BOB·半岛

In the blink of an eye in 2015, where will cars and peripheral products go in the new year? It is obvious that interconnection and intelligence are the only way out for the development of future products. Today, let's look together at how cars and car peripherals will serve us in the new year and future life.

Internet of Vehicles

This term has been familiar to me since 2010, from the earliest connected PNDs to front and rear mounted car consoles with 3G internet access. The concept of connected cars has been highly hyped in the domestic automotive electronics market. However, the concept of connected car applications has never been realized on a certain car terminal. Nevertheless, this car connectivity service technology, which has gradually become popular abroad, has been tarnished by urgent domestic products. Why do we misunderstand the meaning of connected car in this way? It is because in 2014, products under the banner of connected car were slowly eroding the potential connected application market in the domestic car electronics market.

Let's start with navigation terminals. We have come into contact with PNDs and car infotainment systems that have mobile connectivity capabilities. In terms of functionality, they already have the prototype of car networking, with functions such as answering calls, real-time road conditions, voice control, and location sharing embedded very well. However, for domestic users who are too lazy to use Anjixing and Gbook, they do not like products with strong practical car networking features. Therefore, many manufacturers have shifted the selling point of intelligent connected navigation terminals to audio-visual entertainment in their subsequent promotion. This function that affects driving safety naturally cannot be recognized, which leads to the rise and fall of various connected terminals with little market share.

In 2014, the car mounted radar warning product commonly known as the electronic dog gave rise to a product with primary vehicle networking functions, commonly known as the cloud dog. The product's data updates can be real-time, and real-time road conditions and weather surrounding information can also be displayed in this type of product. However, the vicious price competition among peers and the gray background of electronic dog back products have led to this type of cloud dog product being short-lived in the domestic automotive electronics market.

New Energy

New energy vehicles are not a term that only became popular in the automotive industry in 2014. This may have originated from Tesla's magnificent entry into China, where Chinese people were able to buy mature and timely new energy electric vehicles for the first time. In fact, domestic manufacturer BYD had already launched pure electric vehicles with independent battery technology as early as two years ago. However, foreign monks can recite the scriptures. Although BYD has popularized pure electric vehicles from the most basic taxi in some cities, and the government has also started to provide various subsidies for the purchase of pure electric vehicles, the explosive popularity of pure electric vehicles has truly begun with Tesla's entry into China. However, the obstacles to the popularization of pure electric vehicles are still obvious at present, such as vehicle charging and maintenance, safety of pure electric vehicles, etc. Relying solely on government subsidies to promote the entire industry of pure electric vehicles seems somewhat childish.

In terms of new energy vehicles, besides pure electric vehicles that can be seen on the road, the popularity of hybrid vehicles is actually quietly increasing. From the early Toyota, Lexus, and Chevrolet to the current competition among major car brands, it is not difficult to see that hybrid power is an unavoidable path in the development of new energy vehicles. However, it seems that currently purchasing hybrid cars cannot enjoy the policy subsidies from the government. In addition, under the lottery car purchase policy in some cities, if users plan to purchase hybrid cars, they will not have any advantages in enjoying the lottery policy. Therefore, this may also be the reason for the lack of momentum in hybrid cars.

Autonomous driving

Nissan has announced that it will sell autonomous vehicles in 2020. IHS Consulting predicts that by 2025, several models of this type will be launched in the market. Both of these messages have a speculative nature - but they indicate how rapidly this technology is developing. When people are still questioning whether autonomous driving in science fiction movies will gradually integrate into our daily lives. What seemed so incredible ten years ago has now become very feasible, understandable, and incredibly real. Google's self driving Toyota Prius has safely traveled tens of thousands of miles on California roads without any accidents. It can be foreseen that mass production of autonomous driving is already on the agenda.

The all-new Audi A7 is equipped with a "traffic jam assist system" that can automatically drive at a speed of no more than 40 miles per hour in severely congested traffic. This car is equipped with various cameras, sensors, and a special device that can monitor the condition of the driver's eyes to ensure that the driver does not fall asleep while driving. If the driver really falls asleep, the car will steadily slow down and stop driving, requesting assistance. Everyone can consider autonomous vehicles as robots. For car manufacturers, the key issue is how much of the driving should be done by robots and how much should be done by drivers. This ultimately depends on the driver themselves. Audi and other brand executives have stated that drivers must remain involved and alert no matter what, and be able to take over the vehicle at any time in the event of accidents such as driving on the wrong lane or losing control. It should be noted that Audi cars never use the term 'autonomous driving', they refer to 'guided' driving. Executives from other brands refer to "autonomous" or "assisted" driving. It can be predicted that whether the final product form that consumers can obtain in the future 2015 will be called autonomous vehicle is still worth discussing and expecting.