BYD talks about automotive ecology strategy: automotive smart ecology will be an important direction for future development

Message: "We will use technology and products to solve social problems, develop ourselves in the process of solving social problems and creating a better life, and build solutions through innovative methods. This is our original intention." August On the 26th, the 38th anniversary of the establishment of Shenzhen, China's first special economic zone. It was on such a special day that Wang Chuanfu, who came to Shenzhen to start a business in the 1990s, told the story of his initial venture into the sea, his gratitude for reform and opening up, and his "dream in his heart" at this moment.

Wang Chuanfu recalled his journey to the sea to the reporters present, “I myself was in Beijing in the 90s, and I worked in a research institute, which was a good job. But at that time, we were young people. We were not at ease with the status quo, so we jumped out. When I arrived in Shenzhen in the south, there was a level playing field, and it was also a special zone. At that time, some brothers joined BYD. They all gave up their iron jobs and quit their jobs to start a business. At least they had to be accountable in terms of income."

As everyone knows, after a few years, BYD has well-deservedly completed the entire industrial chain layout of new energy passenger vehicles, new energy commercial vehicles, new energy special vehicles, rail transit, photovoltaic energy storage, etc., as BYD's "master rudder". , Wang Chuanfu is intensively aiming at car intelligence, and in 2017 low-key adjustment of the organizational structure, the original technical background of BYD Auto sales leader Shu Youxing became the first dean of the Automotive Smart Ecological Research Institute.

Wang Chuanfu said in a separate reply to the question from Tramway: “From the standpoint of BYD Group’s independent establishment of the Automotive Ecological Research Institute, the strategic position of automotive smart ecology in BYD has been further enhanced and will become an important direction for the future development of BYD Auto.” Wang Chuanfu still personally now. The management of the cloud rail and passenger car sectors shows the prospects for the comprehensive intelligentization of passenger cars in the future.

The smart car DiLink system architecture has been completed

Shu Youxing, the first dean of the BYD Automotive Smart Ecology Research Institute, revealed that on September 5, BYD will start to host a developer conference and BYD Smart Ecology Research Institute press conference. With the continuous advancement of automotive technology and the Internet, we are entering the era of smart cars. , BYD will promote this change with the majority of developers in an open attitude. The BYD Global Developers Conference came into being in this context! Based on automotive intelligence, the scope of the research institute is not limited to the automotive products itself, but will also include research on the entire automotive industry chain.

BYD aims to unite partners in various industries to build a smart car ecosystem-D + + ecology, and jointly discuss the imagination and business opportunities brought to various industries after the opening of hundreds of data interfaces of the car, and work together to create a smart car interconnection of all things. New future.

Regarding the opening strategy of the DiLink system, Shu Youxing said that the DiLink system is based on the latest global automotive intelligent architecture and safety strategy, and is also compatible with 99% of third-party applications worldwide. BYD will open 341 interfaces and 66 control rights to developers. The purpose of this developer conference is to bring together the wisdom of more developers and share them.

According to the survey of DCH, under the background that major car companies are deploying smart cars and seeking openness and sharing, BYD's Dilink is mainly based on the application platform of open car life, and based on mobile applications (APP, mini programs, other), it is actively attracting Talents develop products and services suitable for vehicle applications for autonomous driving.

In addition, the core functions of the DiLink ecosystem include four parts: DiPad, Di Cloud, Di Eco, and Di Open.

DiPad: Centered on a high-definition intelligent electric rotating large screen, it integrates functional modules such as inside and outside the car image system, intelligent voice interaction, navigation, car-machine interconnection system, 4G network, car WiFi, OTA remote upgrade, etc.;

Di Cloud: integrates functions such as remote control, vehicle condition services, location services, data services, etc.;

Di Eco: Integrate functions such as collision automatic rescue, emergency rescue, road rescue, customer secretary, etc.;

Di open: integrated smart bracelet, smart entry, smart key and other functions.

The following is an interview with Shu Youxing (partially deleted)

Time: 2018.08.21

Location: BYD Hexagon Building

Question: After BYD opens up its auto ecosystem, how will it cooperate with banks, insurance and Didi platforms in the future?

Shu: First of all, the opening of cars will not pose a threat to personal privacy. Of course, some data will be used, but we will reach a consensus with the car owner through an agreement contract. As far as BYD is concerned, we are a company that provides a technology platform. We will definitely not go beyond car owners to use your data, and our business model does not intend to go in this regard. Of course, your data is open to the insurance company, and the insurance company is willing to give you a discount, saying that you are a good driver and give you a preferential price for buying insurance, then an agreement between the two of you. We only provide intermediate technical means. However, it was difficult for the previous car to provide this technical means, because its bottom layer was not open, and it didn't know your driving habits or the condition of your car. After we open up, we can make your car have a very clear and transparent status, which can make it possible for both parties to reach an agreement. For example, you can buy insurance on a daily basis, if you drove smoothly today or your historical data is particularly smooth, the insurance company will give you a good price as soon as it looks good. We at BYD are committed to providing such an open platform, so that everyone can imagine.

When Jobs invented the IOS smart phone, he never thought that there would be a company like Didi who made an APP, and then succeeded, becoming the scale it is today. He would not have thought of having a Douyin, how could he want it? Unexpectedly. He just provides such a platform. He can only do the applications on the first page, but many of these applications have been replaced by others. When you look at the map, I use AutoNavi Map; for this stock, people use a straight flush; cameras, use beauty cameras; weather, people use ink weather; wallets, many use Alipay and WeChat wallets. Jobs knew there were some directions, but he couldn't predict everything, let alone what would eat chicken, "Glory of the King". Jobs couldn't do it either. We are also soberly aware that we cannot do this, so we set up a platform for the whole society to participate.

Question: There should be 20 million intelligent connected cars now, plus about 100 million units worldwide, you will have two-way benefits after opening up like this. First, the scale of your company, how can you make these companies interested in your data sharing and openness? Second, is it possible to consider a way similar to the creation of an Android alliance, to maximize the benefits and digitization of this kind of openness, etc., because the two million and 20 million data generated are completely different Effect.

Shu: We investigated the user scale, penetration rate and daily activity of mobile apps. A daily life of less than one million can be ranked in the top three hundred. Our cars equipped with the dilink system are being sold out at a rate of tens of thousands of units per month. I believe that by next year, the number of cars equipped with our intelligent system will be over one million. However, the daily activity of the car scene will be higher. As long as you drive, it may interact with you. We can provide the basic users of the entire ecosystem, enough for new applications to start. But whether the development is good or not depends on its own. If you don't have one hundred thousand users, it's useless to give you one million or ten million. I think our own basic user base is enough.

The second is our ecology, which will be combined with other platforms or brands in the future. We have recently communicated with many car brands. They are also planning to adopt BYD's three-electric system (battery, motor, and electronic control) to share an ecosystem and provide users with a better experience. I don't think the problem is big. If we can unite with more platforms, carry our Dilink, and add our ecosystem, I don’t think we need to worry about the user scale, right? It is a model for everyone to join together to do this, and it may also be a model for us to find others to do it together after we have done it successfully. A lot of things have indeed happened recently, and many companies are also uniting major automakers. I think we will build and build the ecology for the time being, and then we will see how to act next. This is an open platform that is open to all participants.

Question: If we had already thought of letting more brands use our Dilink system when we planned this in the initial stage, I can understand that we have already thought of opening this thing to more OEMs to cooperate with in the initial planning. ?

Shu: Yes, other OEMs can use it.

Question: The latter question, if they use it, is it a system, including hardware and software, should we package it for everyone to share, or is it more at the hardware or software level?

Shu: I think this question is still relatively open, and there is no specific model now. But other brands want to buy a complete set of hardware plus the entire ecological access, I think it is also possible. If you only buy part of it, you can. For example, he has a car machine himself, and then puts our whole ecologically adjusted things in it.

The most difficult point is the access to the bottom layer, that is, all the information, data systems, and network systems of the car itself. For example, each module system of a car needs to be connected to the bottom layer to reflect its effect, instead of just putting a big mobile phone on it, I don't think this is the case. 341 sensors need to be connected.

As for the effect of connecting these sensors, we don't know. In the past, you can turn on the phone by pressing your finger, but now you can pay for it by swiping your face. I really don't know what will happen if there are so many sensors in the car, all open. Maybe you can be recognized directly without too many human actions, and you can be recognized without feeling. I think if you want to connect to our partners and users of this system, the most difficult thing for them is to get through the underlying information channels. This is also an important reason why BYD is able to launch this system ahead of the entire industry, because of all our foundations. It's all in our own hands, and we can innovate and integrate systems at will.

Question: What is the mid- and long-term goal of BYD Research Institute? What are the final things to do to establish such a research institute?

Shu: The development of cars, electrification is the first half, and automation is the second half of the car revolution. In fact, BYD relied on its dedicated support for more than ten years in the first half, and now it should see hope. We are already in short supply, and the voice of the market for us is still quite strong, getting stronger and stronger. Now many brands or emerging car manufacturers have no interest in the first half because there is no room for competition. In terms of the cost and concept of electric vehicles, there are no gaps in it. How can you do BYD in terms of cost? Now the brand recognition and reputation of the electric vehicle industry have occupied a position in the hearts of the audience, just two or three.

Among the changes in the second half, we have to mention the changes in smartphones. The beginning of this change was about ten years ago, and the critical period was about seven or eight years. At that time, it was a critical period. At that time, there were several iconic events, like Nokia, and today everyone in China sees the predecessor of the vivo standing in the front row. It was backgammon. The backgammon music phone disappeared from your eyes, and it was just cut off because you would do it again. The machine is already very difficult. Although the Nokia mobile phone was a pretty good IP at the time and there was nothing bad, it was also broken, and the speed of change was very fast.

The electric car is the first half of the car, and the second half is the smart car. The change has come, because the entire market has been educated very strongly by various smart devices. We shoulder an important responsibility, that is, after exploring the future intelligent transformation, what exactly do we all fight for? In the long run, the performance of the car may be partial to the car in the short or medium term, but after the long-term performance difference is not too great?

Everyone knows that BYD has now opened its supply chain system to the industry. If you use our three-electric system to do it, there will be no big difference. The configuration is the same as the order. You can add whichever you want. So the important thing is the value your ecology brings to you, and we have to go ahead on this point. Through the BYD system, the largest ecosystem can be connected, and it is more to bring you additional services. In the past, when we booked hotels and checked restaurant information, we had to do it on the computer. Later, with the smart phone, it was OK to do it on the mobile phone. The car is the same, it may bring us more and more convenient value. BYD has to go ahead with the access of these values. Therefore, we have to build a leading intelligent ecosystem, which is the main responsibility of our eco-academy.

Of course, we are about to hold a developer conference, and we also hope that the openers who develop on our platform can be very good and can be many. This is what we very much hope. So we have to build a complete system, so that more people are willing to create. The so-called "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" can be created on our platform, and there will be many innovations, and it can also create value for users. Perhaps in the future, such application scenarios or convenient services can be found on BYD cars. Or the surprise for you first happened in our ecology.

Question: Chips are very important to smart cars. How to solve the problem of chips? The self-driving chip is very capable. How does BYD implement the corresponding development? Secondly, how does BYD solve the OS problem, that is, do you do it yourself or cooperate with others? In fact, the ecology you mentioned is integrated with the OS. The integration of mobile phone ecology and OS is only Apple, which is completely closed. I want to ask what is your solution?

Shu: The BYD system is not an integrated system in the traditional sense. It does not mean that the middle screen is all mine. We also have a control system for the bottom layer, that is, the control of autonomous driving, and this system is also open. Many domestic partners are already using BYD cars to develop autonomous driving technology, and each has a different algorithm architecture and different hardware. Some may be a pure camera method, some are a combination of radar and a camera, some use an industrial computer, and some may already be developing its dedicated computer to direct the car how to move.

This open platform can be roughly divided into two parts. Part of it is BYD's Dilink for the user end that we have been promoting, which is the user interface system. This system not only includes the screen, but also includes a series of devices such as microphones and cameras, which are actually the user side. There is another end of our ecology and this platform, which may not be seen by many users for the time being, but some autopilot developers are already using it, which is the underlying wire control system, which is the driving control circuit and power supply system. This system should now be said that there is not a particularly mature and consensus hardware solution in the world. Since we are currently using a platform, we can all upgrade and iterate modularly. So you can see our screen, now it is an eight-core CPU, but in the future, if more powerful chips come out, we can also upgrade and iterate. The computing chips for autonomous driving have not yet been commercialized in the industry. Unlike mobile phones, there are Qualcomm and HiSilicon. At present, like Horizon, Baidu is developing self-driving chips, but it has not yet formed a unified plan.

It is still in a period of change, and everyone has everyone's point of view. Nowadays, some mainstream chip manufacturers will launch a chip, saying that I can run two OSs on the chip, one to control the multimedia in the car, and one to control the instrument, but which thing is used to control the automatic driving? He said that this is not in my control, because it is in charge of the upper layer and the human-computer interaction. The lower-level autonomous driving is not a car, but a person, so this is the reason why we want to cooperate with an autonomous driving company, that is, I am a car, it is a person, and their purpose is to replace people, through eyes, The brain and control signals must be replaced by the driver. We make cars. You can never drive without driving. You have to drive with manned and unmanned vehicles. So the difference between us at BYD is that we make cars.

In addition, we will make some modifications to the existing OS. For example, the current Android system is widely used on mobile phones and is also used in other places, but the number of sensors connected to it is dozens. We now have 341 sensors open, and we have to sort out the entire call mechanism very accurately in it. In fact, we need to do some in-depth transformation and customization. This is something that no one can learn from, and we developed it ourselves.