This is the perfect time to take stock at the beginning of the year. 19 days ago, we made a summary of Tesla Model 3’s 2019 updates, and the conclusion is: After Model 3 has undergone multiple OTA upgrades last year, it has brought a brand new user experience. In every aspect, it has started from scratch, from existing to good, and from good to better.
Immediately, a NIO car owner left a message in the comment area, hoping that we would also make a summary of NIO’s OTA content in 2019.
Okay, let’s take a look at what Weilai has done through OTA in the past year. Is it through "OTA" to fix leaks or is it really bringing new functions to users?
First, let’s give a summary of NIO’s key updates and upgrades in 2019:
After reading the above summary, we will give our opinion on NIO’s OTA in 2019. Content evaluation:
Stability level:
The software stability of NIO vehicles in 2019 has reached a relatively high level. Compared with the driving process in 2018 The probability of crashes and black screens is greatly reduced, and the success rate of each software update is also greatly improved.
I believe all friends who follow Weilai feel this. Weilai was at the forefront of the storm in 2018. Software problems frequently appeared on the headlines of major websites. In 2019, although Weilai Automobile’s Sales volume increased by 2 times, but the number of problems was significantly reduced.
Functional level:
Nio, like Tesla, has optimized and optimized the three major components of car engine, assisted driving, and power through OTA in 2019. upgrade.
But the difference is that when Weilai had not launched NIO Pilot assisted driving before 6 months ago, OTA was more used to optimize some existing deficiencies and add new ones. Some features that have been mentioned before but have not yet been implemented.
After 6 months, the content of OTA will be more about optimizing already good functions to be even better, and bringing some unexpected functions to users on the basis of existing functions.
Every update brings a new feeling
NIO official statistics show that in 2019, NIO optimized or added more than 200 new features through OTA one *** function, and received ?71539? pieces of feedback from users.
In order to give non-NIO car owners a general idea of ??what NIO has done this year and what particularly valuable upgrades it has made, let me first introduce a few NIO products from the perspective of a bystander. Noteworthy updates for 2019.
In early March 2019, Weilai updated through OTA and added Baidu map navigation. Compared with the original four-dimensional map, Baidu map obviously has a wider audience and is easier to use. It is also higher, which is also a feature that Weilai car owners are particularly looking forward to.
In April 2019, NIO launched ACC adaptive cruise through OTA. This point clearly raises criticism that it should not be added via OTA 10 months after the vehicle was launched for a feature that was popularized a few years ago.
In June 2019, NIO officially opened all NIO Pilot-related functions through OTA. For the first batch of ES8 cars to be delivered in June 2018, ?For car owners, this feature was opened a year late.
It really shouldn’t be late, but considering the nature of NIO Pilot’s pure self-development, it would be too difficult to develop R&D before mass production of vehicles. If we wait until 2019? After completing the research and development in the middle of the year, it would take too long to deliver the mass-produced vehicles. Therefore, under balance, NIO chose to deliver the vehicles first and then open the functions through OTA.
At this time in mid-June, it is also the time when many car companies have just begun to promote L2 assisted driving, so although it is late, it is not too late.
Of course, if you don’t want to buy a futures, you can also choose to pay for the NIO Pilot after the NIO Pilot function is complete.
The display style of NIO OS 2.0 is also updated at the same time as NIO Pilot.
On the functional level, NIO OS 1.0 can meet the needs of use, but on the practical level, because some of the UI/UX designs are not particularly reasonable, many car owners have complained about it, so In June 2019, NIO launched a new UI/UX NIO OS 2.0 style interface.
Although there are still some details, compared with NIO OS 1.0, the distribution of various function keys is relatively reasonable, and the convenience of use has also been greatly improved.
Insert a sentence here. From the picture at the beginning of the article, you can see that NIO OTA is very rich in content, ranging from assisted driving to logic optimization of turn signals. For NIO There are now more than 30,000 user groups who report a large number of problems every day, so it is very important how Weilai weighs the priorities of optimized and upgraded functions.
I also took this opportunity to ask the person in charge of NIO software about this issue. His answer was: combined with the frequency of user feedback, the evaluation of the improvement of the car experience, development resources and It was concluded after multiple rounds of discussions based on comprehensive factors such as time.
After the major update to version 2.0.0 in June, NIO’s OTA gradually began to change from “from scratch” to “from something to good”.
For example, NIO Pilot, which was opened by NIO in June, does not combine deceleration with kinetic energy recovery. It is not particularly friendly to energy consumption control for electric vehicles. We are also among the earliest. ES6? This problem was reported during the test drive.
After the launch of NIO OS version 2.2.0, kinetic energy recovery will be integrated with the ACC/Pilot function, increasing the application scenarios of kinetic energy recovery and improving energy consumption performance.
In addition, the just-launched NIO Pilot does not support dynamic instrument display and automatic lane line simulation, but it improved this function 4 months after its launch, greatly improving Use experience. When Weilai just launched the NIO Pilot, I also test-drove the assisted driving of the BMW X5. Unfortunately, BMW also does not support the visual display of vehicles and lane lines around assisted driving. Didn't keep up.
I think that for the above two items, Weilai’s functions through OTA are transitioning from “available” to “good”.
In addition, NIO has also optimized the energy-saving mode in the 2.3 and 2.4 versions of the software, and launched a snow mode in a timely manner based on the user's driving environment.
The new energy-saving mode has softer power output and relatively lower energy consumption. In snow mode, the vehicle can limit the output power of the front and rear motors to simultaneously achieve front and rear wheel torque?50: 50? allocation.
There is no doubt about these two points. With the help of OTA, we have gone from "good" to "better".
The above are what I think are the key changes in Weilai’s OTA content in 2019.
What do users say about the OTA content in 2019?
Now that we have summarized the key changes, it’s time to listen to what users have to say.
In order to fully understand the opinions of different types of users on OTA, I interviewed 4 car owners, including Tesla and NIO owners, as well as some who had only been exposed to fuel vehicles before. It is the first time for owners to try smart electric cars, and there are also ES6 owners who will take delivery of their cars in the second half of 2019.
These car owners respectively represent the opinions of top geeks on NIO in 2019, users who experience OTA for the first time, and users who have relatively complete software when they pick up the car. .
In the eyes of both Tesla and NIO owners, the performance of the vehicle software is much better than when I picked up the car in 2018, especially with the updated NIO OS 2.0.0 After using the latest version of the system and replacing it with an 11.3-inch central control screen, the overall user experience has been greatly improved.
But in the eyes of this dual car owner, the ES8’s 2019 updates do not have any big surprises, they are just routine upgrades.
At the same time, I asked a NIO ES8 owner who has been paying attention to Tesla for a long time. In his opinion, NIO has been making up lessons in 2019. This make-up lesson is not entirely due to NIO. Through "OTA", Weilai has been a step slower than Tesla in realizing some previously promised functions.
However, from the perspective of an ES8 owner who drives a traditional car all year round, it is great that the car can add new functions through OTA, and for him who lives in the Northeast, the snow launched in the latest update In local mode, through software updates, functions that can only be achieved by physical hardware such as differential locks are realized on gasoline vehicles. It feels very magical.
As for the high frequency of crashes, black screens, and bugs when he first picked up the car in 2018, it did greatly lower his opinion of the car, but he had already bought the car, so he could only accept it, and Wei The relatively excellent service has also offset some bad impressions. After the 2019 update, I am now very satisfied with the vehicle, and I am very much looking forward to whether the next update will bring some new features.
The last one was an ES6 owner who picked up the car in August this year, which means that when he got it, it was already a NIO OS 2.X system. He thought that the entire system It’s already relatively complete. Because I had some expectations for NIO’s software before, I was quite pleasantly surprised after experiencing it.
Especially when I later purchased NIO Pilot and all functions were opened through software updates, it felt refreshing.
Although these three types of users have different opinions, it is clear that everyone has a positive attitude toward OTA technology.
Is it difficult to update car software?
The answer is yes.
As one of the few car companies in the world that is the first to realize self-developed vehicle OTA, this means that many things need to start from 0, so the difficulties are conceivable, and in the follow-up During the update iteration process, NIO engineers believe that the most difficult point is to increase the success rate of OTA to 100%.
Not to mention Weilai, it is difficult for even traditional major manufacturers to bypass software pitfalls.
In October 2018, an Audi brand spokesperson said that due to software development issues, the delivery of the e-tron model will be delayed by one month.
On December 10, 2019, the German Manager Magazin reported that due to a large number of problems with the Volkswagen ID.3 software, OTA is currently not possible and can only be obtained through Now connect to flash the new software.
Is this scene familiar? NIO did not implement OTA when it was first delivered, and the first update had to be done offline.
However, Volkswagen’s current choice is to postpone delivery, but it is still unknown whether problems will occur at the software level after delivery.
It is indeed difficult to implement OTA for the entire vehicle and bring the probability of software BUG to infinitely close to 0. Although "difficulty" is not an excuse for problems, here I To be fair, I hope that every user who buys a smart car has some expectations and a tolerant mentality. Since he hopes to enjoy the benefits of OTA, he should be tolerant of some of its current shortcomings.
OTA is a good thing. Don’t kill the OTA function just because of some problems. Leave some space. I believe that with the help of OTA, smart cars will get better and better.
As more and more traditional brands support vehicle OTA, we will also focus on how traditional brands balance stability, speed and functionality.
Finally, the electrical and electronic architecture of the automotive industry has begun to usher in a revolutionary update, and the importance of software has greatly increased. For this reason, Volkswagen has specially established a "Car.Software" department, and It plans to recruit 10,000 experts responsible for software development by 2025, and hopes to increase the internal share of automotive software development from the current less than 10% to 60% by 2025.
However, compared to traditional car companies, it is obvious that this Chinese car company has gained the first-mover advantage!
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.