[Pacific Automotive Network Review Channel] In 2012, the first-generation Tesla Model S was delivered. The huge 17-inch vertical screen packaged and integrated all the messy physical buttons in the interior. Along with various controversies, a revolution in the intelligentization

[Pacific Automotive Network Review Channel] In 2012, the first generation Tesla Model S was delivered. The huge 17-inch vertical screen packaged and integrated all the messy physical buttons in the interior.

Along with various controversies, a revolution in the intelligentization of car cockpits has begun. Different manufacturers are thinking about how to make the central control screen of new cars larger and more fun.

However, the car and engine are only one level of innovation in the smart cockpit, and the smart cockpit is not the same as the car and engine. The smart cockpit should be a complete automated closed-loop system including perception, thinking, and action. It covers vehicle driving and entertainment information, and can provide users with an efficient and convenient human-vehicle interaction experience.

To put it simply, the smart cockpit can provide you with services from the moment you enter the car, such as unlocking the door without any sense, automatically logging in to your account, adjusting seats, rearview mirrors, air conditioning, vehicle settings, etc. Synchronize navigation information and meet the diverse entertainment needs of passengers.

This time we found 7 models: Tesla Model 3, NIO ET7, Xpeng P5, Ideal ONE, Wenjie M5, BYD Han, and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ. Let’s take a look at their smart cockpits. How it performs.

Our smart cockpit evaluation this time will evaluate the vehicle’s smart cockpit from three parts: perception, interaction, and expansion. Among them, perception is the entrance to the smart cockpit. Simply put, perception is a question of whether the vehicle can recognize you and identify who you are.

interaction, that is, whether the car-machine system is convenient and efficient enough for people to use, this is the good and bad aspects that most users can intuitively perceive. Expansion will test the vehicle-machine system's ability to support the richness of the application ecosystem and mobile phone interconnection.

This issue’s smart cockpit review video has been released. Friends who are not interested in pictures and text can click on the video below to learn the review details:

Perception

1

The first step in unlocking the

smart cockpit is perception unlocking. A car cockpit that is smart enough will be able to recognize you when you approach, unlock it at the appropriate time, and even greet the owner through lights, music, etc.

The car unlocking method has evolved from mechanical keys to keyless entry. In fact, the convenience is already high enough. The current keyless entry can also realize automatic unlocking when the user approaches the vehicle, which is both convenient and ritualistic. But after all, people still have to carry their car keys. If they can unlock the vehicle directly through their mobile phone, the experience will be more complete.

Among the 7 cars tested, only the Tesla Model 3, Weilai ET7, Xpeng P5 and Ideal ONE can be unlocked through mobile phone Bluetooth. Wenjie M5 has not yet launched this function.

In the Bluetooth unlocking of mobile phones, Tesla Model 3 and Ideal ONE require the user to touch the door handle to unlock, while the Xpeng P5 will automatically unlock and pop up the door handle when it is closer to the door (the distance is affected by the environment) signal impact). NIO ET7 currently needs to open the APP when approaching the vehicle to unlock. So we see that even if you use mobile phone Bluetooth to unlock, the final implementation methods are also different. From a safety point of view, it is more secure for the user to unlock when he pulls the door handle, but it will make the user feel more comfortable to unlock automatically when he gets close. Full of ceremony.

BYD Han and Wenjie M5 can currently add digital keys through mobile phone NFC. When you need to unlock, you can take out your mobile phone and touch it on the rearview mirror housing to open the door. This function only supports Huawei mobile phones . BYD Han supports Huawei , Honor , Xiaomi , OnePlus, VIVO, OPPO and other brands of mobile phones. So if you are a Apple Samsung user, it will be more embarrassing.

The last one is the Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ. To be honest, we were confused after getting the car and logging in to the account. The mobile APP only has functions such as remote air conditioning and scheduled charging. There are no functions such as remote network unlocking and Bluetooth unlocking on mobile phones. It’s already 2022, is this performance appropriate?

In addition, when the Xiaopeng P5 is unlocked by the proximity sensor of the phone, light words will appear on the front and rear light groups, and there will also be sound effects. On the NIO ET7, the interior ambient light will light up when the phone is close to it. Although these things are dispensable, the ritual sense of and are accumulated bit by bit.

2

After the user logs in to

and unlocks it, the user will sit in the car. At this time, the smart cockpit should actively identify the user, then automatically switch to the corresponding user account, and synchronize all the user's settings and information. To put it bluntly, it means that the vehicle settings follow the owner, and even if you change the car, it will be as if it was tailor-made for you.

User setting linkage is actually not something that was born in smart cockpits in the past few years. The old Toyota old Honda more than ten years ago, until the current Toyota Crown Land Release, can be unlocked with different keys. The seats, rearview mirrors, steering wheel, and head-up display will be adjusted to the appropriate positions accordingly. Nowadays, there are more settings in smart cars, so the content of account synchronization is also richer.

Among the 7 models tested, Tesla Model 3 and Ideal ONE multi-account switching is the most convenient. Just select account switching directly on the car. After switching accounts, seats, rearview mirrors, and some vehicle settings will also be adjusted synchronously with the account. Most vehicle settings of Ideal ONE can be synchronized (such as tailgate opening height, driving mode, lights, etc.). Switching accounts for other models requires scanning the QR code on the mobile phone APP to log in. NIO ET7 and Wenjie M5 also support facial recognition login.

Judging from the synchronized information details, the account information synchronization of Xpeng P5 will be more comprehensive. In addition to the seat settings and system settings, the navigation settings and car control settings will also be synchronized. Wenjie M5 can synchronize the layout of desktop card pages, wallpapers, and even downloaded software and software. In terms of

user account synchronization, in fact, most car companies, even new forces, have not explained what exactly can be synchronized. This aspect is still in a relatively fuzzy zone, but judging from the 7 models we tested, the settings for synchronization of new forces will be richer. It should be noted that the BYD Han and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ did not fill in the information in the above table because there was no account information synchronization during the test, but the official did not make it clear that there is no such function, so they can only leave it blank for now.

As for the perception part, including perception and account login, many things are innovated by Tesla on the traditional functions. Users also find these functions convenient after using them. As a result, subsequent autonomous smart cars have directly targeted this outstanding student, and are even better than Tesla in terms of detailed experience, such as sensing the welcome mode. As for Volkswagen, a traditional brand that is still on the road of transformation, it is currently focusing on cockpit and vehicle software, and does not have many ideas about the extended areas of these smart cockpits.

Interaction The second part of the

test is interaction. The focus of the interactive experience is on the familiar cars and consoles. Today’s cars and consoles not only have large screen sizes, but also feature performance, system design, and voice control capabilities. So in this link, we will compare from three aspects: hardware, interaction level, and voice interaction.

1

Hardware

The basis of all interactions is based on hardware, because hardware is the upper limit of the performance of a car and machine. If the hardware is not good, no matter how hard the software works, it will not help.

The characteristics of the 2022 model in terms of car and machine performance Tesla Model 3 is the strongest. Its car adopts AMD's customized hardware solution and also has a customized AMD independent graphics card. Its overall performance is unparalleled and matches the other 6 models. Of course, behind such hardware, the cost will naturally rise.

NIO ET7 and Xpeng P5 cars use Qualcomm SA8155 chip, which is Qualcomm ’s third-generation cockpit processing solution. At present, Qualcomm’s latest cockpit chip is 8195, which belongs to the fourth-generation cockpit solution, but no mass production model has been delivered yet. The Ideal ONE uses the earlier Qualcomm 820A chip, which is a car-grade chip launched by Qualcomm in 2016. Compared with the 820A chip, the performance of 155 is nearly 3 times improved.

BYD Han has not officially announced the car chip information, but after we downloaded and installed the hardware test APP on the car, the query did not show the specific Qualcomm chip information. We can only confirm that it uses the 8nm LPP process and is equipped with 2 A77 and 6 Kyro 480 cores, and the GPU uses Adreno 619. Comparing this information with the existing Qualcomm Snapdragon chips, none of them can fully correspond. I believe it is a customized chip. Comparison of two chips

Wenjie M5 is more unique, it uses It is the Kirin 990A chip from Huawei HiSilicon. However, this is different from the Kirin 990 chip on the mobile phone. Compared with the Kirin 990 on the mobile phone, the 990A architecture is different, and although the 990A and the 990 have the same GPU, the number of 990A GPU cores is half of the 990. In addition, , the manufacturing processes of the two are also different.

As for Volkswagen’s ID.6 CROZZ, the official has not officially announced the car chip information. There are many different opinions on the Internet, some say it uses Qualcomm 820A and some say it uses Samsung V9. Unless we disassemble the phone, we won't be able to confirm what chip is used. After reading the parameters of

, let’s go back to the design and test the performance with experience. We opened and loaded the maps of all 7 models, and then zoomed and moved the map left and right to see the performance of the 7 models in slow motion.

7 cars that perform well are the Wenjie M5 and Weilai ET7. In slow motion, there is no frame drop or lag when moving the map.

The Tesla Model 3 moves the map very smoothly with the naked eye, but when slowing down the motion, there is a slight frame drop when moving the map horizontally. Logically speaking, Tesla will not have any problems because its hardware solutions and hardware performance are the strongest.

Ideal ONE did not notice any problems when using the map with the naked eye, but after slowing down, you can see the phenomenon of dropping frames , which is similar to BYD Han.

The Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ is more serious than the Ideal ONE. What surprised us the most was the Xpeng P5. The frame drop when zooming was not obvious. When moving horizontally, the frame drop was not only obvious, but the tracking performance was also poor.

After reading this result, it is obvious that the performance of strong hardware will be better. After all, the hardware is there, no matter how bad it is, it will not be too bad. For brands that do not use flagship chips, the experience may not be so perfect when faced with large screens and scenes that require a lot of rendering.

In addition, I would like to add here that many people think that the Wenjie M5 is very smooth. Although this has a lot to do with the hardware, it is also related to software optimization. If you look carefully, you will find that the Wenjie The animation transition processing of the M5 car is better. Just like iPhone, the animation transition is delicate, so it will give you a smooth and smooth feeling when using it. This is believed to be one of the advantages brought by Wenjie's use of the Hongmeng system, which is to implant the concept of mobile phones into the car, giving users the feeling that the car feels like a PAD.

2

Interaction level

After reading the hardware, naturally we have to talk about the software. Hardware can be bought from suppliers. , and when the money is in place, you are the king. There are no rules for software, and money may not necessarily lead to success. Volkswagen spent 3.5 billion euros of real money to build the electronic architecture and cockpit system, but it has also been complained to the sky.

Let's do a test first. We timed the five actions on the car in sequence: adjusting the temperature to 21°C and air volume to level 2, turning on the seat heating to level 2, setting the driving mode to sports, setting the navigation to Pacific Network, connecting to the Bluetooth of the mobile phone and playing music. . This test tests whether the basic functional interaction of the car and the machine is convenient, and the testers are not familiar with the 7 car and machine models.

But it has to be said that the vertical screen of Xpeng P5 is closer to the user, and the screen size is large enough, so most functions can be completed in the first and second level menus, so finding functions will be more efficient. In addition, the larger the screen, the larger the touch area for functions, such as the keyboard, which will make searching for addresses faster.

Ideal ONE takes the longest. In fact, the reason is not that the interaction level is too complicated, but because the mobile phone waits too long to connect to Bluetooth. Ideal is the only model among the 7 cars that has a functional screen. The advantage of this screen is that commonly used vehicle settings and air-conditioning and seat settings can be completed inside, while software functions such as map navigation need to be processed back to the central control screen. Such functional partitioning is helpful to improve operational efficiency. In fact, the time spent on the Ideal ONE can be shortened, because it is faster to adjust the temperature and air volume through gestures on the function screen.

Although the interfaces of NIO ET7, Wenjie M5, and BYD Han are quite different, the commonly used functions we set are basically placed on the homepage, and users can quickly jump between various functions.

Tesla Model 3 adheres to the minimalist of . Some settings such as temperature and air volume have a smaller touch area, and there is no sound or vibration feedback, so the use time becomes longer.

The last thing I want to talk about is the Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ. The basic settings of Volkswagen are actually very good. The air-conditioning interface is simple and easy to distinguish between various functions. The seat heating is also integrated on the same page. But on the settings page, Volkswagen's little thinking is more difficult to understand: using a 3D vehicle model to display the available settings, you have to go around a few times to find the corresponding settings, which is not more efficient than directly displaying text.

Therefore, innovation is necessary in the interaction level of car-machine systems, but when thinking on the cutting edge, those fancy interactions will only make users more disgusted.

Back to the system, let’s take a look at a very simple vehicle setting. Tesla Model 3, NIO ET7, Ideal ONE, Wenjie M5, and BYD Han all integrate all vehicle settings into the settings page. Users will know that as long as they change the settings, they can find the answer here. Xiaopeng P5 and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ divide the settings into two entrances: vehicle control and system settings. Although the starting point is to hope that users can interact more efficiently, it does not meet users' expected habits and the actual efficiency may be even lower.

On this point, NIO merged “My Car” and “Settings” in the Aspen 3.0.0 system of the 668 model because they found that after users clicked on the application interface list, more than 75% of them It is to open "Settings", so integrating vehicle settings on one page will help improve efficiency.

Even the most basic system homepage actually has different ideas: Tesla Model 3, Weilai ET7, and Xiaopeng P5 use a map as the bottom page, with an additional activity card page or toolbar as the homepage. Ideal ONE and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ display all functions directly on the home page. In order to ensure quick jump to basic functions, Ideal ONE also has a fixed toolbar on the left. BYD Han places card pages for commonly used functions such as navigation, music, etc. on the homepage.

Wenjie M5, with the blessing of Hongmeng Cockpit, here comes a different solution: there is an active card page bar at the bottom of the homepage, and the rest of the screen is wallpaper. When you slide left or right, you will think that a negative screen or application collection will appear. When you click on the page, you will find that you are just switching wallpapers. In the precious space of the car screen, there is still a large blank space for wallpaper, which is currently the only one in the car industry.

3

Voice interaction

Car-computer interaction, in addition to touch, voice control is also a very important interaction method. Many times it is difficult to control the car while driving, so voice can provide users with a safe and efficient interactive bridge.

Many people say that voice interaction is like talking to a mentally retarded person, not as fast as touch. Then we might as well do a test first: We set the air conditioner in the car to 20°C and air volume level 1, and then adjust the air conditioning parameters to 24°C and air volume level 3 through voice and touch respectively to see the completion time of the two operations. difference.

From the results, it is obvious that the direct touch control of the 7 models takes longer than Voice control takes a short time, and the time difference between Weilai ET7, Xpeng P5, Ideal ONE, and Wenjie M5 is relatively small. The reason is that voice control can recognize two commands at one time or can control continuous commands. For Tesla Model 3, BYD Han, and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ, which have weak voice functions, they can only wake up one function at a time, which will take longer. Therefore, it is not that voice interaction cannot be used, but whether it is usable or not. Just like the tram, it was inconvenient five or six years ago because there were not enough fast charging stations. Now that the charging network is rolled out, tram users are also traveling here and there.

Regular voice command test

Let’s continue with the voice test. Common voice control functions, such as music search, navigation, air conditioning, and window control, are entry-level for the 7 cars we tested this time, so we looked for Click different commands to perform regular functional tests: I'm a little hot, help me find a nearby McDonald's , I want to do a nucleic acid test.

The simplest " "I'm a little hot" is the only one that cannot be recognized, the Tesla Model 3. The most interesting thing about "I want to do a nucleic acid test" was that only Ideal ONE and BYD Han didn't respond. Other models can directly open the map to search for nearby hospitals. Among them, Wenjie M5 is the most outstanding one. When others only display the name of the hospital, its map will also indicate whether it is a nucleic acid testing institution or community hospital . It seems that the Hongmeng cockpit comes with it. The Petal Maps and Petal Maps have indeed been carefully polished by the team. What also surprised us was Tesla and Volkswagen. Model 3 can't even recognize the air conditioning commands, but it can search for hospitals by doing nucleic acid tests. Tesla is really unpredictable. ID.6 CROZZ also searches for hospitals, but it appears in the form of a text address list, and because the addresses are very long, the display is incomplete. At first glance, you cannot tell where the searched places are. The difficulty of

continues to escalate, followed by cross-functional commands and continuous commands

cross-functional commands

cross-functional commands. We chose to lower the temperature and then open the car window, lower the temperature and then navigate to Pacific Network Sentence command.

Wei ET7, Ideal ONE, and BYD Han are among the models that can recognize commands. One sentence and select it for execution. P5 was able to successfully recognize and execute "Turn down the temperature and open the windows." When we were fully expecting to pass the second sentence, Little P reminded us that it was not possible yet. The only one among the 7 cars that can recognize and execute two cross-functional commands is the Wenjie M5. We checked and found that among the 59 models currently in our ICT-300 smart car test list, none of the cars can do this. Performance. However, Wenjie M5 is a little regretful because the last navigation to the Pacific network search was Pacific, and not all keywords were searched.

Continuous command

The continuous command tests the system's ability to understand upper and lower commands. We chose the command "Turn the temperature down a little, then lower it a little more."

In this regard, Weilai ET7, Xpeng P5, Ideal ONE, and Wenjie M5 can successfully execute our commands and correctly get the meaning of the commands. Tesla Model 3 does not have continuous commands, so this link can be passed directly. BYD Han and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ both exited after recognizing and executing the first command, and failed to recognize the second command after reawakening the voice. In the aspect of

interaction, Tesla, as the leader of smart cars, has many interactive hierarchical concepts that affect the new forces that build cars later. However, it is better to learn from Tesla's new product ideas. It has learned some of Tesla's product ideas and continued to dig deeper into the interaction details and car functions. The experience is already better than Tesla's. In some areas, such as voice interaction, it can be said that it is Far away from Tesla. In addition, the newly arrived Wenjie M5, equipped with Huawei's Hongmeng cockpit, also delivered a good answer. Although some designs (such as the homepage wallpaper) are a bit baffling, the overall impression given to us is good.

extends

. The last part is expansion. A very important part of the expansion is the application ecology of the car and machine system. If the car and machine only have a few official applications, it will not be able to satisfy the majority of consumers and it will be difficult for everyone to agree.

Tesla Model 3 and Weilai ET7 do not have an app store, and a small number of application services are built into the system. Other models have app stores that allow users to download apps themselves. In terms of the number of applications, BYD Han is the best, killing its opponents with 183 APPs, followed by Xpeng P5 and Wenjie M5. (There are too many BYD APPs, so it’s impossible to classify them one by one by function). In addition, the number of BYD's software is calculated based on its own application mall. In fact, the application mall also supports downloading other Android application malls, so that new software will appear. On the one hand,

software depends on quantity, on the other hand, the quality of the software itself must also keep up.

Ideal ONE and Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ have a small number of software, so the software in the mall has been optimized and adapted to match the screen size and theme after opening. However, one problem with the Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ software is that the loading speed is very slow. At first we thought it was a network problem, but the problem persisted after switching to the mobile hotspot. If the car-machine software takes too long to load, the user experience will drop off a cliff.

Some applications of Wenjie M5 have not been optimized yet. Take Amap Navigation as an example. After opening, the interface layout is uncoordinated, the fonts and icons are too large, and there is a huge gap compared to the built-in map (maybe Wenjie is Want users to use their own maps). Obviously, not all of BYD Han's massive apps have been adapted. Some apps are more like synchronizing directly with the Android store. Therefore, when encountering software that is not fully adapted, the screen will automatically stand up, just like an enlarged version of the mobile phone interface.

Summary

After reading the smart cockpits of seven cars, we can find that Tesla, as a leader in intelligent transformation, does not lag behind in terms of functionality of its smart cockpit: senseless unlocking, hardware performance, interaction, online functions, etc. There is everything. For other brands, Tesla can be regarded as an enlightenment teacher, giving an idea and direction in terms of functions and interactions. The latest wave of

(, Xiaopeng, , Weilai, Ideal, BYD, etc.) will conduct in-depth exploration and optimization on this basis. Therefore, in terms of perception, Xpeng P5 and Lideal ONE have Bluetooth sensorless unlocking of mobile phones, while Wenjie M5 and BYD Han have NFC unlocking of mobile phones. At the interaction level, Ideal ONE has an independent function screen, NIO ET7 has exquisite visual design details, and in terms of voice interaction, all the models present can be said to beat Tesla Model 3 in an instant. In terms of expansion, Xpeng P5, Ideal ONE, and BYD Han all have their own app stores.

Wenjie M5 gives users a new cockpit interactive experience through delicate animation transitions and faster software response, coupled with Huawei Hongmeng system support. This also means that the fire of new car manufacturing outside of new forces and traditional brands has begun to light up, and Xiaomi and Baidu will continue to be launched in the future. Volkswagen ID.6 CROZZ is obviously still in the throes of transformation from smart car to . For Volkswagen, the smart cockpit currently only has a car-machine level, and the car-machine experience also has vast room for improvement.

Automotive intelligence has two sections: smart driving and smart cockpit. So far, smart driving has been in a state where the threshold is high and difficult to implement, and consumers are not willing to pay for it. In contrast, the threshold for smart cockpits is lower and user perception is more obvious, so smart cockpits have naturally become the stepping stone for smart cars. With NIO, Xpeng, Ideal, Tesla, BYD, Volkswagen, plus the new Huawei, and in the future Xiaomi and Baidu, smart cockpits are already becoming more and more popular. We also hope to use this Hengping review as a record to see how the cockpit level of new smart cars will change in half a year or a year. (Photo/Text/Photo: Du Qingwei, Pacific Automotive Network)