In the classification of autonomous driving, I believe that you who have been paying attention to relevant information all year round should notice an embarrassing existence, that is, level L3.
says that L3 is very embarrassing. It is not only that it happens to be between the L2 level of autonomous driving assistance and the L4 level of fully autonomous driving; it also means that from the actual situation of the system itself, it requires a lot of artificial driving operations, but the responsibility for the accident in specific scenarios also belongs to the OEM factory.
In other words, L3 level autonomous driving is not pleasing to both ends, consumers do not like it, and manufacturers dislike it. So, we also saw a very realistic scene. All car manufacturers have directly called some of the essential L3 automatic driving functions on mass-produced cars, such as autonomous driving from A to B, for the L2+ level, thus realizing the transfer of responsibility.
However, autonomous driving itself is a major trend, and all capable manufacturers will never stop at L2 because of a responsibility issue; and in the face of the situation where L3 is not up or down, it is better to get to L4 directly in one step.
has a beautiful idea, but the reality is very skinny. What we can see is that even if it is as strong as Tesla's latest pure visual FSD beta version, it cannot be said to be the L4 autonomous driving in the full sense; because L4 autonomous driving is "fully autonomous driving", compared with our current "autonomous driving assistance", in addition to the upgrade of the two soft links of perception and decision-making, the vehicle also needs to allow more machinery and electronic systems to work more efficiently in the hard link of "execution", and also put forward higher requirements for the safety and redundancy of the entire car multi-system.
To achieve this step, the wire-controlled chassis is the most core link that cannot be avoided. Compared with the traditional mechanically controlled chassis, the wire-controlled chassis uses electrical signals to complete transmission control, has faster response speed and stronger execution. At the same time, it can perfectly integrate all other functions required in the era of smart driving.
. This new technology product originated from the future, Great Wall Motors’ answer is “mass production achieved in 2023.” At the same time, the most important thing is that Great Wall Motor's wire-controlled chassis is not a PPT-style outlook for the future, but has achieved the product launch. As early as June, the wire-controlled chassis had completed its global first launch, and in 2023, it is a mass production target.
chassis system is fully controlled online, Great Wall Motor brings disruptive changes to the industry
Some industry commented that Great Wall Motor’s smart wire control chassis is an epoch-making intelligent chassis technology platform, and it is also a disruptive chassis technology revolution.
is a very objective comment, because we have already said above that among the three core links of perception, decision-making and execution of autonomous driving, the line-controlled chassis is the most critical execution end and the cornerstone of realizing autonomous driving. As for the current controversial dispute over whether autonomous driving is vision or lidar route, it is actually just a perception and decision-making process, and as long as the result is OK, it doesn’t matter which route to choose.
Specifically for the wire-controlled chassis of Great Wall, it is distinguished from all the platforms currently mass-produced by Great Wall, and from the so-called CMA/MEB platforms of other brands. It is completely beyond the reach of existing mass-produced technologies, because at the beginning of the design, it was built with the goal of L4 and above autonomous driving, and it is also based on Great Wall Motors' new electronic and electrical architecture.
To the advanced level, this Great Wall Motor smart wire-controlled chassis integrates five core chassis systems: line-controlled steering, line-controlled movement, line-controlled gear shift, line-controlled throttle, and line-controlled suspension, covering all motion controls of six degrees of freedom in front, back, left, left, and bottom of the vehicle, covering all chassis driving actions. An unprecedented performance of 1 brain coordinated 5 major systems to achieve 6 degrees of freedom control.
Before Great Wall Smart Wire Control Chassis, no manufacturer could achieve such a high level of full-chassis control performance, and no manufacturer could work with a "brain" and work in convergence with so many subsystems.
At the same time, for smart wire-controlled chassis, its significance is not only to support the realization of higher-level autonomous driving, but also to realize the true "human-car decoupling". After all, we all know that at this stage, whether it is L2 or L3 autonomous driving, when you watch the car "drive it by yourself", the steering wheel will turn, and if you need to take over, you even need to "wrestle" with the steering wheel to compete for control, which is not a good feeling.
. Great Wall Motor's intelligent wire-controlled chassis achieves complete decoupling of humans and vehicles through the integration of the five core chassis systems. In the real scenario we just described, because on the Great Wall Motor's intelligent wire-controlled chassis, there is no mechanical connection between the wheels and the steering wheel, so there will be no conflict between the human and the autonomous driving system. Even when you need to intervene in the control direction, the switching of its control rights is smoother and more comfortable.
In addition, because Great Wall Motor's smart wire-controlled chassis achieves complete decoupling of people and cars, we can even imagine that in the future, we can customize the driving feeling through adjustments such as steering wheel feedback, steering ratio adjustment, braking force, and suspension soft and hard damping, experience different driving feelings on a car, and can upload/download or copy other people's settings through OTA. This is another new expansion of car usage scenarios.
Of course, in addition to being better used, the performance of the wire-controlled chassis is also better than the current mechanical chassis. Taking Great Wall Motor's wire-controlled chassis as an example, it is the world's first mass-produced electronic mechanical wire-controlled chassis (EMB). Unlike the EHB linear control system that adopts hydraulic systems, EMB uses a motor to directly clamp the friction plate, thus replacing the four major components of the ESP, ibooster, hydraulic pipeline and EPB in the EHB linear control system, which can achieve 10% weight reduction, and at the same time, the control accuracy is higher and the response speed is faster.
In the official test of Great Wall, compared with EHB, EMB can shorten the brake response time by 0.35s when other conditions are consistent, and the brake distance of 100km/h-0 can be shortened by 4.8m, which is a completely subverting tradition.
Security is an eternal theme. Great Wall Motor's line-controlled chassis safety level ASIL D, reaching the industry's highest
. In Great Wall Motor's development plan, by 2025, Great Wall Motor's advanced autonomous driving front-mounted penetration rate will reach 40%. Considering that Great Wall's strategic goal in 2025 is to achieve annual sales of 4 million vehicles, 40% of the advanced autonomous driving pre-installation means that there may be 1.6 million new cars that year to apply smart wire-controlled chassis.
Compared with mechanical hard connections that are visible to the naked eye, invisible electrical signal control will always make consumers question safety performance. Considering the huge loading application volume at that time, I think it is necessary to explain the safety of the wire-controlled chassis in advance, after all, this is the eternal theme of automobile development.
In terms of safety, similar to traditional mechanical chassis, Great Wall Motor's smart wire-controlled chassis also adopts multiple safety guarantees, especially the line-controlled steering and wire-controlled driving systems related to driving safety. From power supply to sensors, controllers, and actuators, all adopt a three-fold backup design, that is, a three-redundant system. Compared with the mainstream fully redundant systems (double redundancy), Great Wall Motors' smart wire-controlled chassis even has one more security guarantee, which is theoretically more secure.
At the same time, in the most extreme case, we take the situation where all three systems fail, if the traditional mechanical chassis encounters double redundancy failure, it is basically "unsuccessful".
However, for smart wire-controlled chassis, there are other solutions, that is, to use cross-system redundant systems to ensure safety and further improve overall reliability.
For example, when the steering system is completely invalid, the line-controlled chassis can also command the line-controlled chassis to apply uneven braking force to the wheels on both sides, causing the vehicles on both sides to form a speed difference, thereby achieving steering action; for example, when the three redundant line-controlled chassis is completely invalid, this set of chassis can also reduce the vehicle by increasing the kinetic energy recovery force; and this cross-system redundant design cannot be done in traditional chassis.
also has such a 3-redundant system design and cross-system redundancy. Therefore, the system functional safety level of Great Wall Motors' smart wire-controlled chassis is maintained at the highest automotive safety integrity level ASIL D-class. Compared with the mainstream ASIL C-class products at this stage, the safety is 100 times higher.
written at the end:
The great company always leads the existence of the times. Great Wall Motors, which has been highly recognized in the capital market since this year, is such a leader. After all, in the closed loop of future technological development, Great Wall Motors already has everything, from software algorithms for autonomous driving to the ultimate execution level, it is already one of the best technology companies in the field of automotive travel.
At the same time, we can also see a series of developments in the intelligent ecology of Great Wall Motors. Taking the WEY Latte, which will be launched in the near future, as an example, the coffee intelligent driving system on it has an ecological prototype. In addition to the basic interconnection ecosystem, there are even IoT things, such as smart ground locks, smart hot water cups, smart child safety seats, etc.
It can be clearly seen that Great Wall Motors is already showing us the basic side of our future life - cars, which will be an important entrance to the smart ecology, just like today's smartphones; and the wire-controlled chassis in this article is the core carrier that constitutes the smart ecological car.
