Wen | Dongli

On March 5th, Honda officially launched its Legend sedan equipped with Honda SENSING Elite system, and L3-class autopilot once again entered people's field of vision as the protagonist.

according to the official information, this SENSING Elite system is officially recognized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan as L3-class automatic driving. The main function of L3 is "Traffic Jam Pilot" (TJP), that is, automatic assisted driving in traffic jams. When the speed is less than 3 kilometers, the machine will take over the vehicle instead of the driver.

despite winning the title of "the first company to sell officially certified L3 vehicles", Honda is still relatively cautious, whether other functions still belong to L2 level, or these vehicles can only be used for rental sales, and the maximum number is 1 vehicles, which shows the caution of this Japanese car company.

But for the commercialization of L3, in fact, many automobile manufacturers and parts suppliers have not seen a clear future. After all, users will have to pay the bill in the end.

as an international component manufacturer said to HD Auto, "L2 to L3, there is not much difference in terms of function increase, but it is relatively linear. However, from the technical requirements, especially the cost of the car, there is a great improvement, which will cause the commercialization process to encounter greater challenges. "

what is the real value of L3, which has been entangled with car companies so far, to users?

At present, the commonly used classification method is the classification standard of automatic driving by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), as follows:

l-no automation: the driver completely controls the vehicle;

L1—— Driving assistance: Automatic systems can sometimes assist drivers to complete simple driving tasks;

L2-partial automatic driving: the automatic system can complete some driving tasks, but the driver needs to monitor the driving environment and complete the rest, and at the same time, ensure that problems occur and take over at any time;

L3—— Conditional automatic driving: The automatic system can not only complete some driving tasks, but also monitor the driving environment in some cases, but the driver must be ready to regain driving control (when requested by the automatic system);

l4-highly automatic driving: the automatic system can complete the driving task and monitor the driving environment under certain circumstances and specific conditions; In the range where autonomous driving can run, all driving-related tasks have nothing to do with drivers and passengers, but drivers may also need to take over;

l5-fully automatic driving: all driving tasks that can be completed by the automatic system under all conditions.

China also has its own autopilot classification.

In terms of decision control, according to the Guidelines for the Construction of National Vehicle Networking Industry Standard System (Intelligent Networked Vehicles) issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in December 217, vehicles and drivers are divided into "auxiliary control" and "automatic control" according to their roles and responsibilities in vehicle control.

The auxiliary control category mainly refers to the vehicle using various electronic technologies to assist the driver in vehicle control, such as lateral control and longitudinal control and their combination, which can be divided into driver assistance (DA) and partial automatic driving (PA);

the automatic control CAtegory is further subdivided into conditional automatic driving (ca), highly automatic driving (HA) and fully automatic driving (FA) according to the scene and conditions of vehicle autonomous control and driving instead of people.

In short, the assisted automatic driving of L2 and below is designed based on the driver, and the vehicle is mainly controlled by people, and the system plays an auxiliary role; But L4 and L5 are modes dominated by automatic driving system, in other words, they can be called unmanned driving.

L3 is an awkward position, which can be used for the transition of definition, and it is too difficult to define the responsibility between man and machine in actual operation. Many car companies put forward the concept of L2.5, which actually has some functions of L3 mentioned above, but the main responsibility lies with the driver.

Many people are calling for skipping L3 in practical application, or not using L3 for publicity.

A source close to SAE revealed to the media that SAE has started to re-examine the autopilot standard once again. If the number of times must be counted, it is the third time, and the relevant explanation has been finalized, but it has not yet reached the publicity stage.

According to Philip Koopman, Chief Technology Officer of Edge Case Research and Associate Professor of Carnegie Mellon University, the classification standard of SAE is "the engineering standard designated by engineers to serve engineers", so in early 221, he suggested publishing a framework classification for consumers.

According to its "Guidelines for the Use of Auto-driving Mode", auto-driving should be divided into four categories:

1. Assistive, which is equivalent to SAE L1 and partial L2;

2. Supervised, vehicles are responsible for driving, but human drivers need to be responsible for ensuring safety, which is about equal to L2 and L3;

3. Automated, cars are responsible for all driving tasks, but humans are responsible for giving instructions and non-driving safety, which is equivalent to L4 and L5;

4. Autonomous, cars can be completely responsible for all operations without human beings.

"The industry now likes to use expressions that are not defined by SAE, such as L2+ or L3+, which leads to confusion in the market." Koopman said bluntly, but he also said that this is not to replace SAE standards, but to fill the gap.

The first car company to put L3 into commercial use was not Honda, but Audi brand under the German Volkswagen Group.

in 217, Audi announced that A8L will be the first mass-produced vehicle to realize L3-stage automatic driving. Audi China once told HD Auto that as early as ten years ago, the company started the research and development of autonomous driving technology in an all-round way according to the linear research and development idea that the driver assistance system gradually went to the autonomous driving stage. A person familiar with the matter told HD Auto that Audi had invested more than 1 billion euros in the research and development of L3 autopilot.

However, due to technical constraints and regulations, at the end of 219, this German luxury brand finally canceled its plan to continue developing L3.

Of course, there are many car companies that have inherited Audi's ambition. In addition to Honda, which was officially leased and sold recently, China car companies such as Chang 'an and Great Wall have also devoted themselves to it. At the end of 22, Great Wall Motor also announced the realization of the first full-vehicle redundant L3-class automatic driving in China.

there are also car companies that no longer use SAE standards to define grades in the actual production process. In early 22, the senior executives of China, an international automobile manufacturer leading in the field of active safety, told HD Auto that they would divide the autonomous driving technology into two parts: assisted driving with the participation of drivers and unmanned driving without the participation of others, and make a clear cut.

after all, the public, especially those in the legal profession, are full of doubts about how to divide responsibilities.

L-L2 stage is considered as assisted driving, with the driver as the leader, while L4 and L5 are unmanned driving stages dominated by machines, with relatively clear responsibilities. L3 stage is an embarrassing transition stage, in which both drivers and machines need to participate, and it is difficult to share responsibilities.

during the test, the safety officer is employed by the enterprise, which can be regarded as a whole. When the consumer starts to use it, it is more difficult to distinguish between power and responsibility in case of an accident.

The founder of a leading domestic autonomous driving company told HD Auto that in L3 stage, it is a high probability event to sign an exemption agreement between car companies and consumers, and it will definitely not be hidden in the product or service manual, and it will be very obvious and even require the signature of consumers. "If you sign an exemption agreement, consumers may have doubts about safety and dare not buy it."

He even joked that if there are too many situations, dozens or hundreds of pages of clauses can scare people away.

after all, pattern confusion is a big problem. Koopman believes that it is very important to confirm the driver's responsibility if the automobile industry wants to build trust.

From the consumer's point of view, it is the key to help the driver understand what mode the vehicle is in. It is unacceptable for car companies and autonomous driving companies to just throw the problem at the driver rudely.

Not all companies like this proposal. "Some companies that want to exaggerate their vehicle capabilities will be unhappy with this proposal." It can already be seen that there are many new terms in the market: for example, L2.5, L2.9 and L2.999, no matter how rounded, they can't reach L3.

There are defects in the formulation of standards, and there are many difficulties in the formulation of laws and regulations. The greater obstacle actually comes from commercialization.

autonomous vehicles with L3 and above need a lot of redundancy: redundant sensors, redundant actuators, redundant power supply, redundant communication, etc. All these things must be backed up.

These are ultimately paid by users. Compared with L2 and L3, the high cost of technology has not increased many functions, that is, the price has gone up, and the value experienced by users has not been greatly improved.

Li Maoxiang, a partner of Caive Auto Fund, thinks that "the value of the whole L3 has not gained any gain in the selling price, so it is better to call it L2 or L4, and L3 is better not to be mentioned for the time being." That is to say, the relevant vehicles can't sell more money just because they have L3 function, that is, the so-called value of L3 is actually not so high, so it is better to say L4 directly, and there may be a higher premium space.

Take Honda Legend, which is only leased and sold this time, as an example, the laser radar is added. Although the wiring harness is not high, the cost is still rising. The landing choice is only a high-end model of 11 million yen (about 66, RMB), and this kind of target audience is relatively insensitive to the price.

In the hardware scheme of Great Wall Motor Coffee Smart Drive, six redundant systems, including sensing redundancy, controller redundancy, braking redundancy, architecture redundancy, power redundancy and steering redundancy, are equipped, and the cost is not too low.

But many car companies promote L3, but actually the landing function is L2. "The function basically reaches L3, but the functional safety is not reached. The instructions for use are still in accordance with L2, requiring users to be more responsible." A domestic startup company focusing on L2-level autonomous driving told HD Auto that it should either do L2 in a down-to-earth manner, or develop L4, do Robotaxi or apply scenarios, and don't advocate concepts.

after all, the boundaries of future technical solutions will not be so clear. Whoever can really win in these landing scenes will have the value of existence.

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