This part of the content is reproduced in the public number contract Car Review

The car networking system, once overlooked in the dust, is ushering in an unprecedented spring. The arrival of this moment will bring a new experience to human car travel for a hundred years.

With the development of intellectualization, automobiles are changing from "cold" proxy tools to super intelligent "robots" with temperature. It can use voice and even gesture to clarify your instructions and give you feedback like a person does; It can learn more and more about your habits and provide the most intimate service. It allows you to have an extra five square meters of private entertainment space in a city as small as this in the north, bringing you joy and joy, and relieving your tiredness and stress.

All of this depends on the previously unappreciated automobile networking system, which will be the entrance for human to drive and interact with automobiles.

The long-standing choice of vehicle networking system will not continue to be low-profile. Its rising momentum makes people feel like "thousands of trees and pears blossom suddenly overnight in the spring."

Vehicle companies, Internet giants, technology companies, Tier 1 and other heroes are launching a war without smoke around it. After the war, they hope to have a place in a new land.

The breath of change is upon us, and the vastness of the landscape is slowly unfolding.

One

 

Once the car networking system was once a "painless" role in people's eyes, it has been firmly occupying the most striking core position in the car interior, but it has never achieved the same "rivers and lakes status" as this location.

Vehicle networking system has experienced a very long and miserable time.

The development of human science and technology is changing dramatically all the time, but this change has not been fully reflected in the vehicle networking system. For users, the car networking system seems to have only a few useful functions, such as Bluetooth, reverse image, map navigation, etc.

However, even these functions are not paid for by users, and they are not as treated as a 9.99 yuan mobile phone stand on Taobao. The reason is not difficult to understand, traditional locomotives can be said to be a very "anti-human" existence: buttons, or even touch methods are not suitable for driving scenes, drivers are difficult to achieve smooth operation by rotating buttons or point control during driving; Layers of nested functional interfaces, like a maze, plus poor touch control, make people mad in minutes; Maps cannot be updated in real time, and the information users get is always lagging behind. To use this "old map", many car owners even need to pay hundreds of dollars for a "small card".

The purpose of such a system does not seem to be to help users solve problems, but to drive users crazy, or even "play with them" while driving.

In this way, the car networking system has been abandoned and grayed out in the most prominent places in the car.

For the vast majority of car companies, the vehicle networking system is only an accessory of the car. For a long time, the whole automobile enterprise has devoted much effort to the performance, comfort, appearance of automobiles, turning automobiles into a "straight man of steel". The less important automobile networking system is more often completely developed by suppliers to invest less energy and cost.

The lack of awareness of intellectualization in automobile enterprises has led to the isolation of automobile, the most critical intelligent system in human travel. The all-pervasive Internet has come to automobiles and has met Waterloo. No wonder Zhou Hongyi makes such an evaluation as "closing down" the car.

However, the "closed" or "open" of the automotive industry is not a question that needs to be hesitated along with the flood of the times.

Technological giants, the "new force in car making" with internet genes and a few more "radical" traditional car companies have taken the lead in opening the "locked door" of the automotive industry.

The long-silent car networking system is starting to wake up slowly and will be completely new to life.

Two

After centuries of hard work, automobiles are being reshaped by Intelligence, and the entrance to the new world is the Vehicle Networking System.

At this moment, the car networking system is no longer the "little boy" that was ignored in the dust. It has been gradually given more capabilities, and is gradually growing into a "Superman", even starting to make the "steel man" of the car into a "intimate warm man", capturing the user's heart in a new way.

From entertainment content to travel services, from information delivery to vehicle control, the vehicle networking system is growing from small to powerful in all aspects.

First of all, the car networking system is gradually getting rid of the constraints of mobile phones, relying on its own power to provide users with richer content and smarter services.

For many "old drivers", driving is really a must. After getting into the cockpit and being "locked up" by the seat belts, the poor drivers began to be isolated for a long time.

Fan Haoyu, Vice President of Automotive and Home Intelligence and Systems, pointed out that during the driving process, it is very difficult to achieve the interaction between people and cars, environment, others and mobile phones. In this process, drivers become "disabled" who can hardly do anything but drive. Therefore, how to provide a safe and effective scalability experience becomes very important.

Intelligent vehicle networking system needs to solve this pain point for users first.

Fan Haoyu emphasized that the richness of content is especially critical for users. For example, before the advent of smartphones, there were only a few fixed functions of mobile phones. However, once a user's needs are opened, they are unlimited.

Nowadays, whether on mobile phones or in cars, people are no longer satisfied with just a few simple functions and applications.

Shu Youxing, president of BYDI Automotive Intelligence Ecology Research Institute, pointed out that as a car company, it is impossible to stipulate and predict what kind of applications and services users prefer, what they need to provide users is an application platform as rich as possible to meet the personalized needs of different groups, at least in mobile applications, there should be at least, and there should be more applications dedicated to car use scenarios.

Ji Yu, Vice President of Xiaopeng Automotive, pointed out that in the future, the content provided by the car networking system in entertainment will be more and more rich. Traditionally, only radio stations and mobile phones connected via Bluetooth can enjoy some audio. At present, the car networking system itself will provide cross talk, music, novel, education and other content. In the future, it will even brush the jitter, watch TV dramas and so on.

In addition, more and more attention has been paid to the entertainment content that a vehicle can provide to users in a static state.

Electric cars and fuel vehicles are very different. In a static state, the air conditioning of the electric car can still run continuously, which allows the car to keep a suitable temperature in a non-driving state, providing a space for users to freed themselves as much as possible without disturbance from the outside world.

At present, BYDI's Delink system and the MARS version of Zebra Smart Line are both trying to launch K-song apps, turning cars into small K-song houses.

The car networking system can also turn a car into a game room. In the future, a car with L4 self-driving function will be a supercomputer, which will be thousands of times faster than a smartphone. Under these conditions, VR and AR technology will be easier to achieve, and people will enjoy unprecedented gaming experience.

Musk has started recruiting game developers for Tesla and plans to include game content on the car's central control screen. At present, Tesla has more than 500,000 vehicles in its possession, and this number is increasing steadily. Musk's growing user base gives it a huge impulse to decide to develop its own apps.

Content services in automotive static scenarios will give automotive companies and content providers more room for imagination and more opportunities.

In addition, more travel services will be achieved through a richer application ecology, Shu Youxing pointed out that finding parking spaces, reserving parking spaces, finding charging posts, paying tolls, and so on, can be solved through specially designed applications for cars, and the experience will be more convenient than mobile phones.

When the content is rich enough, providing it to users in the most convenient and fast way is another problem that the vehicle networking system needs to solve. Previously, it was through buttons or touch, but it has proved that this method is not suitable for driving scenes, so voice interaction has entered the stage of history.

Voice interaction has become a new battlefield for intelligent vehicle networking system.

It's not difficult to imagine how easy and enjoyable it is to satisfy your needs with a smooth voice for the car networking system. You can "order" it as much as you like: I want to hear Jay Chou; I want to learn English; I want to listen to Luo Fang's latest program...

The car networking system will even gradually get to know your preferences and actively push your favorite types of music to remind you that the programs you often listen to have been updated.

The most commonly used map navigation functions in driving can also be facilitated through voice interaction.

In addition to the content, the intelligent vehicle networking system can also allow users to control the air conditioning, windows, door locks and other functions of the car more easily.

Fan Haoyu pointed out that an intelligent car should make everyone know how to use its functions as soon as they get on the car, without any prior learning and understanding.

This is a very "intimate" teaching picture provided by a salesperson in 4S shop after a car owner has purchased a traditional car to help the car owner "quickly" understand how to use various functions. If the car owner is not a scholar, he may be stunned on the spot when he sees the picture. Even if you remember all the functions of these buttons, it is a great challenge to grope for the exact buttons while driving, let alone mention the potential safety hazards.

The intelligent vehicle networking system will enable users to quickly let the car follow their instructions through voice control. Users just need to say "I'm cold" and the temperature of the air conditioner will increase. Say "I want to see the stars", the skylight will open, and the system will remember different people's preferences for temperature, and personalize the temperature adjustment in the car.

Automobiles are changing from cold vehicles to super smart terminals with temperature that can actively serve people. However, this change has not been completely completed. Today's automobiles are in the transition from "feature car" to "smart car". Not everyone is the first to consider the smart factor when buying a car. Just as the smartphone just appeared, mainstream users chose the demand of their mobile phone or phone, text message and standby time. But the speed at which user needs change is incredible.

Li Wang, the founder of automobile and founder, once pointed out that automobile smart service may not even account for 10% of users'purchase decisions now, but it will account for 90% of the word-of-mouth communication in the back.

Fan Haoyu pointed out that the intellectualization of automobiles is not easy. As long as you take a small step forward, the user experience will change gradually. As long as you have experienced it, you will never go back. This process is gradual.

At this moment, traditional automobiles have reached a critical turning point, and Nokia's car experience is still evident.

The turn of the times will not leave any person with time to do psychological construction. If you can't keep up with it, you will be brutally abandoned.

Three

 

The automobile networking system has become a new track that all parties are striving for.

Traditional car enterprises begin to attach importance to its existence unprecedentedly, new forces invest a lot of resources to develop it, Internet technology companies have entered the market, and a war without smoke has begun.

The sensor and controller privileges of BYDI Open Car are for developers to develop application ecology; Geely launched the "Gekke Intelligent Ecosystem", bringing technology and intelligence closer to each other; Four-screen interaction between car and home brings users a more intimate experience; Weilai makes an emotional connection between cars and people through Nomi; Xiaopeng Automotive has invested 30% of its R&D personnel in intellectualization and networking. Zebra has developed an operating system exclusively for cars that is completely independent of Android...

On the other side of the ocean, Tesla first applied a 17-inch super-large screen to the car. The function of the vehicle can be controlled almost by this screen, which allows users to control the car like a mobile phone. Apple has been quietly "doing things", digging in a lot of Blackberry engineers to silently develop the automotive operating system; In Europe, the traditionally well-known public has poured down $4 billion in hard money, planning to develop a cloud-based networked automotive platform...

For a while, there was a surge of wind and clouds in the rivers and lakes of the car networking system.

At present, each of the introduced vehicle networking systems has its own characteristics and dazzling. Generally, it can be divided into three directions: deep customization based on Android system; Alios that is completely parallel to the Android system; Traditional QNX and Linux systems.

 

It can be seen that the new power of car making and the traditional car companies embracing intellectualization choose to make deep customization on Android system. An important reason for this is that Android already has a rich application ecology and can be directly ported to the vehicle networking system. Jiyu pointed out that Android systems have greater extensibility and better ecological support than Linux and QNX, and it is expected that more and more car companies will choose Android as their in-vehicle system.

However, although they are also Android systems, various car companies have made their own features in the process of "deep customization". Just like Huawei, Millet and Vivo on mobile phones, they are all Android systems, but there are already significant differences and different user experiences.

BYDI's strategy is to open up 66 controls and 341 sensors for cars. Over 1 million lines of Android source code have been optimized and changed over three years by hundreds of engineers. The sensor signals on the vehicle are encapsulated into hundreds of standard APIs and opened into a developer's development kit SDK. This also made Dilink the first operating system for Android systems and car sensors.

Shu Youxing pointed out that such an "open" will bring unprecedented application richness, and more than 1,000 applications have been certified.

At the BYD Developers Conference, Wang Chuanfu, Chairman and President of BYD, pointed out that with only a dozen sensors on the mobile phone, more than 3 million APPs have been generated, which has had a huge impact on our lives. And if 300 sensors are developed in the car at the same time, it's not difficult to imagine what kind of ecosystem would be created.

Shu Youxing said that a developer is currently developing an in-car artificial intelligence dart system. Once passengers or drivers feel insecure or uncomfortable in the car and call for help, the application will make a judgment combining voice and image recognition. The smart car will control the lamp speaker and so on independently and enter the rescue mode. Simultaneously, signals are pushed to designated seats or people around the car, and automotive characteristics, location, in-car incidents, and help reward mechanisms are reported. The nearest person nearby receives a push and arrives at the scene as soon as possible to help, greatly increasing the safety of drivers and passengers.

Cars and homes use a dual-system, dual-chip framework of Android+Linux. The dashboard + vehicle control screen choose a more secure and stable Linux system, while the center control screen + driving entertainment use Android system with richer application ecology. Behind the two systems are two high-performance chips, which form a natural physical firewall without interruption.

In addition, Fan Haoyu introduced that the biggest feature of the system is to split stacked applications by four-screen interaction. The dashboard in front of the driver shows only the vehicle information and ADAS, so that the driver's attention is not overly distracted. The co-driver has a dedicated entertainment screen and a separate Bluetooth that does not interfere with the driver. The other two screens are the central control screen and the vehicle control screen. The central control screen is mainly used for integrated applications, while the vehicle control screen located in the traditional air conditioning control area has a single screen, because it is the most frequent and just needed function for users. The separate screen can make the control of air conditioning easier and more convenient for users.

In the application area, the car and home choose themselves to deeply optimize the applications that users just need and use frequently to ensure users have a better experience. Fan Haoyu points out that some long tail needs need to be solved by driving the ecology, which is based on maximizing the high frequency user experience that just needs to be applied.

It is worth mentioning that Tesla's preferred Intelligent Vehicle Networking System is Linux. Compared with Android system, Linux system has faster start-up time, higher security, no commercial costs, and can be used safely in both instrumentation and entertainment systems. However, the problem is that there are few mobile phones with Linux as the system at present, so there is no application ecology for Linux at present.

However, Tesla's sales have been growing steadily, reaching 500,000 vehicles. Whether or not Tesla will build a Linux-based automotive operating system into a customized automotive operating system in the future is a matter of concern in the US.

In addition to heavily customized schemes on existing operating systems, some "homeowners" have decided to completely redevelop their own systems. For example, Volkswagen decided to invest $4 billion to create a "vw.OS"; Another example is Apple, which already has the advantage of developing new systems and has built a mature application ecology based on IOS.

In addition to the whole car companies, Internet technology companies are also joining the market, making every effort to seize this excellent opportunity to enter the automotive industry.

Unlike deep customization based on Android, zebra networks choose completely different tracks.

In 2014, SAIC and Ali jointly set up the zebra network, developed the zebra system based on AliOS, which is also the first fully independent Android operating system in China and specially developed for automobiles.

In product design and application ecology, zebra networks offer de-APP solutions. Zebra Network Chief Product Officer Xie Lifetime believes that the entire automotive market is very large, and APP and de-APPization options will coexist in the future, both of which have their own living space.

Xie Ping-sheng pointed out that focusing on smart travel scenarios, users need the system to actively provide content, services and experiences, rather than download them in the background. Zebras are mainly about connecting content and service sources to the cloud, connecting search capabilities, and allowing users to quickly find the content and services they need. Xie said zebras prefer to use the form of de-Appization, behavior-centric, map-based desktop, and AI scene concatenation to achieve service discovery.

In addition, Tencent and Baidu have also proposed intelligent vehicle networking system solutions. But none of them are really bottom-level car operating systems.

Tencent's AI in Car is a solution on top of the Android system that transplants Tencent's powerful social application ecology into cars.

The DuerOS launched by Baidu is the main voice control, which applies dialog AI capabilities to automotive driving scenarios. Currently, there are more than 20,000 skill developers on the DuerOS platform.

Four

One hundred different enterprises will have one hundred different car networking systems. The only group that can really make a final judgment on it is the user.

Jiyu said that the quality of a system can not be measured by the configuration table at all, the core is that it is not really good. For example, a few hundred-dollar phone and a ten-thousand-dollar iPhone may not have much different feature lists, but the experience of actually using them is far different.

At present, there are many car networking systems on the market, all of which can be connected to the Internet, and the functions look similar, but consumers will make a real judgment on the products. Xie Bingsheng pointed out that a really good vehicle networking system must be defined from the perspective of users, need to understand, analyze, insight and research users, so that users can feel that they can buy not only a car, but also a travel partner with users.

However, what kind of system can really capture users'hearts? Let "fussy" users no longer turn a blind eye to it, but become deeply dependent on it.

First, the car networking system should provide users with a very smooth experience. Fan Haoyu pointed out that the user's high-frequency, just-needed needs experience should be maximized, instead of stacking many ineffective multifunctions together regardless of the user's perception.

At present, the vehicle networking system needs to focus on system stability, security, starting speed, voice interaction, mobile phone connection, wireless charging, map navigation, music, assisted driving, 360 look around, communication connection and other aspects to continuously improve the user experience.

Secondly, the vehicle networking system needs to have the ability to grow and evolve, to upgrade OTA, to ensure that users can continue to experience better.

A good car networking system is not easy, and the needs of users change from time to time. The system needs to upgrade iterations in time according to the needs of users. Let users see that the system is growing with them, changing, and becoming smarter and more connected to themselves.

Third, the intelligent vehicle networking system should be able to actively provide services and interact with users.

Fan Haoyu believes that the ultimate goal of smart systems should be to provide users with direct services through data, to achieve a state of "technology and information surrounding you", rather than to let users need to search and search.

For example, when you enter the car, the system will ask you if you want to turn on the air conditioning or even set the air conditioning to the right temperature directly, without any user's further operation. When there is a current congestion, ask yourself if you need to change your route and offer you intimate service instead of waiting for the user's instructions passively.

Future automobiles will become intelligent robots with natural interaction, human understanding and autonomous behavior, which will make human travel more efficient, cheaper and safer.

In the process of this transformation, automotive enterprises are facing unprecedented challenges.

In the new revolution, one of the biggest problems facing the automobile enterprises is the importance of automobile networking. Intelligent automobile networking system not only involves the functional problems that we can directly experience, but also involves the changes of the electronic structure of the whole vehicle, the information security of the whole vehicle, the close-loop of large data, etc. It is a very complex system. Jiyu believes that the whole vehicle enterprise that really pays attention to and understands this point will occupy a great advantage in the future competition.

Previously, many automotive enterprises handed over the automotive networking system to their suppliers directly. In the era of smart automobiles, the automotive networking system is not so simple as getting it directly onto the vehicle. It requires the deep cooperation of the automotive enterprises and suppliers to develop together, or even the automotive enterprises themselves invest a lot of resources to fully integrate the application of ecological, data, safety, performance and other capabilities. Create a truly satisfactory car networking system for users.

Secondly, to embrace change thoroughly, the whole vehicle enterprise needs not only to accept new blood, but also to transform its own "gene", which includes culture, talent, system, process and so on.

In the process of transformation to intellectualization, some automotive enterprises place the departments related to automotive networking under the low voltage electrical departments of the whole automotive system, which shows the recognition and importance of automotive networking. Intelligence is only really promising when a car company can upgrade this department to the same level as the whole car.

The smart transformation of automobile brings automobile enterprises an opportunity to reposition themselves and let them rethink what value they bring to consumers. This process, like the smartness of mobile phones in those years, will thoroughly shuffle the industry. Shu Youxing pointed out that car companies need to seize the needs of users in this change to find their own position in the new wave.

A fierce war has just begun, and all users will be the greatest beneficiaries, and who can truly satisfy users will be the final winner.

（This part of the content is reproduced in the public number contract Car Review）