Don't steering wheels and brake pedals?The progress of Apple car building is updated again!But there is still this problem to solve

Recently, Apple cars have exposed new news, and Apple's ICAR is likely to be equipped with top -level autonomous driving technology (that is, the car does not equip the steering wheel and the brake pedal).

On July 12, a report of The Information explained in detail the efforts of Apple in building autonomous electric vehicles. It is understood that Apple cars will have four face -to -face seats, and there are no steering wheels and brake pedals. Passengers can talk to each other in the spacious space and even lie down flat. At the same time The top of the car; Apple's goal is to obtain exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and put a car without steering wheel and a brake pedal on the public road.

In response to the "self -driving top match" for Apple cars, some netizens commented, "This is to leave fate to autonomous driving." "This is not the rhythm of the concept car, there is no steering wheel and brake, it seems to be less driving." "I still don't believe it." Some netizens said, "I have a little expectation", "There is no steering wheel, it's too good, it's a bit open."

Picture source: Sina Weibo

Or directly adopt L5 -level autonomous driving, the regulations level "has been bright green lights"

According to the content described in the report, Apple's research and development direction in autonomous driving should directly adopt the highest -level L5 -level autonomous driving, that is, fully autonomous driving. However, Apple car building is still at a high stage of confidentiality, and its officials have rarely responded to any car -making news. Apple's research and development in autonomous driving is the same as Xiaomi, and they are all "underwater projects" (meaning that R & D projects have been confidential for a long time, as if sinking under the water, and the outside world is unknown).

Right now, L5 -level autonomous driving has been recognized in Chinese and US regulations. In March of this year, NHTSA released a new rule. It can be fully driving a car without a steering wheel or brake pedal. The "Regulations on the Management of the Intelligent Connected Automobile of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone", which will be implemented on August 1st this year, clearly states that the intelligent connected cars that are fully driving can not have an artificial driving mode and corresponding device, and may not be equipped with drivers.

Photo source: Photo Network-400611433

In this context, related companies are overweighting the autonomous driving layout. Tesla CEO Musk said at the financial report in April this year that he hoped that Tesla would achieve the mass production of the new model -Robotaxi (autonomous driving taxi) by 2024. This model will not install steering wheels or pedals.

However, a person close to Tesla told the reporter of "Daily Economic News": "Everyone is used to Musk’s 'big mouth', Tesla has not officially confirmed the mass production in 2024, Therefore, Tesla may be difficult to fulfill Musk's commitment in 2024. "

The relevant person in charge of a head travel platform has told reporters that its company has also worked hard on cars and autonomous driving, and autonomous driving technology has been developed to a certain height. Testing vehicles can complete L3 and L4 within the corresponding scenes. Class -level autonomous driving. However, these two R & D business is also in a state of underwater incubation, and relevant team personnel are isolated and protected even inside the company. Therefore, projects such as Apple Cars will only be public after successful research and development.

Test mileage or become an Apple "blocking"

It is reported that at present, the technical route of autonomous vehicle sensors is mainly divided into mainstream lidar routes and a visual perception route represented by Tesla. An expert in the self -named autonomous driving industry said that from the information disclosed in the past, Apple should use a lidar route and a self -developed laser radar.

Apple's lidar technology has been applied on iPhone and iPad. The iPhone can achieve faster focus speed and more accurate 3D modeling through lidar scanners.

In terms of the intelligent algorithm required for autonomous driving, the above -mentioned expert industry experts who are unwilling to be named believe that it is essentially a neural network learning brought by AI chips. Apple already has self -developed M1 and M2 chips. Its chip technology can be possible It is applied to autonomous vehicles, but it needs to be optimized and adjusted by car regulations.

Not only that, Apple has dug people around the autonomous driving industry in recent years, especially from Silicon Valley from Silicon Valley. Even because of Apple's "digging" behavior against Tesla, Musk has repeatedly "bombarded" Apple, saying "Apple recruits people from Tesla." "If employees can't mix in Tesla You can go to Apple. "

Picture source: Visual China

"The scale of money burning on autonomous driving cannot be estimated, especially the money burning on talent costs and testing costs cannot be measured. And burning money should not be a problem for Apple, which is not bad money." The above -mentioned experts in the autonomous driving industry who do not want to name.

However, Apple's research and development of autonomous driving technology is not all challenging. The California Transportation Administration (DMV) publishes California's autonomous driving data every year. In terms of total testing, Waymo, Cruise, Pony Zhixing and other head players are among the best, and Apple's ranking is relatively behind.

In the Chinese market, as of June this year, Wenyuan's open roads have accumulated more than 11 million kilometers, and the mileage of unmanned driving has accumulated more than 2.8 million kilometers.Testing, with nearly 1 year, accumulated nearly 200,000 kilometers of unmanned autonomous driving research and development mileage.The reporter learned that each company continued to accumulate test mileage in order to deal with the unknown "long tail problems".After completing a road test of millions of kilometers, autonomous driving cars may encounter extremely rare scarcity scenes, and solving the long -tail problem brought by scarce scenes can help intelligent algorithms accumulate key experience.

"Autonomous driving technology should adopt a step -by -step spiral development, and it is difficult to eat a fat man in one bite." Experts from the above -mentioned unknown autonomous driving industry told reporters that this is the "991" principle in the autonomous driving industry, that is, autonomous driving cars are walking.After 99%of the test mileage, the remaining 1%mileage may require 99%of the energy to complete.

Daily Economic News

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