Text | Power Plant, Reporter | Yan Liting, Editor | Gao Yulei

We believe that success doesn't depend on when you start, but on whether you're brave enough to take the first step." On 8 June, Jidu Motors finally took its first step, holding its first brand launch at Yuan Cosmos Xiyang, where CEO Xia Yiping's speech was more of a relief for the belated launch and the slow-moving new carmaker.

With the atmosphere of the promotional video being pushed to a climax, the butterfly-wing door of Jidu's first concept car slowly unfolded on the central screen, and the ROBO-01, equipped with Qualcomm's first 5-nanometer-class mass-production cockpit chip, two NVIDIA Orin X system chips, 31 body sensors and a 3D super-connecting screen, drove onto the stage in tandem. This is the first official unveiling of ROBO-01, which is also the impression that Tidus tries to convey to the outside world.

As the CEO of Jidu Automobile, Xia Yiping appeared at the venue in the image of a virtual person and systematically explained the logic and path of Jidu's car-making. However, as a latecomer in the car-making trend, facing the reality of the gap from concept to landing, Tidus Auto has finally made progress. All companies take the first step, but that doesn't mean it will be successful.

01 ROBO-01 incorporates 3 major concepts first production car with 90% overlap

Robin Li has previously said that Tidu's first concept car is more like a robot fitted with four wheels.

ROBO-01 verifies his statement, with a body like a robot shell, a top penetrating light strip, matching AI pixel headlights, butterfly-wing doors for the main driver and passenger, a rear pair of doors, and a design of unmarked side windows. In this regard, Tidus CEO Yiping Xia said that Tidus tries to will create a product that combines futurism with a sense of robotics and is able to empathise with people.

‘Futurism must be the ultimate simplicity, complicated design belongs to the category of retro, not future’, explained Xia Yiping, along this line, ROBO-01 has created a streamlined exterior, not only removing the door handle and physical buttons, but also eliminating the left and right physical toggles. Inside the cabin, ROBO-01 incorporates a cutting-edge integrated centre-control screen design, further highlighting the sense of technology beyond simplicity.

In terms of driving physical sensation, along Baidu's research in AI perception and initiative, Jidu has injected the concept of robotisation into ROBO-01.

Meanwhile, ROBO-01 adopts a U-shaped steering wheel, which can be automatically retracted under the auto-pilot state, solving the problem of the traditional steering wheel blocking the view of the screen, and with the zero-gravity seat with stronger wrapping, users can enjoy the large-screen display more fully.

In terms of emotional interaction, ROBO-01's AI interactive pixel lights located at the front and rear can analyse and present different light effects and interactive screens based on the scene, and when Sentinel Mode is on, the exterior lights can interact with the user through dynamic augmentation. In addition, the cockpit is equipped with two retractable stereos and a set of intelligent ambient lights, which can automatically adjust the efficiency according to the user's mood and the scene inside the car.

According to Yiping Xia, ROBO-01 comes in three different colourways: ROBO White, Galaxy Purple and Astro Grey. Each colour is made up of five technical coatings and paint layering, which folds out into richer shades in natural light.

Overall, Tidus has put a lot of effort into the cockpit design and driving experience, but many of the ROBO-01's features have already been realised in some of the production cars on the market, such as the Mercedes-Benz EQS's large integrated screen, intelligent cockpit gesture interaction controls, and so on. However, compared to high-end models like the EQS, which focus on performance, Jidu seems to be a bit more pragmatic about the performance and pricing of the final production car.

Previously, Robin Li has said that this family-oriented passenger car pricing in the 200,000 or so. At the conference, Jidu revealed that the production model of ROBO-01 will be unveiled in autumn this year, and compared to the ROBO-01 concept car, the degree of overlap between the two is 90%.

02 Shortcuts and barriers to concentration behind triple technology stacks

From 2013 to start research on automatic driving, to 2017 launched Apollo platform to open the road, and then to 2021 before the window closes and Geely joint venture set up a set of degrees, Baidu car up a big morning to catch a late set. For the set of just under the field, the rapid completion of the concept from the concept to the landing of the product is a top priority. From the signals revealed at the conference, the speed code of the set of degrees is the word fusion.

Hardware level, ROBO-01 set the universe's strongest chip combination, Qualcomm fourth-generation 8295 chip and NVIDIA Orin X chip.

Among them, as Qualcomm's first mass-produced 5nm-class cockpit chip, compared to the previous generation 8155 chip, the 8295 chip has 16.5 times the arithmetic power, 2.1 times the GPU, and 1.1 times the CPU. As the debut vehicle of this chip, ROBO-01's arithmetic power reaches 30TOPS, and with the integrated large screen, it can meet the needs of various scenarios, such as driving navigation, gaming and entertainment, online office and so on.

What's more, compared with the previous generation of cockpit chip, ROBO-01 equipped with 8295 chip not only has better multimedia capabilities, but also can achieve the localisation of voice recognition algorithms, which means that even in the state of full offline or weak signals, human-vehicle interaction still has a response speed of seconds, in addition, the localisation of the storage can further protect the privacy of the user's voiceprint and information security.

In order to adapt Apollo's unmanned self-driving algorithms to production cars, Tidus has equipped ROBO-01 with two NVIDIA's Orin X system chips, which can reach a total computing power of 508 TOPS for self-driving, second only to the Azalea ET7 and Weimar M7, which are equipped with four Orin X chips. However, Tidus will not start mass production of its cars until next year, compared to the ET7, which has already started delivery. before mass production begins.

In addition to the stack of chips, ROBO-01 adopts a dual system of vision and LIDAR to ensure the safe landing of autonomous driving, and its whole body is equipped with 31 sensors: 2 LIDAR, 5 millimetre-wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radar, and 12 high-definition cameras.

At the software level, Tidus Automotive has fully inherited the core capabilities of Apollo and integrated and developed a set of high-level autonomous driving intelligence system.

As a platform open to vehicle manufacturers and the automatic driving field, Apollo has a complete set of hardware, software and service system, including vehicle platform, hardware platform, software platform, data service and other four parts, and also provides complete development and testing tools. And Tidu is the only car company that has integrated and developed the automated driving technology verified by Apollo RobotTaxi and formally launched it.

In this regard, Xia Yiping said that a safe and reliable autonomous driving experience also needs to be realised through the integration of the whole domain and the generalisation of scenarios. Tidus has created an intelligent architecture for this purpose. Based on this open SUV architecture, ROBO-01 can realise the combination of software and hardware, breaking the inefficiency of software upgrades or modifications under the traditional logic that affects the whole body in one hair, and shortening the iteration cycle of a single function by about 2/3.

From the integration of underlying systems, platforms and hardware to the fusion of intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving, Tidus ROBO-01 tries to create an intelligent third space. However, for Jidu aiming at the 3.0 era of intelligent cars, integration is only the first step, once there is a slight delay in mass production, all the advantages of technology stacking will gradually disappear, and in order to become a real leader, mastering the core barriers is the key.

The problem is that, compared with the micro-innovation of the whole car design and interaction level, ROBO-01 relies on external power in the core of EV ‘one rise and three transformations’, comparing with the head brand that has already started to move towards core self-research, there is still a huge energy gap in Jidu.

This article is republished from Titanium Media, Article | Power Plant, Reporter | Yan Liting, Editor | Gao Yulei
Original Link:Tidu unveils first concept car, but production still in doubt - Titanium Media Official Website (tmtpost.com)
First image courtesy of @jidu