Another “breaking” move by Wei Lai

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Geek car” (ID: GeekCar), author James Yang Jianwen.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

November 5, Weilai and Intel The autopilot company Mobileye has reached a strategic partnership to jointly develop the L4 autonomous driving model. With the cooperation with Mobileye, Weilai is expected to become the first manufacturer to deliver L4 autopilot models, and become the first brand in the world to achieve L4 level autopilot on production models. After the news was released, Weilai’s share price rose 38%.

First, let’s see what each side says.

Wei Lai:

Weilai has entered into a strategic partnership with Mobileye, the world’s leading autonomous driving technology company. The two companies will build L4-class autonomous driving models based on Weilai’s second-generation vehicle platform, and Weilai will become the first brand in the world to achieve L4-class autonomous driving. In addition, Mobileye will purchase a large number of special editions for smart travel services.

Mobileye:

Mobileye has won an L4 customer order from China’s electric vehicle manufacturer Weilai. Weilai will integrate Mobileye’s industry-leading autopilot system to create highly automated and autonomous vehicles for consumer markets in China and other important regions. Weilai will also work with Mobileye to develop a self-driving taxi model for its next-generation vehicle and sell it exclusively to Mobileye, allowing Mobileye to deploy its self-driving taxi-based shared ride around the world.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?< p> There are several information points to note:

Mobileye means to win the Weilai L4 autopilot order, and Weilai will integrate MobileYe industry leading autopilot system;

The two parties cooperate to build a self-driving taxi model. The model platform is Weilai second generation vehicle platform ;

This model is exclusively sold to Mobileye, and Mobileye will purchase a large number of special editions for smart travel services;

The object of cooperation is not only for smart travel, but also for the passenger car market;

The cooperation between the two parties is serious. The location of the autopilot model is not limited to China, but global.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

The amount of information involved here is too much, we will talk about it separately.

Strong partner Mobileye?

Mobileye is the world’s leading autonomous driving company. After splitting up with Tesla, Mobileye has accumulated experience in the automotive industry, and has gradually gained more and more OEM customers, which are being sold by Intel for $15.3 billion. After the acquisition, Mobileye’s ADAS road has become more and more smooth, and has gradually consolidated its position as a strong player in the field of ADAS.

How strong is Mobileye? At the recent investor summit, they published a piece of data:

From 2008 to the end of 2019, Mobileye will ship more than 50 million EyeQ chips.

At present, Mobileye teamed up with 27 OEM (automaker) partners to support the ADAS system for a total of approximately 300 models.

Eight of the 11 L2+ systems currently in mass production are based on Mobileye technology.

Wined new orders in three major markets: signed 4 million new orders with a major European OEM; reached an agreement with India’s largest OEM to make India the second fastest growing automotive market in the world (only In China); and won two new contracts from China’s leading OEMs.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

In other words, Mobileye dominates the ADAS world. More than that, Mobileye’s ability to make money is also first class. And according to annual calculations, Mobileye is now Intel’s fastest growing business unit. At the Investors Summit, Intel Chief Financial Officer George Davis said that Mobileye’s performance exceeded Intel’s original expectations. After Weilai announced the cooperation news, the stocks could rise sharply, partly because of this highly profitable partner.

This is only on ADAS. On AV (Autonomous vehicles), Mobileye also has a layout. Previously, Intel, Mobileye and BMW formed an autopilot alliance to jointly promote the research of autonomous driving, and then FCA, Magna, China, and Anbofu joined the alliance.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

In October 2018, Volkswagen Group, Mobileye and Champion Motors jointly Announced that it will deploy the first autopilot network car service in Israel (also known as travel-as-a-service, MaaS), Volkswagen’s extensive design and deployment experience in electric vehicles and travel services, and Mobileye’s L4 autopilot technology Champion Motors will be responsible for the fleet operations management and control center.

Last year, Volkswagen and Champion Motors announced the formation of a joint venture (aka “Pinta”) and is expected to operate in Tel Aviv in 2022. In other words, Mobileye has accumulated a certain amount of technology and experience for the advancement of L4 autopilot.

For Weilai, this is definitely a strong partner.

How much dominance does Weilai occupy?

Mobileye and Weilai, one is the overlord in the field of autonomous driving, and the other is an electric vehicle start-up that has just started to make a profit, so the cooperation between the two sides is very delicate.

So, the question is coming, how much initiative does it take in this cooperation?

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

Let’s review this press release:

Wei will be based on the Mobileye Autopilot Auto KitDynamic driving systems for development and manufacturing. The world’s first L4-class autonomous driving system is designed for consumer-grade autonomous driving and will cover automotive certification standards, quality, cost and scale.

We will also work with Mobileye to develop a self-driving taxi model for its next-generation vehicles, and exclusively sell this model to Mobileye, allowing Mobileye to deploy its self-driving taxi-based shared ride around the world. service.

In the specific division of labor, Mobileye will provide Weilai with an automatic driving system design based on the Mobileye autopilot car kit. The kit includes the Mobileye EyeQ system integrated chip (SoC), hardware, driving strategy, security software and high-precision map solution. Weilai is responsible for vehicle-level autopilot system development, integration and mass production of models, and For Mobileye to enter the consumer-grade automotive market and its Travel-as-a-Service (MaaS) application.

Simple summary is that Mobileye has become a L4 autonomous driving technology provider, and Weilai supplies Robotaxi vehicles to Mobileye. But my concern is, in a sense, has Weilai become the foundry of Mobileye Robotaxi?

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

In an interview with 36 ,, Wei Lai, assistant vice president, Li Tianshu, the person in charge of the second-generation platform, said that the two sides did not sign an exclusive agreement. “But the two sides have many details of the timetable, delivery quality, etc., and we have focused on the first batch of China. And our products are mainly based on this kind of agreement, and the effect of exclusive cooperation can be formed in a short time.”

It’s still anxious.

Are you sure you can deliver it in 2022?

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

According to the cooperation content, both parties will base Yu Weilai Second generation vehicle platform Create an L4-class self-driving model with a time node set in 2022. Then the question is coming again, can it really be launched in 2022?

The current general view in the industry is that L4 will not land in the short term. Ford and GM have delayed the timetable for autopilot operation. In this case, Weilai and Mobileye set the schedule so high. Very radical.

There are still many problems to be faced here.

First of all, is the platform of Weilai already ready?

To push L4 autopilot, that is to say, the entire vehicle structure and platform have to be modified, naturally it is necessary to redesign the layout on the new platform, which is the second complete vehicle platform of Weilai.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

In April of this year, the Weilai luxury pure electric sedan ET Preview debuted In the financial report one month later, Wei Lai said that the model will be built on the second platform , and has L4 level autopilot technology, but the specific time is not disclosed. But later, the ET sedan plan was temporarily put on hold, and Weilai switched to a new car based on the ES8 and ES6 platforms (also known as the NP1 platform).

Now for the launch of the L4 autopilot model, the second-generation platform is restarted, but the time node is very tight, which means that Weilai will have large-scale funds to invest in the development of the platform. In the face of tension, how does the development of NP2 and L4 autonomous driving advance? This is a problem. Fortunately, Wei Lai is still willing to spend money on research and development.

How do you see the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

Second, is Mobileye’s technology ready?

According to the cooperation content, Mobileye will develop the L4 autopilot technology based on the EyeQ5 chip. The chip is Mobileye’s latest autopilot chip product, which is about ten times the power of EyeQ4.

Mobileye said that since 2020, the product will be used as a central computer for fully automated driving vehicles (FAD) to perform sensor data integration. Samples originally expected to debutThe time is in the first half of 2018, but it wasn’t until December 2018 that Mobileye took out the samples, and the distribution began in 2021, which was delayed compared to the previously scheduled schedule. Whether it can be mass-produced on time, you have to ask a question mark.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

Besides, Mobileye also in this hardware configuration Lidar will be used, after Mobileye announced the formation of a new laser sensor division, LiDAR.AI, which acquired the US startup Eonite Perception for tens of millions of dollars earlier. The startup mainly developed laser radar or camera for 3D construction. Software for modeling, tracking and identification.

The cost of autopilot hardware systems, although prices have declined compared to the past few years, is still a long way from real large-scale commercial use. How to control the cost of the entire solution (high cost of laser radar) is another issue.

There is also a question as to how many levels of L4 self-driving vehicles will Uldy offer to Mobileye? What is the follow-up operating model? Is it a third-party company like “Mobileye & Volkswagen” to operate, or is it still operated by Wei? These are all unknowns.

How do you view this collaboration?

For Mobileye, as it says: “Helps Mobileye’s leading autonomous driving systems and innovative technologies enter the consumer market and benefit the global automotive customers.” Previously, Mobileye’s domestic layout was mainly two. One is the pre-installation business, which is to supply chips for OEMs and Tier 1 , and the other is the ADAS after-loading market. After the cooperation with Weilai, Mobileye can open the situation in China and land a high-level automatic driving.

How do you view the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye?

For Wei Lai, deep binding with Mobileye makes It got a ticket to the L4 autopilot and could walk calmly on the advancement of autonomous driving. At the same time, this cooperation also gave Wei Lai a booster, which boosted the capital market for Wei Lai. It is expected that the surge in stocks is an example.

In the case of Yu Weilai,Mobileye cooperation may be the most appropriate decision to do now. Now, what they need to do is continue to maintain considerable sales to generate stable cash flow, continue to give confidence to the capital market, and prove that they can afford to cooperate with Mobileye. Of course, the most important point: continue to find money to finance.

To sum up the cooperation between Weilai and Mobileye in twelve words: there are many opportunities and lots of pits, but I wish you good.