and objective standards in the industry, and help China's automobile industry to rapidly advance in the field of intelligent cockpit and seize the highest point in the global market.

'The key is whether the open source model can be used to create an ecology, and the ecologist can get the' world'.' Ma Jun said, 'To open up the pattern, this is an open space for all automobile enterprises.'