Can the automatic parking function (APA), which has been promoted for many years, solve the actual pain points of users? After paying attention to the challenges of all kinds of automatic parking vehicles this year, it is found that few vehicles can successfully complete automatic parking at the same time under three parking scenarios: parallel parking, vertical parking and oblique parking.
At present, there is a new application of "automatic parking service", but can it surpass automatic parking? Is this road really good?
It's the end of the year again. Looking back to 2020, the global automobile industry, which was severely impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic, accelerated the process of technological change and pattern reshaping. The signal of the alternation of old and new times is ready to come out, and the micro-rings of each subdivision track are brewing huge waves.
Car home Industry Channel launched the special plan of "Year-end Chronicle 2020", interviewing hot parties and phenomenon makers in depth, discussing the focus topics that affect the fate of the industry, and interpreting the China that touched the car. This issue focuses on the topic of "automatic parking service".
It is more difficult to climb the summit and drive the mountain automatically than to climb Mount Everest.
Since the beginning of this year, many car companies, including Weimar, Chinese Express, Hongqi, GAC, Daimler and so on. , are trying to find a "shortcut"-to promote the automatic parking service function (AVP), that is, autonomous parking, which is considered to be one of the fastest scenes to realize driverless cars in the private sector.
It is also a parking appeal, from "automatic" to "autonomous", but the word difference is a world of difference. Autonomous parking allows the owner to leave the vehicle completely, and the vehicle can take the initiative to drive to the designated parking space.
■ Save the parking function of "chicken ribs"
The automatic parking function belongs to L2-level advanced assisted driving, and it is still inseparable from the driver's participation in the whole operation process.
"There are many restrictions and long operation time. It is not as easy as parking yourself. " Many car owners even regard automatic parking as a "chicken rib". This also reflects the root cause of the slow growth of the automatic parking function terminal assembly rate.
Valeo China CTO, i-VISTA? Gu Jianmin, one of the judges of the 2020 Challenge, declared after observing the event for one day: "The promotion of automatic parking is mixed, and the industry still has a long way to go." (i-VISTA is one of the self-driving car challenges with high attention in China)
Even Tesla, which is in the leading position in the field of autonomous driving, does not perform well in automatic parking. 101October 2 1 day, a Tesla owner was using the "smart call function" and his vehicle collided. After adjusting the departure angle several times, the vehicle still could not drive out of the parking space smoothly, and finally collided with the BMW parked on its left side.
But in the case that the function of the "predecessor" is still not perfect, do you want to bypass the "chicken ribs" for promotion? Is automatic parking service a muscle show driven by capital, or is it possible to popularize it on a large scale?
GAC plans to try to cooperate with Bosch to install AVP system on high-profile vehicles from 202 1.
On the technical level, there is a great leap that the automatic parking service system has multiple redundancy design, that is, when a sensor or a component in the control system fails, the second or third other component is used as a "backup" to replace it.
"In the past, many automatic parking functions needed to be parked in the empty parking space between two cars to take effect, which enhanced the application scenario of automatic parking service. Even pure wireframe parking spaces, regardless of vertical, parallel and diagonal, can identify parking with integrated perception. " Gu Jianmin explained to car home.
Unlike automatic parking, automatic parking service is a product that really comes from the demand side. Remember an old news from 20 17? Shanghai was crazy all the way, and found it after half a month of "amnesia" after parking in Lujiazui. The parking fee was 2000 yuan.
"From the perspective of commercial value, parking problems exist in almost all cities. The automatic parking service function is the only dual demand solution that can solve the problem that users don't want to find a parking space, but they don't want to park themselves, and consumers are willing to pay for it. " Guo Jishun, head of the intelligent driving technology department of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute, said.
However, demand is one thing, and whether consumers can enjoy it is another matter. The large-scale popularization of automatic parking service still lacks a legal identity.
In this regard, Gu Jianmin told car home: "The main engine factory can do the test operation of the automatic parking service system, but strictly speaking, this is still a demonstration car."
As for those mass-produced models that claim to have or will be equipped with automatic parking service system, in Gu Jianmin's view, it is very likely that some car companies have "deviated" the definition of automatic parking service system.
He believes that car companies can introduce the function of automatic parking service system, but the production model can only be called L2 advanced assisted driving car. Under the existing conditions, this function cannot be really opened to end users for the time being.
"Tesla FSD system"
Pretend but you can't enjoy it. Is this a stunt of car companies for marketing? For example, Tesla declared to the government that the FSD function belongs to L2 advanced assisted driving, and the use of this function requires the driver's complete intervention. In the promotion of end consumers, Tesla defines FSD as "fully automatic driving", but in the terms of service, drivers are required to take over the car at any time and let consumers bear the responsibility for collision.
Autonomous parking is one of the most important scenes of vehicle automatic driving. Every car company will spare no effort to promote automatic parking when promoting automatic driving. Previously, domestic Weimar Automobile and Baidu jointly released parking service technology, announcing that it will land in the first half of 20021.
"Weimar Automobile Test Automatic Parking Service Function"
It is understood that this automatic parking service system can be realized in two life scenarios: first, the owner has a fixed parking lot in his home or company (not the vehicle independently "finding a parking space"); Another scene is the public parking lot of some shopping malls or office buildings in the testing stage. According to official data, this kind of parking lot only opens the parking capacity of vertical parking spaces.
Another positive aspect of the enterprise is that although the relevant laws and regulations on the function of "automatic parking service" have not been formally promulgated at home and abroad, the relevant work has made progress.
On May 7th this year, China Automotive Engineering Society issued a draft for comments on the general requirements of autonomous parking service system. The opinion draft was jointly drafted by more than 30 enterprises including China FAW, Great Wall, Valeo and Bosch.
However, in Gu Jianmin's view, this does not mean that "automatic parking service" will soon usher in spring.
"When China's child safety seat regulations were drafted, this law did not have too many economic requirements and would not sacrifice the interests of others. However, it actually took 10 years to promote it, and it was not mandatory in the end. " ? Gu Jianmin said. In his view, whether in China, the European Union or the United States, government departments are very cautious when formulating traffic regulations.
However, Li Xingyu, vice president of Horizon Market Development and Strategic Planning, pointed out: "At present, it is not the policy that prevents the autopilot-related functions from landing, but the autopilot technology itself has not been proved to be mature. In fact, the policy is waiting for technology. "
■ The pros and cons are difficult to weigh.
Before, many people in the industry thought that automatic parking service would land before fully automatic driving technology, but now it seems not optimistic.
Just as the technical route of self-driving cars is divided into bicycle intelligence and vehicle-road coordination, automatic parking services also have two major routes: car-side and field-side, but no matter which technical route, the advantages and disadvantages are difficult to weigh.
"Bosch installs detectors in the parking lot"
According to the route selected by Bosch, to realize the function of automatic parking service, the whole parking lot needs to be reformed. For example, add a camera system to identify vacant parking spaces, monitor the parking lot and its surrounding environment, and detect objects and people.
For this technical route, a number of auto-driving R&D veterans said when communicating with the story of the auto market, "It is not easy to realize the automatic parking service function based on the field in life, mainly because the parking environment is too complicated."
In addition, the parking spaces in some urban parking lots are movable up and down structures, which brings new problems to the automatic parking service.
Although Wang Ting, director of smart travel solutions of Bosch Intelligent Network Division, once said that "you can use smart cameras instead of expensive lidar". However, in a short time, a small-scale renovation of the parking lot may realize the function of automatic parking service, but large-scale promotion still faces great challenges.
In view of this, some car companies consider realizing autonomous parking through their own capabilities. But correspondingly, the cost of riding will also increase greatly.
According to Wang Junjun, platform project manager of R&D Research Institute of car home China FAW Group Co., Ltd., the upcoming Hongqi E-HS9 with automatic parking service adopts bicycle intelligence as the main route and only needs to make minor changes to the parking lot. According to its introduction, Hongqi will take the lead in planning more than 500 parking lots for end consumers.
Hongqi E-HS9
"We have embedded the lidar in the production car, just waiting for the laws and regulations to open." Wang Junjun said.
In addition to the red flag, Xpeng Motors also relies on its own vehicle terminal to realize the function of automatic parking service. However, Wu Xinzhou, the head of Xpeng Motors' autonomous driving team, is cautious. "The ideal scene of automatic parking at the rear of the car is that where the car is driven, it can be automatically parked with one button. From a technical point of view, this is risky, so we are still evaluating it. "
■ Multi-party game
For the choice of two technical routes, Xin Huang, the head of Xpeng's auto-driving products, pointed out the core of the problem: "The parking lot reconstruction plan needs to be invested, and who will bear the dispute."
At the operational level, the parking service function needs the coordination between the parking lot property and the operator, and the wishes and demands of all parties are consistent before it can be promoted. "This is not something that can be done by the automobile industry alone, but an economic game between the demand side and the provider side." Gu Jianmin said, "At present, the business in the parking lot is basically saturated. How to have enough economic strength to renovate the parking lot may require government support in the future. "
In addition, the commercial landing of new technologies needs to balance security risk control. Huang Yuxin, vice president of transportation services in TUV Rheinland Greater China, pointed out that in practical application scenarios, there is no systematic risk assessment mechanism for venues with automatic parking service system. For example, the consideration of mixed road traffic conditions, such as parking lots, sidewalks and other vehicles in shopping carts.
More importantly, the industry has not yet formed a standard for the renovation of parking lots. At present, there are a few cases, all of which are spontaneous behaviors of enterprises. Different levels of bicycle intelligence naturally have different requirements for parking lots. Should China start with standards if it wants to popularize automatic parking services?
■ Summary:
Even the refined function such as parking service needs the joint efforts of many parties to be applied on a large scale. In the future, in the business model, many details still need to be polished slowly.
Therefore, it is a pity that parking will still be inseparable from drivers for a long time to come, but the change of parking service to our lives has quietly begun ... (Text/car home? Peng Fei)