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A deeper understanding of the transformation of the automobile industry
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Produced by: Electric Planet News
Author: Yu Fei and Pang Fei
At WWDC 2022 this morning, Apple detonated the car circle in three minutes.
With the advent of new operating systems such as iOS16,And a whole new generationCarPlay. This generation CarPlay The innovation is so great that it is even equivalent to a complete intelligent cockpit:
Open the dashboard to display speed, fuel consumption, oil quantity and rotation speed;
Occupy the central control panel, and even adjust the air conditioning temperature and seat heating/ventilation;
Linkage map, using CarPlay Realize AR navigation of dashboard;
Bind the phone, synchronize the desktop components of iOS …
Moreover, Apple also promised, "No matter how strange your car screen is, as long as it supports new. CarPlay, it will definitely be displayed perfectly. "
What is this equivalent to?It is equivalent to buying an iPhone, and you bring your own smart cockpit!
In addition, for the first time, Apple announced its own "friends circle of car companies", and more than half of the luxury car companies stood. CarPlay Around, there are even the first batch of cooperative car companies of Android Automotive OS-and …
From the early hours of the morning to the present, our circle of friends has been brand new. CarPlay The news. Friends took the initiative to attack Apple this time.Full of expectation, but with some caution..
With a similar attitude, we interviewed employees of seven different companies, from newly-built cars to OEM, and even chip companies, hoping to hear what people in the industry think of Apple’s half boots.
Today, together, we bring a new generation. CarPlay The secret of tearing apart.
First, are you afraid of building a new car?
This is the first chapter title that comes to mind when we choose the topic.
Why do you want to talk about new cars?Because there is no CarPlay in the new car, and there is no Android Automotive and carlife, only NIO OS, Xmart OS and "Tesla OS" …
Why? Because the new forces still want to build their own operating system.
This sentence in quotation marks comes from Liu Yu (a pseudonym), the product manager of the new smart cockpit. He told us that he saw the new car in the morning. CarPlay At the time,Shock, admirationIs their first reaction.
Praise refers to the fact thatCarPlay Such an "external system" can control non-safety related vehicle functions and display vehicle data."it’s already great."
Even, he thinks this is a "milestone" for Apple to build a car.
We asked him, will your new car be considered a threat? Liu Yu said yes, because "our system is still in an advanced stage."
Compared with all kinds of OS of new cars,CarPlay There is a natural barrier:IPhone’s huge user base.
In 2021, Apple’s mobile phone shipments accounted for about 22% of the global share-an achievement that no car company has achieved in the auto market. Another figure is that in 2021, Apple won a 60% share in the high-end market above $600 (4,000 yuan)-and no luxury car company has achieved similar results in the automobile market.
IPhone users’ sense of identity with Apple’s ecology is CarPlay’s greatest "confidence".
Liu Yu thinksThe habit of iPhone users, or stickiness, is actually the biggest threat to the newly-built self-developed OS.
"If you want to use beeps, use beeps, and if you want to use Netease Cloud, use Netease Cloud." Liu Yu said that iOS users can pass. CarPlayMost of the usage habits are smoothly drawn from the mobile phone to the car.
"But we don’t want users to use it in our cars. CarPlayWe just haven’t reached it yet. CarPlay Such a good experience. "
If the experience can’t catch up, Liu Yu thinks the final result may be"Users will no longer use the car machine system directly, but will use it most of the time. CarPlay」。
And then there’s the shocking part—"In the end, the data dominance of car companies will be lost.".
Throw it to who? Apple, of course. Who threw it to Apple? At least more than half of the luxury car camp and more than half of the Japanese camp.
Liu Yu gave us an example: According to the DEMO published by WWDC,CarPlay Will know that these car company usersWhere have you been, what APP you used, how far you drive every day, how much energy you consume, and your travel habits.How about. Even the braking and steering data that can’t be obtained yet,In fact, it can also be obtained indirectly through GPS.
According to Liu Yu’s description, we think it’s more like"public test" iCar.
The chain is like this: the first generation of CarPlay won the favor of iPhone users and the support of car companies → the new generation sought deep customization → obtained basic data → accumulated data of different market segments for iCar’s smart cockpit.
This is another shocking point of Liu Yu:Car companies are willing to give data, and Apple can eat the rights of different car platforms.
Take the first batch of cooperative car companies as an example. There are nearly 100 models and more than 30 platforms in 14 car companies. If each platform supports the new generation of CarPlay, Apple’s efforts for "public beta" and the significance of the negotiation itself are huge and "horrible".
"I really don’t know how to talk about it."Liu Yu concluded.
But at the same time, we also received some different voices, such as another PM Feng Li (a pseudonym) from a new car.
He admits that the influence of the new CarPlay is very wide, but it is not the time to talk about who will change his life."The new forces didn’t quickly change the life of the traditional car factory.CarPlay It will not kill the opponent in an instant, but no one should despise Apple. "
In addition, Feng Li believes that not all models support new ones. CarPlay, even new CarPlay On cars and models, it may appear as an "apple tax".
Second, do traditional car companies really care?
What’s interesting is that,Throughout WWDC, there was no person in charge of a car company, and no specific model appeared on the "platform".
If you think this is Apple’s habit-at the WWDC in 2020, the new generation 5 Series became the first model to support the iOS14 carkey function, but it earned enough traffic.
More interestingly,At WWDC this year, BMW did not become the first batch of new ones. CarPlay Partner of. Equally intriguing is the absence of the parent companies of Audi and Porsche.
"As a main engine factory, I definitely don’t want to let others master the whole ecological lifeline of the car."Wang Long (pseudonym), an intelligent cockpit engineer from an independent car company, told us this.
Jiang Quan (a pseudonym), the head of an intelligent cockpit team, holds the same view. "CarPlay won’t work in China, and the OEMs won’t agree to hand over the intelligent brain to Apple. We must firmly hold it in our own hands. 」
This sentence is not difficult to understand.
As can be seen from the demonstration of the new version of CarPlay, if you don’t tell you about the existence of the mobile phone, the new CarPlay is like a complete car system, which takes over almost all the functions of the central control, which shows that the car factory needs to open a large number of bottom interfaces to Apple.
Another car system company expressed similar views to the above to us:"Apple’s HMI has a very strong apple gene, which will make many former loading plants unbearable. 」
Zhao Guan (pseudonym), the person in charge of the company, revealed two details to us from the idea of vehicle safety:
First, at present, from the perspective of demo, all the access signals are simple instrument signals, and some tt icons (tell-tale) need functional safety. This CarPlay is definitely not feasible and needs a separate hardware circuit and system.
Second, I didn’t see the access of the intelligent driving domain. This piece should also be very complicated. Each family’s apa scheme and mr scheme are different. How to access and the delay of data transmission are all problems.
According to the explanation of relevant people,"From the perspective of automobile safety, this is not a complete set of instrument display results. 」
Jiang Quan added to us: "The whole family bucket model means that the brain and face are given to Apple. In this case, the positioning, tonality and differentiation of smart cars in various OEMs are all gone, which does not meet the demands of general OEMs. 」
Wang lung also generously admitted that the new CarPlay After coming out, they felt a sense of crisis. But he believes that in the end, we will see if we can meet the needs of users. "Domestic OEMs have strong autonomy and are more inclined to do (car OS) by themselves. "
Wang Long also complained to us that the car machines of international car companies are difficult to use. "I can’t understand a car machine system, and the air conditioning adjustment interface can be placed in a four-level menu."
For this reason, he believes that international car companies use new CarPlay On the contrary, it may be a good thing, although it is equivalent to "they just handed this piece over to others."
Which piece? As mentioned aboveuser data"We all feel that these usage habits of users are the core".
We further asked Wang lung, as an iPhone user, will it be new? CarPlay Tempted, he affirmed, because he is the owner.
"Like Toyota, if you can use this. CarPlayThank god. But I don’t think it’s meaningful to have our own cars and other new domestic forces. 」
Third, Huawei Qualcomm Apple, change the ring and fight again?
An old friend @ Battery King shared a point with us:If Apple’s chips enter smart cars, it will be a "dimensionality reduction blow".
He even thinks that Apple may have been tying the A-series chips or even the M-series chips of the car specification. "Otherwise, it (new CarPlayThe adaptability of) will not be so strong, and the possibility of (soft and hard integration) will not be ruled out. "
Wang’s point of view is very interesting, but at the same time there is some truth.
Let’s take a look at the structure of A15 chip: 6-core CPU, 15.8TOPS NPU, 5-core GPU, video decoder, image processor …
Is it familiar?In fact, today’s smart phone SOC is very similar in structure to a chip., such as FSD Chip, is not much different from A15 in structure.
Even the M series used in notebook computers is essentially the same as the SOC components of NVIDIA’s Drive series-CPU, CPU, memory controller … and so on.
Liu Yu also expressed similar views.Otherwise, it can’t directly throw the instrument and the big screen at once.
But Feng Li thinks the possibility is almost zero."Apple should not supply chips to other car companies, and it has never been supplied."
When it comes to chips, two other hot words in the automobile circle recently are HarmonyOS and Snapdragon, followed by Huawei and Qualcomm.
new CarPlay After coming out, one of the voices we heard was that"HarmonyOS’s nemesis is coming."On the one hand, Apple’s software capability is obvious to all; on the other hand, Apple’s way of making friends is also very similar to Huawei’s.
"Apple doesn’t build cars, but Apple helps its partners build good cars", which doesn’t seem to be against it?
Liu Yu said that if Huawei is compared with Apple,For traditional car companies, HarmonyOS is not very adaptable.(refers to and CarPlay Compared with the adaptation cost), relatively new. CarPlay It will be more difficult to open the market.
AITO bound M5
Jiang Quan’s opinion is that HarmonyOS is now providing basic capabilities and basic applications, and OEMs can make their own applications. "That’s another way to play.". As for Apple’s eco-gameplay, we can only judge it after CarPlay releases the technical data.
If Huawei is facing Apple at the level of software and hardware integration, then Qualcomm is facing an old rival again in the field of general-purpose chips.
The new CarPlay will debut at the end of 2023, when Qualcomm will have brand-new car regulations.Class 8295 chip will also get on the bus. The battle between iOS and Android camps has spread from the mobile terminal to the automobile field. What’s Qualcomm’s position?
We contacted Qualcomm with questions, and the response wasIt is not convenient for us to evaluate the topic related to friendship and business, and this topic is suitable for OEM to evaluate.
Fourth, iCar officially entered the countdown?
Next year’s new CarPlay may be "the first public beta of iCar".
In other words, we should not see the real iCar before 2024-but by 2024, every car will support new ones. CarPlay Our cars are all customized "iCar" by car owners.
Faced with Apple’s obvious ambition, various car companies have different attitudes, including Japanese and European manufacturers who resolutely choose to cooperate, as well as the intriguing "old friend" BMW, and China’s new car that Alexander is determined to go his own way.
As observers, we encourage all-encompassing, and we hope to see hundreds of battles. At least after today, we are extremely eager to see the 2023 of the smart cockpit.
Unless otherwise specified, all interviewees are treated as aliases.
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