Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1825
Since 2023, more and more car companies have publicly emphasized that they do not rely on high-precision maps to promote advanced driving assistance functions. In the field of public opinion, suppliers of high-precision maps have temporarily become abandoned objects in the wave of car intelligence.
Faced with such a trend, Jiang Rui, general manager of the Automobile Business Center of AutoNavi, believes that when the market really does not need high-precision maps, it is useless to do anything. .”
In 2015, AutoNavi began to develop high-precision map products. In the following years, it collected 67 elements of more than 300,000 kilometers of high-speed and urban expressways. In addition to basic information such as road width, length, curvature (degree of curvature), and slope, There are also road marking information such as lane lines, and information on the relationship between lanes and lanes, which has supported many Chinese car companies to develop navigation-assisted driving functions available on high speeds-automatic up and down ramps, automatic car following, and lane change overtaking. You need to be vigilant and ready to take over at any time.
Starting in the second half of 2022, Tesla has thoroughly proved that it is possible to achieve safer assisted driving functions without high-precision maps, and the direction of the wind has changed. “Emphasis on perception and light on maps” has become an industry consensus. Xiaopeng, Huawei, Ideal, etc. have released technical solutions that “do not rely on high-precision maps”, eager to promote advanced driving assistance functions to open roads in more cities.
“High-definition maps are not so popular now. The core reason is that the freshness cannot be guaranteed.” Jiang Rui said that if the high-definition maps on ordinary urban roads are updated two to three times a year, it is still a drop in the bucket compared with the changes in actual roads. “Assuming a city has a thousand kilometers of roads, maybe 300 kilometers of them will change after one year.”
“The stronger the car’s perception ability, the weaker the role of the map. There is no doubt about it. But no matter how strong the car’s perception is, if the car wants to drive autonomously, it still needs a map.” Jiang Rui believes that it can make up for the limitations of vehicle perception and provide a global perspective. , and a dynamic map that can be updated quickly will be the ultimate solution for assisted driving maps.
In June 2023, Gaode released the HQ Live Map (High Quality, high-quality) map, which pays more attention to road logic information that is difficult for cars to recognize with sensors. The elements collected on urban roads are reduced from 67 of traditional high-precision maps to About 20, the relative accuracy is also reduced from the original 10 centimeters to 1 meter. With fewer elements, lower accuracy, and the information collected by a large number of special vehicles such as logistics vehicles, AutoNavi claims that it can update the map as quickly as possible every day. They plan to introduce new products to 50 cities this year and 100 cities next year.
HQ Live Map is a product for high-precision map suppliers to adapt to changes, and it is also affecting the decision-making of car companies. “Almost all customers have come to us.” Jiang Rui said. In July this year, Wu Xinzhou, then vice president of Xiaopeng’s autonomous driving, told “Later Auto” that Xiaopeng would make a decision (whether to use the high-precision map products of map vendors) to see how far AutoNavi can do it. Before that, Xiaopeng will vigorously promote the advanced assisted driving system without high-precision maps.
Jiang Rui graduated from the University of Nottingham, UK with a major in electrical and electronic engineering. He joined AutoNavi in 2015 and has been responsible for Apple Maps Service, Car Navigation Service and Advanced Assisted Driving Map Service. Completely experienced the research and development and promotion process of China’s high-precision map. “High-precision maps are just a state in the middle (evolution of map products).” Jiang Rui said that he has always been optimistic about the map industry.
The following is the conversation between “Later Auto” and Jiang Rui:
“Advanced assisted driving does not need high-precision maps”
Later Auto: Many car companies are talking about not relying on high-definition maps to do high-level assisted driving on urban roads. When did you start to pay attention to this trend?
Jiang Rui: It should be in 2022. I think the cognition and confidence of domestic manufacturers largely come from Tesla’s AI DAY, and the technological evolution shown is indeed exciting. But what many people don’t know is that Tesla also uses maps, whether this map is provided by a third party or built by itself.
Our judgment is, can advanced assisted driving not use high-precision maps? The answer is no. Can the advanced assisted driving function not have a map? The answer is definitely not.
Most of the advanced driving assistance functions are NOA-type, that is, Navigate on Autopilot, and “Navigate” is navigation. Navigation and advanced assisted driving will eventually share a map. The key is the type and quantity of information elements of this map, as well as the cycle and cost of making this map.
Talking about not needing high-precision maps today is actually going through a process. We started to get involved in the field of high-precision maps after 2014. At that time, many foreign self-driving companies, such as Waymo and Cruise, were shining.
In 2018, we defined the current high-precision map products with a foreign-funded manufacturer. This high-definition map contains 67 elements, the absolute accuracy and relative accuracy reach 50 cm and 10 cm respectively, and the quality requirements are also very high. It is precisely because of such high-precision maps that domestic car manufacturers, including some leading car manufacturers, have made assisted driving.
Therefore, the role of high-precision maps is actually very critical. Not to mention whether car companies will still need high-precision maps in the future, but we cannot deny that high-precision maps completed a very important mission at that time. Without that map, the assisted driving in the Chinese market may not be what it is now.
Late Auto: The city NOA released by Ideal claims that it does not use high-precision maps, but collects information such as the characteristics of complex intersections in advance. Car companies collect road feature information, which is equivalent to doing part of the work of map dealers. Are you worried?
Jiang Rui: Don’t worry, we actually encourage car manufacturers to do various explorations, because this will also help us better understand technology and the market. I firmly believe that AutoNavi and depots are long-term complementary relationships.
We’ve been working on maps for so long that we have a good idea of what to do, the benefits and the costs. To build a real live map, how much effort and cost have we spent on it over the years, I don’t think any car factory can afford this cost.
Scale effect is one of our core competitiveness, and we have cooperated with almost all car manufacturers. Whether it is at the navigation level or at the map level, long-term scale effects will be taken into account. A large number of companies may invest a lot of energy (making maps) at the beginning, but they will find that this account is not worthwhile. We are definitely not as professional as a car factory in making cars, but they are definitely not as professional as us in making maps.
The maps currently used by car factories are narrow maps, which are for better advanced assisted driving. Depots do a lot of map-related work in advance, and we think it is understandable, because their purpose is to do a good job in advanced assisted driving. What Gaode makes is a map in a broad sense. In addition to helping car companies with advanced assisted driving functions, it also involves all aspects of daily travel for users such as self-driving, public transportation, taxis, and life services.
Later Auto: So how do you win customers?
Jiang Rui: We judge that the car factory must need a map. What we need to do is to make products that we can do well so that the car factory can see our value.
All major manufacturers of advanced driving assistance (functions) on ordinary urban roads are in the process of trying and verifying. What the final form of the product will be, whether it is an addition or subtraction to today’s plan, remains to be further studied and discussed.
The core reason why high-precision maps are not so popular now is that their freshness cannot be guaranteed. We just mentioned the 67 elements, and it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to make it into a map and ensure the update frequency.
Late Auto: How big is it?
Jiang Rui: I can’t say the actual figure, but the cost per kilometer is probably dozens of times that of SD (the standard navigation map used in mobile phones).
Later Auto: You can’t guarantee the freshness of the map. When did you tell the car company?
Jiang Rui: I said it a long time ago. Our definition is that high-precision map data is updated once a quarter on high-speed roads, and we cannot update it on ordinary (city) roads. It is updated so many times a year, compared with the actual road changes, it is still a drop in the bucket.
In the process, we found that the changes in the roads in the city are really exaggerated. For example, suppose a city has 1,000 kilometers of roads, and 300 kilometers of them may change after one year.
“Almost all customers have come to us”
Late Auto: When did HQ Live Map start?
Jiang Rui: It is not a plan that was conceived with the changes of the times. In 2019, we finished the first version of the high-precision map and started discussing it. The in-depth strategic thinking of the chairman of the AutoNavi Group (Yu Yongfu) has benefited me a lot.
At that time, we were discussing internally what the map looked like in general. We didn’t think that SD data could solve assisted driving, nor did we think that HD (High-definition Map, high-definition map) could go down the road because it laid the foundation The cost is still acceptable to the car factory. If the cost of updating is added, it is really unacceptable.
We judge that in the future, we will either add some SD or reduce HD, as I mentioned in my OKR three years ago.
Now that we think the time has come, let’s define HQ. We have been in the state of observing and analyzing the market, working hard, and not talking too much, because we are a company with a strong gene of science and engineering.
We have done a lot of landing work, including discussing with some customers who are relatively advanced in advanced assisted driving capabilities, and some autonomous driving companies, what kind of maps are needed on (urban) ordinary roads and expressways in the L2+ field in the future. We did not make a simple and crude product, such as subtracting some HD elements, or adding some SD elements, but based on the needs of different scenarios and advanced assisted driving, the product elements, freshness, Accuracy and quality have been re-layered and defined.
Late Auto: What is its relationship with high-precision maps? Will you continue to maintain HD maps?
Jiang Rui: In terms of the relationship between HQ Live and HD, let’s talk about the scene:
High-speed urban fast, we think it is a fast driving scene, where the car drives at 100-120 km/h, it is very important to ensure that the car can drive in the correct lane and get on and off the ramp smoothly.
As depots become more aware, we think their reliance on maps will gradually decrease. It must be a good thing for the car factory, but now we dare not draw conclusions easily.
In high-speed scenarios, many car manufacturers we cooperate with use high-precision maps for mass production (assisted driving) projects. In the HQ Live map, we ensured all the elements of the previous high-precision map, but adjusted the accuracy and freshness. The relative accuracy dropped from 10 cm to 30 cm, and the freshness became a day-level update. We think this is the car factory. acceptable range.
The urban road scene has almost 20 elements. This map is more of a logical function. The car needs to know what the relationship between each lane is, and even the relationship with traffic lights. This is two dimensions from using visual ability to perceive the surrounding world and forming geometric data.
As for the maintenance of high-precision maps, we need to discuss with customers. Now we are actively discussing with industry partners to promote the mass production of HQ in advanced driving assistance functions.
Later Auto: You mentioned in your previous speech that for ordinary road scenes in urban areas, the relative accuracy of the map is 1 meter. Why 1 meter, not longer or shorter?
Jiang Rui: We have discussed this demand with a large number of car manufacturers. Some say it’s lower, some say it’s higher. After talking with many customers, we found that the relative accuracy of 1 meter is acceptable to everyone, so we only temporarily set the accuracy at 1 meter. We believe that the accuracy requirements on ordinary roads will change further, and as perception capabilities continue to increase, the accuracy requirements may continue to decrease.
Late Auto: How much is the cost of the HQ map compared to that of the HD, relative to the decrease in accuracy and the reduction of elements?
Jiang Rui: We are actually upgrading, not downgrading, the high-speed city express, because the update frequency has been greatly increased, but the price will not increase; the price on ordinary roads will drop, we use the visual crowd source to do it, collect The cost and production cost will be reduced accordingly, which is something that car manufacturers are happy to see.
Late Auto: How long did the validation last?
Jiang Rui: This year has been continuing large-scale verification.
Later Auto: Is the freshness guaranteed?
Jiang Rui: It can be updated on a daily basis. We choose a more advanced method to improve update efficiency, using a large number of identification technologies, as well as equipment such as logistics vehicles and industrial vehicles to complete collection tasks.
Our sources are these cars that run on the road all year round. The daily mileage is about 20 times that of a family car, and the roof of a car is 20. Moreover, our car does not have a fixed route, but runs everywhere, so the coverage is relatively comprehensive.
Late Auto: After the release of HQ Live, how is the market feedback?
Jiang Rui: Almost all of our customers have come to us, although they have talked to us more or less before. The cooperation between us (and car companies) is still multi-faceted and multi-level, including what to do in the high-speed urban fast scene, what to do in terms of navigation maps, and the plans on ordinary urban roads may be different. We are also observing with an open mind, study.
I have always had this attitude. When the market really doesn’t need you, it’s useless to do anything. But it’s not that time yet, and we’re also continuing to evolve.
“The ultimate form of a map must be a living map”
Auto later: Some map suppliers estimate that in 2025, 8 million vehicles will use (similar) high-definition map solutions. Do you have any estimates?
Jiang Rui: What they said should be accumulated. I personally think that there must be six or seven million.
Late Auto: which company’s cars are they? How much will Wei Xiaoli’s new forces account for?
Jiang Rui: Not sure yet. We need to see when the car factory will launch (advanced driving assistance functions), and what sales will be like after the launch. So it’s really hard to say which ones will be more in 2025. But at that point in time, all players were competing on the same table at the poker table.
Late Auto: What is the ultimate form of the map?
Jiang Rui: It must be a living map. But I can’t be sure whether the definition, coverage, elements and precision of today’s HQ will be able to reach 5 years later, because there must be some adjustments in the middle.
Late Auto: Is this the biggest change since you entered the mapping business?
Jiang Rui: I think HQ is just an episode in a big change. The biggest change is the intelligent evolution of the entire auto industry. In the past, when cars were not intelligent, there was no way to evolve quickly. (AutoNavi) first provided offline maps to the car factory, using SD cards, if you want to update the maps, you need to replace them with new cards or download them again.
Late Auto: What are you most worried about during the evolution of map products?
Jiang Rui: I am worried that excessive competition will cause some companies to neglect security aspects in order to quickly launch a technology. Once a serious accident occurs, it will be a serious blow to the industry. Even if we want to evolve and innovate in technology, we must prioritize safety.
Why do we dare not reduce the elements in the high-speed city, and the accuracy does not dare to be greatly reduced. Because at that speed, a little accident is very serious. But on ordinary urban roads, the general driving speed is about 40km/h, and there are traffic jams, which also reserves the reaction time for special situations for people and cars.
Title map source: Gaode map
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