How far is L3 autopilot from us？

As we all know, the "second half" of the new energy vehicle market will be an intelligent competition. Near the end of the year, the domestic city NOA Kaicheng War intensified, and L3 test policy boots officially landed. On December 22nd, Changan Automobile announced that it had successfully obtained L3-level self-driving road test licenses for 17 expressways on November 17th, becoming the earliest enterprise to obtain such licenses at most in a single batch. How far is L3 automatic assisted driving?

"Made in Chongqing" car starts L3 road test.

A few days ago, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Access", which formally set specific requirements for L3/L4 autopilot access specifications and improved relevant rules. This means that China’s advanced autonomous driving has a clear policy support and responsibility definition.

The introduction of the new policy has opened the floodgate of mass production for the long-awaited smart car industry.

As of December 21st, 17 L3 self-driving vehicles of Changan Automobile have passed the 34-day road test. The L3 self-driving road test was carried out in Chongqing Inner Ring Expressway. The total length of this section is 74.1km, which is very mountainous, covering complex scenes such as construction, long slopes, continuous bends, bridges, tunnels, ramp entrances, etc. The traffic volume is large, with the maximum one-way cross-section traffic of 94,000 vehicles/day and the maximum peak traffic of 7,300 vehicles/hour. The whole section has normal traffic jams in the morning and evening peaks.

According to relevant sources of Changan Automobile, the traffic jam autopilot function of Changan Automobile has undergone a severe test in this road test.

At the same time, a number of "Chongqing-made" cars have also made great efforts in high-speed and urban NOA(Navigate On Autopilot). It is generally believed in the industry that the urban NOA is approaching L3, which is a crucial step from L2 to L3. In short, if you want to go from place A to place B, you only need to enter place B in the navigation, and you can hold the steering wheel to supervise how the vehicle waits for the traffic lights, changes lanes and gives way in the covered area.

On October 9th, Aouita Science and Technology announced that it would gradually open the NCA without map, and intensively carry out large-scale actual road test and user experience. As the core capability of Huawei’s advanced intelligent driving system ADS 2.0, Aouita has taken the lead in covering six cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, and the second batch of functions will cover another 16 core cities, with full coverage in China within this year.

The world under the banner of Celestial Automobile was the first to open the push of the city NOA. In July this year, the urban NCA function of the M5 Zhijia version was opened in five cities: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chongqing. In December, the new M7 in Wenjie was equipped with HUAWEI ADS 2.0 advanced intelligent driving system, and the high-speed NCA intelligent driving navigation auxiliary function of the vehicle can be used nationwide without relying on high-precision maps.

Yu Chengdong, managing director of Huawei, CEO of terminal BG, and chairman of smart car solutions, mentioned in the latest order "Battle Report" published on social media in October that the selection rate of high-end packages of M7 five-seat Max version ADS was 70%, and that of six-seat Max version ADS was 68%.

The NOA timetable of car companies has been released one after another.

The competition for the city NOA is not limited to "Made in Chongqing".

On March 31st, 2023, Tucki fully promoted XNGP (Full Scene Assisted Driving) version 4.2.0, and all users of G9 MAX and P7i MAX can get this software version.

He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, said, "We promise that the first city in China will drive Kaicheng &hellip in 25 cities by the end of November; …”

Subsequently, brands such as Ideal, Weilai and Zhiji have also announced the specific timetable of the city NOA. This means that it has completed 50% of the progress bar of the goal of opening a city in 50 cities.

In addition, Xpeng Motors has publicly stated that the Max version of Tucki G6 has an optional rate of over 80%, and the Max version of Tucki G9 has an optional rate of over 80%.

Recently, Li Xiang, CEO of LI, said on the social platform that the official version of NOA in December covers the national expressway and ring road and 100 cities, and the LCC function will be available worldwide.

Weilai also officially opened the test of NOA function in Shanghai in June.

On December 16th, Zhiji Automobile announced that its vehicles equipped with L3-level automatic driving function have officially obtained the high-speed highway automatic driving test license in Shanghai. At the same time, Zhiji is applying for the L3 announcement access pilot of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and it is expected to be the first vehicle to enter the L3 autopilot access pilot.

On December 12, Gu Huinan, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, revealed: "Ai ‘an is applying for L3 autopilot together with Ruqi Travel, and strives to be the first to launch truly operational L4 autopilot in 2025."

On December 16th, Mercedes-Benz became one of the first enterprises to obtain the road test license of Beijing Conditional Autopilot (L3) Expressway. Two days ago, China’s first L3 test license was spent on BMW — — BMW announced that it has obtained the L3-class self-driving high-speed road test license in Shanghai.

Mercedes-Benz has made it clear that after Germany and the United States, it will promote L3-class autopilot system Drive Pilot in China market, and BMW Group plans to officially launch L3-class autopilot function in late 2023 or early 2024.

In August this year, Tesla CEO Musk revealed that Tesla is developing the last puzzle "Vehicle Control" of the FSD V12. The automatic driving system adopts an end-to-end solution. In November, Tesla has pushed the FSD V12 to employees.

The ideal NOA, NGP of Tucki or NCA of Huawei, under the influence of a dazzling array of technical terms, the "second half" of intelligent driving is really coming.

How far is L3 autopilot from us?

At the end of 2023, L2′ s driving function was gradually optimized. How far is L3 from us?

At the 5th China Automobile and Travel Future Forum, data show that at present, the penetration rate of intelligent driving above L2 will exceed 40%.

Many domestic progressive autonomous driving companies are also realizing data closed loop through mass production and high-order assisted driving scenes, and promoting the rapid maturity of autonomous driving technology; In addition, many key cities in China are also accelerating the construction of "smart cities", delineating pilot areas and promoting the coordinated construction of vehicles and roads.

It is understood that in terms of chips, NVIDIA leads the iteration of smart driving chips, Mobileye and TI technologies are mature, and the distance between domestic players Horizon and Black Sesame is gradually shortened. In terms of domain controllers and solutions, domestic players Desai Siwei, Jingwei Hengrun, Zongmu Technology, Zhixing Technology, etc. have all got on the bus on a large scale, and their technical maturity has been continuously improved. Laser radar: domestic suppliers such as Wo Sai, Tu Datong and Sagitar have a faster pace of mass production.

On November 26th, Hu Yang of Huaxi Securities pointed out that as of August, 2023, the country had opened more than 20,000 kilometers of test roads, and a large number of intelligent networked automobile products were developed, tested and verified. The opening of this pilot will help the intelligent networked vehicles to accelerate the technical level, and also accelerate the industrialization process of the smart car industry. L3/L4 smart driving will also accelerate its landing next year.

As a watershed between assisted driving and driverless driving, L3 autopilot needs not only technical support, but also coordinated support from policies, legislation, infrastructure and other aspects.

Last August, the first domestic regulation on intelligent networked vehicle management — — The Regulations of Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on the Management of Intelligent Networked Vehicles was officially implemented. This legislation is the first official management document in China to divide in detail important issues such as the rights and responsibilities of L3 and above automatic driving, and provides a policy basis for self-driving vehicles to legally go on the road. Although it is only exclusive to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, its significance to the national intelligent networked automobile management legislation is self-evident.

The promulgation of the "Notice on Launching the Pilot Work of Intelligent Networked Vehicle Access and Road Access" has further accelerated the landing of high-level automatic driving.

In the current upgrade war of autonomous driving, mass production capacity is the "key" to cross L2 to L3. According to the above-mentioned Notice, the emphasis on mass production capacity again means that players without mass production capacity can’t even get "admission tickets".

Changan Automobile said that it will continue to pay close attention to the requirements of China regulations and, with the support of policies and regulations, will introduce L3-class autopilot function to the market at an appropriate time.

According to the data released by the Industrial Research Institute, it is estimated that the penetration rate of L3, a new car on sale, will reach 20% in 2023.

According to the agency’s forecast, in 2024, the urban NOA layout process will rapidly expand to 100 cities across the country, and the sales volume of NOA models will reach more than one million.

Upstream journalist Yan Wei