Tesla adding Radar, Apple Scales Back, Tesla Semi, Baidu expansion & Swiss power emergency

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Here's a digest of some of my recent postings on Forbes.com

Tesla may add radar back

A filing suggests Tesla may be putting a radar back in their cars, but this time a high resolution radar, which is a bit like the LIDAR they swore was a crutch. It would be a good idea.

Apple scales back robocar, so does Audi

Apple's self-driving plans have always been secret, but leaks have shown a fair bit of chaos. The latest leak now suggests their car won't come out until 2026, and will have a steering wheel and pedals. Audi also scales back but other companies are going gangbusters.

Tesla's new Semi looks great but may cost more than you want to recharge

Electric trucks are definitely the way forward, but the cost of fast charging is high, and could make them not have the huge advantage over gasoline on price that people hope for. But it's doable.

A Swiss proposal asks EV drivers to cut back a bit in power emergencies

The draft outlines 4 stages of power emergency where people are closing shops and turning down the heat, and at stage 3 they get asked to avoid leisure drives in EVs. This got EV opponents all excited, but in reality it's not that big a deal.

Baidu announces big robotaxi expansions in China

Baidu claims they will soon launch the largest self-driving service area and gave a peek under the hood during Apollo Day.

Comments

50 per cent of EVs to adopt zonal architecture by 2030 says Infineon.

Infineon said on Dec 14 that the transformation of automotive architecture from domains to zones will take at least a decade.

Magna to buy Veoneer Active Safety for $1.53 bln to bolster self-driving tech.

The deal is expected to add to Magna's sensor and full systems capabilities, including radar, camera and driver monitoring, and add 2,200 engineers for systems, software and sensor development.

Veoneer Active Safety sales are projected to be about $1.1 billion in 2022 and increase to about $1.9 billion in 2024.

Important news releasesl rare the week before Christmas

Building a car around LiDAR is using it as a crutch. I look at Uber for a good example of that. Waymo is also an example of the limits of how much you can achieve designing a car around crutches. Works pretty well, likely at a relatively high operating cost, in about 0.01% of the world.

Adding LiDAR as just another sensor on top of a car that already works without it wouldn’t be using it as a crutch, though AFAIK no one is at that point for level 4 driving and the expense may not be worth it even if it were.

If high res radar can be added relatively inexpensively, it’d likely help a lot with the ADAS features of a car. (I suppose LiDAR would too, but high res LiDAR is overkill for ADAS.)

The upcoming Sony Honda Mobility JV reveal at CES 2023 would be noteworthy if an impressive HUD and HMI built to enhance safety was the focal point.

correct
building more expensive vehicles because of entertainment and comfort instead of safety is not going to play out well as vehicles are way too expensive relative to income.

ZEEKR is proud to announce that the state-of-the-art driver-assist function NZP, powered by Mobileye SuperVision technology, will be available to leading customers in January 2023.
Zeekr

Johann Jungwirth, SVP, Mobileye -
Looking forward to the launch of the full Mobileye SuperVision experience with Zeekr - have been working hard to reach this important milestone, with our Premium ADAS solution with the wide set of applications all the way to Navigate-on-Pilot.

what speed can the way to Navigate-on-Pilot be used?

will NZP be available for 001 model car also in January?

the long-awaited NZP high-speed navigation assisted driving function will also start a comprehensive pioneer test in January 2023.

Zeekr 009 is the only MPV in mass production in the world that can realize NZP autonomous piloting and assisted driving. The Zeekr 009 series are equipped with two 7nm process technology Mobileye EyeQ5H high-performance chips, seven 8-megapixel high-definition cameras (the longest viewing distance is 600m), four 2-megapixel surround-view cameras, and one ultra-long-distance millimeter-wave radar (detection The distance is 250m), 12 short-range ultrasonic radars and other powerful hardware, which comprehensively improves the algorithm and perception capabilities.

Zeekr Autonomous Driving (ZAD) "Utimate" package is required to take advantage of Navigate-on-Pilot (NZP).

The Ultimate package is not standard and requires the purchase of the option. NZP is not included in the Basic or Enhanced package.

mobileye EyeC-radar still rated as best in class 4D imaging radar on linkedin posts.

linkedin posts indicate possible early launch (nonsense talk as EyeQ Ultra is unchanged)

EyeC-Radar (and Eye-Lidar) won the most distinguished award in Intel, IAA, Intel Achievement Award, for the innovation in the development of the SW Defined Imaging Radar, best in class 4D radar sensor in world.

Mobileye Chauffeur Ultra platform
11 cameras
- 7 x 8mp
- 4 x 3mp
6 x surround Imaging radar
1 x front lidar
ECU
1 x EyeQ Ultra
1 x EyeQ 6H for FOP

? Why did Mobileye change CES press conference ?

On Dec 15, Mobileye posted on Twitter graphic of the Jan 5 CES Press Conference titled "Now, Next, Beyond" with Prof Amnon Shashua "and Guests"

On the Dec 29 Twitter graphic, the "and Guests" has disappeared.

Major press conferences (especially CES) highlight important announcements with special guest appearances.

Now, no guests?

was down over 9 percent from HoD today

Nvidia signs a meaningful Foxconn partnership today

down over 16 pc from high of day yesterday.

no imaging radar until 2025.
robotaxi will not be driverless for many months. company started testing in july 2020. three years?

The start of production for the HOLON Mover is planned for the end of 2025 in the USA ; in the following years further production capacities are to be created in Europe and the Middle East/Asia. The particularly flexible The platform architecture makes it possible for HOLON to bring other variants onto the market in the near future - both for passenger transport and for cargo applications.

What the heck?

Beep is now partnering with ZF, not just and Holon/Mobileye/Benteler?

Looks awkward for Mobileye. Probably reason for sell off.

ZF Group, with its next generation Level 4 autonomous shuttle, ZF celebrates one more world premiere at the CES2023. Partnership with
beepAVsolutions to potentially supply several thousand shuttles to U.S. market. (using ZF ProAI supercomputer, and ZF Virtual Driver – ZF’s AD software).

Did Intel/Mobileye get played by Beep after Intel invested in Beep?

new ZF shuttle design is pretty good looking.

ZF suprised the industry today with the three announcements.

And that ZF shuttle design makes the Pininfarina design of the Holon-Benteler shuttle cartoonish.

There is an appearance that Beep played Intel.

Beep CEO appearing now with ZF. ZF is Mobileye's largest customer. As of today's ZF announcements, ZF is now competing much more with Mobileye.

wth
mobileye looking for Senior IT Architect in Germany on company website

data center for REM ?
GDPR compliance ?
VW ?
ZF ?
Sixt ?
Moovit ?

Qualcomm is officially launching the next generation of its automotive system-on-a-chip (SoC), the Snapdragon Ride Flex.

Snapdragon Ride Flex is already sampling and will be commercially available in the first half of next year.

"Qualcomm had pre-programmed a route for the 15-minute drive.'

"That said, it required an operator to initiate self driving at the appropriate time and to monitor it. There were a few times he had to intervene, even with straightforward highway driving scenarios that did not appear uniquely stressful or complex. In the end, the demo had the same "so close, yet so far" feeling that has plagued autonomous driving for years."

Qualcomm told me the vehicle is classified as "Level 2+"

Linkedin Jon Bonte

The primary computer in the self-driving car was an enterprise class, automotive grade, full custom ECU with over 10,000 electronic components for Artifical Intellgence processing and Machine learning. Argo's entire driverless stack ran on this module. It was ASIL D rated and contained server class x86 CPUs, enterprise AI GPUs, almost a dozen microcontrollers and interfaced with the entire vehicle sensor set.

Hilla Tavor has joined the company as Chief Business Officer. Tavor was previously vice president of ADAS business development at Mobileye, where she led the Advanced Development Department and was responsible for both business development and sales relationships with global automakers.

In her executive role at Autobrains, Tavor will be responsible for facilitating partnerships with automakers (OEMs) and Tier-1 suppliers globally.

Autobrains
Autobrains Hires Former Mobileye VP Hilla Tavor as Chief Business Officer
AI mobility company grows leadership team and establishes a worldwide presence

Hilla Tavor Autobrains CBO
Photo Credit: Ilan Ben Udiz | Hilla Tavor – CBO Autobrains

TEL AVIV – Jan. 18, 2023: Autobrains, a pioneer in developing hardware-agnostic, self-learning artificial intelligence (AI) for advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving systems (ADAS and AD), announced today that industry veteran Hilla Tavor has joined the company as Chief Business Officer. Tavor was previously vice president of ADAS business development at Mobileye, where she led the Advanced Development Department and was responsible for both business development and sales relationships with global automakers.

In her executive role at Autobrains, Tavor will be responsible for facilitating partnerships with automakers (OEMs) and Tier-1 suppliers globally. She brings more than 12 years of industry experience to Autobrains, which she spent at Mobileye securing strategic wins and ensuring the company’s ADAS dominance in the market while also paving the path for new markets and customers.

“Hilla brings a wealth of knowledge, relationships and strategic insights to the Autobrains team,” Autobrains CEO Igal Raichelgauz said. “She is an undisputed and widely recognized leader in the industry’s autonomous and advanced driver assistance space. We look forward to putting her knowledge and network to good use as we introduce more of the industry to the breakthroughs we’re enabling with Autobrains’ technology.”

Tavor said she is eager to get to work for Autobrains and was attracted to the company for its fresh approach to developing solutions the market is desperately looking for.

“Today’s solutions are mostly black-box and bound to a specific set of hardware. OEMs and Tier-1s are looking for more flexibility and adaptability with their ADAS partners, and that’s what Autobrains offers: adaptable technologies with a modular, hardware-agnostic setup that can be implemented into an automaker or supplier’s existing system architecture and is tailored to their needs,” Tavor said. “Autobrains’ hardware-agnostic solutions offer a smarter, more cost-effective and more efficient pathway to bringing safety and convenience technologies to the mass market. I look forward to expanding our global presence by helping automakers and ultimately drivers and their passengers. This is a pivotal time for both Autobrains as a company and AD and ADAS technology in the automotive industry.”

whisper is politics pushed jump with recent employee controversy

Tesla Level 3 regulation hurdle?

Level 3 regulation requires every function have redundancy?

Innoviz CEO Omer Keilaf -
"regulatory requirement that for every function in the vehicle there
will be redundancy. The vehicle will only be able to make decisions based on a camera as long as there is someone sitting in it to look at the road. The investment in Tesla will go down the drain"

www dot calcalistech dot com/ctechnews/article/e6oncirqx

Mobileye begins productization of EyeC-Lidar and EyeC-Radar in 2024.

Zeekr-001 SuperVision ODD level is now currently supporting Highway/Ramps (ODD3 blade).

In 2023, Arterial (ODD4 blade), Rural (ODD5 blade), and Urban (ODD Full) will be activated for Zeekr-001.

No indication to what extent shadow-mode validation determines the activation timing of each ODD throughout this year. There was also no indication if China regulatory environment contributes to a need for the phased roll-out.

highway odd not to entire fleet just test customers

Amnon Shashua in call
So, in China with ZEEKR about three months ago we OTAed highway assist, recently we OTA to leading customer the full SuperVision limited to highways, this is including the REM maps as part of it. And we believe that in the next month or two months, we'll be able to do the OTA for the entire fleet with full REM - with full REM capability of SuperVision for highways. And then throughout the 2023, together with ZEEKR as our map coverage we'll increase - we will start unlocking additional road types like arterial and urban.

How does Zeekr and Mobileye select vehicles for the current in-progress pilot testing of the SuperVision Highway ODD3 blade functionality before the official launch in 4-8 weeks? Is the testing transparent to vehicle owners through shadow-mode validation?

There is over 104,000 miles of expressways in China. Mobileye REM Roadbook has vehicle mapping agents from Zeekr, and SAIC and what other OEMs? Does Navinfo maintain the Roadbook data in China (doubtful if Zenrin does) ?

Zeekr will be the only Supervision vehicles in China on the road in 2023.

Supervision launches by Zeekr will exceed 180,000 in 2023 (compared to 90,000 in 2022) .

"And overall 2022 - SuperVision will be more than double of 2022, so more than 100 percent year-on year growth."

"There's a lot going on there to support six carmakers with SuperVision, all coming around the same timeframe, starting from 2024 till 2026."

"so 2024 there will be additional OEMs it's not only ZEEKR, ZEEKR it's not - currently its ZEEKR 001. That's one brand, there's another brand of. ZEEKR coming to launch throughout end of 2023, beginning of 2024 and then there are additional Geely OEMs that are kicking-in in 2024 and then 2025. We're talking about OEMs outside of the Geely outside of the Geely Group" .

Do these "other OEMs outside of the Geely" umbrella start in 2024 or 2025?

Do these SuperVision "other OEMs outside of the Geely" umbrella start in 2024 or 2025?

"so 2024 there will be additional OEMs it's not only ZEEKR, ZEEKR it's not - currently its ZEEKR 001. That's one brand, there's another brand of ZEEKR coming to launch throughout end of 2023, beginning of 2024 and then there are additional Geely OEMs that are kicking-in in 2024 and then 2025. We're talking about OEMs outside of the Geely outside of the Geely Group".

Vinfast? Fisker? Rivian? Ford? VW? BMW?

Item 2
The Zeekr 009 model started production in November of 2022 and deliveries have reportedly started in the last several weeks.

Interestingly, Zeekr sold 72,000 model 001s vehicles in 2022.

This most likely means the "greater than 90,000 unit sales" reported by Mobileye for 2022 to Zeekr is for both future 001 models as well as both 2022 and 2023 009 models.

Item 3
But as the call states, "there's another brand of ZEEKR coming to launch throughout end of 2023, beginning of 2024".

Is this the Zeekr 003, or Zeekr 009, since the 009 model has already launched?

Past Mobileye executives comments on the call regarding Zeekr may suggest there may be a six month shadow-mode period for SuperVision for each model. Thus the end of 2023 may be a reference to the "full" 009 Highway ODD official activation for "all" owners.

Or perhaps Mobileye executives were cautious not to discuss the 009 model launch.

Item 4
Did Mobileye executives confuse the 2023 Zeekr picture?

There was no mention of the Zeekr launch in Europe in 2023 on the Mobileye quarterly earnings conference call. Will the European 001 model launch also require a shadow mode validation period before the Highway ODD3 functionality activates?

Chief Executive Mr. An Conghui told Reuters on Thursday at CES 2023 that Zeekr plans to expand sales in Europe in 2023 of the Zeekr 001 model with assisted driving systems engineered with Mobileye.

An Conghui is the current President of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, Chairman of Geely Auto Group, and CEO of Zeekr Intelligent Technology.

Will the Zeekr 001 model launch in Europe in 2023 focus on Western Europe or Eastern Europe, or both?

Geely has previously announced the company’s Geometry brand will launch in early 2023 in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Geely Smart Geely 2025 Strategy was originally targeting Eastern Europe for the Geely Holding Group, but specifics for the Lynk & Co / Zeekr brand was not fully outlined.

Both Western and Eastern Europe is mapped in the Mobileye REM Roadbook.

Zeekr to have a total of 4 models on the roads in 2023.

Jan 30, 2023
ZEEKR announced today in a letter to its staff members that the company plans to put two all-new models in its product lineup this year, which currently contains the ZEEKR-001 and the ZEEKR-009, for a total of four Zeekr vehicles in production in 2023.

One model internally named B1XE will launch with the Zeekr-003 badge which the company previewed over the weekend in a series of photos issued to the media.

The other model to arrive in 2023 could carry the 007 namesake. The Zeekr-003 will be unveiled in the April Shanghai Motor show.

"In the aspect of automobile intelligence, ZEEKR said it had taken the lead in the domestic auto markets regarding intelligent architecture and intelligent driving technology."

Comparison of the above stated launch plans by the company with the comments by the CEO of Mobileye on the recent quarterly earnings call is difficult to reconcile -

Amnon Shashua
"Yes, so in 2024 there will be additional OEMs it's not only ZEEKR, ZEEKR it's not - currently its ZEEKR 001. That's one brand, there's another brand of ZEEKR coming to launch throughout end of 2023, beginning of 2024 and then there are additional Geely OEMs that are kicking-in in 2024 and then 2025."

To add to the confusion, in a previous post on this thread from Tsrc -

"Zeekr Autonomous Driving (ZAD) "Utimate" package is required to take advantage of Navigate-on-Pilot (NZP).

The Ultimate package is not standard and requires the purchase of the option. NZP is not included in the Basic or Enhanced package."

Navigation on Pilot may be part of an upgrade package (Ultimate package) that is only available once the Full ODD update is pushed.

"The launch of the SuperVision in China at the moment at highways, the urban and arterial roads would be unlocked during 2023 and that would also increase our revenue per content per car, and of course, naturally will increase the gross margin."

It does appear that the Zeekr hands free driving capability must be purchased in an optional package from Zeekr similiar to the Tesla FSD package option.

ZAD (Zeekr Autonomous Driving) suite will be delivered by OTA to those that have opted for that upgrade.

ZAD will come in two levels.

ZAD-Ultimate Fully autonomous driving assistance system -

Including: NZP high-speed autonomous pilot, NZP city autonomous pilot, HWP high-speed automatic driving assistance with automatic overtaking, H2H active up and off ramp, MTM intersection active selection, LOT adjacent vehicle pressure line active offset, APB preventive brake, TLB red light brake assist, TLW traffic light lift

another term
Navigation on ADAS (NOA).

if zeekr001 is eyes on and hands off on highways and ramps in china now, why not at this very moment invite reporters in israel or europe to ride in the zeekr001 with the same level of assisted driving to experience the current supervision that is public in china?

BMW with both SuperVision and Chauffeur programs on deck, plus the original L3 launch (late 2023).

The Mobileye IPO slidedeck was important.

What is the scope of the Highways, Arterial, Rural, Urban road networks in the US and Europe for Mobileye’s hands-off driving? (ie "everywhere" for SuperVision hands-off or Chauffeur Full ODD eyes-off blade driving mode).

The term "everywhere" is used categorically by Mobileye while most consumers will interpret the meaning literally without further information.

The definition of "all" roads has not been defined explicitly on the Mobileye website but a reference did appear recently.

Are there basically about 800,000 miles of roads in the US and about 800,000 miles of roads in Europe that fall into the "qualified" road category where hands-off driving can be activated and this mileage estimate is close to the final Roadbook mileage scope for the US and Europe ? (explaination follows)

From this weeks Q422 earnings call -

CEO - "Our REM map now covers nearly all roads in the U.S. and Europe."

From the October 2023 IPO Roadshow slides -

"US Road Data in the Coverage US > 90% of the approximately 0.8 million miles of motorways, trunk and primary roadtypes in the US"

"Europe Road Data in the Coverage of > 80% of the approximately 0.8 million miles of motorways, trunk and primary roadtypes in Europe"

From the Intel Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript July 2022

"This data is automatically built into a map, which currently covers greater than 90% of all roads in both Europe and U.S., which will support systems across the entire driving assist to autonomous vehicle spectrum."

US Transportation Dept
In the US there is a total of about 4.2 million miles of highways, arterial, rural and urban roads. But about 3 million of the 4.2 million miles are classified as rural (versus urban) roads. And of these 3 million rural roads, about 2.3 million are classified as Level 2 Local Collector and Level 2 Minor roads. (note: independent estimates of the percentage of unpaved roads varies greatly).

www fhwa dot gov/policyinformation/statistics/2008/hm60 cfm

On a sidenote, when does the SuperVision hands-off or the Chauffeur Rural ODD5 eyes-off function activate on a rural road? Is a non-divided two lane wide public paved road the criteria?

Unless Mobileye "switched on" several million miles of roads in the US in the last 3 months, "all" roads is not actually "all" highways, arterial, rural, and urban roads according to a comparison to the above table (800,000 miles is currently about 20 percent of the total US road network).

Ushr/DMP and GM UltraCruise maps
Ushr has recently expanded its high-definition map database for General Motors to cover more than 400,000 miles of roads in the United States and Canada, with an additional update to follow in 2025 tentatively.

For the REM Roadbook to finish the ramp up from "motorways, trunk and primary roadtypes" to "Highways, Arterial, Rural, and Urban", an addition of how many miles, if any at all, from the current approximate 800,000 in both the US and Europe is necessary? Were the above statements definitive and is the current European and US Roadbook basically nearing the final mapping mileage scope?

If this is the case, with little effort an OEM could ramp to the SuperVision Full ODD hands-off mode quickly given the maps are now built. Once Zeekr completes shadow mode validation and homologation in European trials, could a Zeekr
vehicle enabled with the SuperVision Full ODD hands-off capability traverse Europe in mid 2024. Zeekr CEO An Conghui did state at CES the Zeekr 001 launches in Europe in 2023.

And what does Tesla FSD cover?

Urban Road Types
INTERSTATE
FREEWAYS AND EXPRESSWAYS
OTHER PRINCIPAL ARTERIAL
OTHER MINOR ARTERIAL
COLLECTOR
LOCAL 2

Rural Road Types
INTERSTATE
OTHER PRINCIPAL ARTERIAL
MINOR ARTERIAL
MAJOR COLLECTOR
MINOR COLLECTOR
LOCAL

Curiously, what constitutes a "road" for the REM Roadbook for which SuperVision hands-off or Chauffeur Full ODD eyes-off functionality can be activated has never been explained.

Mobileye CEO afterall did state Lidar maps did not make sense.

"For Super Cruise, GM uses lidar maps provided by Ushr. GM Chief engineer Jason Ditman acknowledged that approach would not be cost effective to map millions of miles of roads. Instead, GM has developed its own in-house mapping solution for Ultra Cruise but Ditman declined to provide details."

"In 2023, the industry must overcome two principal challenges if autonomy is to move to the next level. First, we need precise absolute positioning in all current GNSS-denied or -obscured environments, no matter the weather or road condition. Precise absolute positioning is defined as lane-level (10 cm [4 in.]) precision. Achieving that in all facets of a typical drive from freeway to downtown corridor and underground is essential.

Adding to this requirement is the need for Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) certification of the software, hardware, correction source and integrity of the management. With all ASIL-certified parts, OEMs will feel more confident the solutions can be used for mass production.

Second, to make these maps more accurate, crowdsourcing — using passenger or shared mobility vehicles, not vehicles dedicated solely for mapping – is crucial. Maps are only as good as they are current, so a continuous stream of data from road vehicles that regularly drive the same path is critical to keeping maps current and providing complete situational awareness of a vehicle. Techniques such as map-based localization are paramount to that process and fusing sensor data to help derive a correct position. By taking the GPS positions of a vehicle and using visual cues to understand where the vehicle is based on the odometer, map-based locations can perceive what is around the vehicle.

For instance, if there’s construction on a certain route, there needs to be a real-time way to transmit and process that data in order to send it to the next vehicle on the road. Instead of having expensive dedicated mapping vehicles, the ultimate, cost-effective way to do this is by having everyday road vehicles become those mapping vehicles. Using numbers and vehicles as mobile mapping vehicles themselves creates high-fidelity, very usable maps in real time.

Think of it as a version of Google Maps and how it projects traffic – compiling data from all users to showcase which routes are busy, when police or construction are ahead and when there might be a better route. MBL is like Google Maps, but much more. It’s as precise as precise can get. It won’t just find the local Starbucks, but it will know which lane you need to be in to get there and, if there is a lane that’s closed for construction, it will show you which lanes are open with the fewest stops."

Wards

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