It's normal to develop some black technology in the future, right?

Chapter 456: The first self-driving robot is launched

The Volkswagen Group wanted to die, and spent a lot of effort to show its face in front of the world, but it didn't expect to suffer a big blow.

It’s a good thing Linjia didn’t get into trouble. If something happened to Linjia and it affected the integration of the entire Northeast Asia, Volkswagen would lose the entire Chinese market almost instantly, just like Samsung.

There is no need for administrative leadership; the spontaneous choices of the Chinese people alone can achieve this.

Because the publicity effect of the new Audi launch conference did not meet expectations, the subsequent promotional videos of various self-media bloggers focused on the chaos at the scene and the fierce gunfire outside, and not many people focused on Volkswagen's products.

In other words, even if self-media bloggers explained the new Audi, the audience would not be very interested.

Just like when Nokia held a press conference, the outside world had no interest in Nokia's products. Apart from the fact that companies spent money to buy hot searches and could passively gain traffic for a few days, it didn't make any splash at all.

After Lenovo acquired Motorola, it has put a lot of effort into promoting new products and publicity. However, with the same amount of money, Lenovo and Motorola's publicity effect is 1, OV can reach 10, and Xiaomi and Huawei can reach 20.
Why would the founder of a new energy vehicle brand who died suddenly want to criticize Lei Jun on social platforms? There is no other way, as criticizing him at least can give him some influence. If he doesn't criticize him, the result will be death.

Of course, some founders think that the publicity volume of Xiaomi and Huawei is so loud because the audiences of these two companies attack each other. This war between fans and black fans makes them more likely to gain public attention.

So I thought, can we also compete with Xiaomi or Huawei to gain public attention?

Audi will not do anything to pull down others, but they are also transforming rapidly. For example, the S1 self-driving robot drives the new Audi A4L to pick up and drop off passengers for free in Shenhai, which is their marketing strategy.

In order to transform, Audi has delegated a large part of its authority to its Chinese branch.

In the past, Audi’s publicity and promotion work in China needed to be reported to the German headquarters. Although not every detail of the activity was required, at least the general direction required the approval of the Audi headquarters.

Nominally it is for brand management and global strategic unification.

This is certainly an advantage, but the disadvantage is that the shift is extremely slow. The new forces are investing huge amounts of money in self-media and keeping car reviewers, while media such as Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota are still paying money to TV stations, print media and airport advertisements.

In many cases, people only decide to change direction when they are on the verge of death. This is the case with Audi. The brand is on the verge of a life-and-death crisis. If it does not change direction, it will become others like Genesis. Finally, it gave most of the authority to the Chinese branch, laid off German executives, and gave Chinese executives more authority.

On the one hand, this incident itself is attractive enough. On the other hand, Audi bought hot searches on Weibo and cooperated with self-media bloggers to keep the whole incident at a high level of popularity.

"Today I won't drive to the company. I will take a new luxury car. The driver is a little special. He is not a traditional driver, but the first generation of mass-produced self-driving robot.

I’m already looking forward to the experience it will bring me.”

Self-media bloggers cooperating with Audi can get similar opportunities to shoot videos. They will communicate with Audi in advance about when to shoot, including the final product to be released.

It’s impossible for you to shoot and broadcast it casually.

“Although I don’t understand the underlying logic of autonomous driving technology, let alone the HBM artificial intelligence model, my understanding of these two things is similar to that of everyone else. I just watch them when I see them on TikTok. But if you want me to understand these things from the underlying principles, I really can’t do it.

Just because when talking about Audi’s new products, we have to start with autonomous driving.

In the unprecedented new energy vehicle battle royale in China in recent years, the companies that have been able to survive have an autonomous driving level of at least L3 to L4.

In fact, it was achieved a few years ago, but at that time no one dared to say that they were L3, because L3 meant taking responsibility for safety accidents that occurred when users used autonomous driving.

There are different routes for autonomous driving, and there are mainly two routes that are still alive: the pure vision solution advocated by Tesla, and the multi-data fusion model advocated by companies such as Huawei and BYD.

The latter includes vision, lidar, high-precision real-time maps, etc.

There is no difference in experience between the two. The latter is slightly better in terms of security, while the former has more advantages in terms of cost.

I am just curious about whether autonomous driving complies with the first principles.

Because you see, the self-driving robot that is driving the latest generation of Audi A4L stopped the car steadily in front of me and turned its head to the right. My understanding is that this action is to capture my distance so as to park the car in front of me accurately.

But the problem is, humans only have two eyes, so we have to turn our heads to expand our field of vision. Robots don’t have this limitation, so why can’t they have cameras all over their heads?
I thought this was possible before, because the Audi S1 ​​self-driving robot had a camera on the side, but it was designed to cover up the camera.

Now it comes to pick up my action, and I find that it doesn't exist at all.

So why they are designed to be exactly like humans, I am confused.

Musk's proposal is quite first-class, and Guangshen's proposal seems to be even more first-class than that one. A robot is built according to the human model to drive. "

The HBM artificial intelligence model has been around for more than two years, and is being applied in more and more scenarios.

Because Guangjia Aerospace launched an autonomous driving robot when it opened up the system, this model has gone the furthest in autonomous driving, but it does not mean that autonomous driving should be its most appropriate application scenario.

A certain country has deployed infantry robots built based on the HBM artificial intelligence model in turbulent areas, with two teams of a total of 10 infantry robots deployed. If the difficulty of recharging is not considered, the effect is very good.

This incident caused great opposition from the international community because it was the first time that robots were used in warfare and showed amazing potential.

Compared with mobilizing human soldiers, the cost of infantry robots may not be higher than that of humans, and their fighting spirit is even more amazing. If the communication network is not cut off by the enemy, they can achieve decimeter-level command.

However, a certain country does not care about the opposition from the international community at all and is used to being criticized.

The international community is most worried about China, not it. They can guess with their feet that the infantry robots developed by China will only be stronger.

This is not only because of production capacity and cost, but also because of technology. The country's infantry robots are driven by motors and powered by batteries. This combination determines that their sustained combat capability is limited, and it is difficult to replenish energy even with solar panels.

China has sufficient technology reserves for extended-range engines in the field of robots, which can be driven by electric motors and refueled at any time. In the most turbulent and war-torn land, the least valuable thing is oil.

The range-extended engine is not a new technology, but using it on robots still requires a certain amount of technical reserves and accumulation. Because before the birth of the HBM model, no one except Chinese companies took this technical route.

Boston Dynamics initially used hydraulic drive, but there were so many problems with hydraulic drive that Boston Dynamics got up early but arrived late. This technology route system itself is complex, very prone to failure, and has slow control accuracy and response speed. Even the energy conversion efficiency that the fuel engine is most proud of is not as good as that of electric motor drive.

Later, these robot companies all took the motor-driven technology route, and Boston Dynamics also followed suit, but they all used batteries to directly power their devices.

However, there are a large number of companies in China, such as Lanjiang Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology Yungeng, and Blue Engine, and many of them are taking the path of extended-range engine motor drive.

This means that China has rich technical reserves and can simply modify this technology and use it on infantry robots.

China did exhibit corresponding infantry robots at the Zhuhai Military Exhibition, but compared with Russia, China did not conduct actual combat to verify their reliability and lethality.

Foreign media even believe that the Russians' infantry robot technology was sold to them by China.

Every year at the Zhuhai Air Show, China always comes up with something new. But today, no matter what the Chinese do, foreign media are a little indifferent.

Their conclusion is that China is like a dragon guarding a treasure. When it doesn't fly out to hunt, it just sits on its treasure.

As for Da Mao, he is a pure trouble maker.

Back to Audi's self-driving robot, after the test drive, the blogger sat in the car and concluded:
“I can only say that the experience is very good. The entire ride is very smooth, and the sudden acceleration and deceleration are almost negligible.

To be honest, I think the price of this self-driving robot at 100 million RMB plus the fact that you get the latest Jetta model for free when you buy it is really a good deal.

The cost-effectiveness here does not refer to ordinary people. Ordinary people like us really can't use it. This robot is a bit too luxurious for ordinary people and ordinary families.

As for your idea of ​​using it to run Didi's luxury car, forget it, as Didi can't even save itself.

One million plus a luxury car would have to total at least 130 million. If it runs Didi luxury car itself, the revenue might only be four or five thousand yuan a month.

From the perspective of capital return rate, it is definitely much better than buying a house, and it also saves you a lot of worry.

But you can resell the house after ten years, can you guarantee that you can sell this robot after ten years?
At 60 yuan a month, that would be yuan in ten years, which is not even enough to cover the original investment.

But what I meant when I said earlier that this car is very cost-effective is that for companies that need to hire drivers, buying this thing is very cost-effective.

If you start a company and hire a driver, in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the annual cost of hiring a driver is at least 12, right? But if you hire a robot, the annual maintenance cost is no more than , and the cost of electricity is no more than .

It will definitely be very prestigious to use it to pick up and drop off business partners.

Maybe you had to prepare an S-Class Mercedes-Benz for pick-up and drop-off in the company before, but now you only need to prepare an autonomous driving robot and a Jetta that comes with it. Guests will also think you are very trendy and fashionable, and at the forefront of technology.

This is even more true for foreign companies. When Guangjia Aerospace's HBM robot drove a Jetta around the streets, many foreign self-media spent huge amounts of money to experience it. Now foreign companies have the same experience themselves and use it to entertain guests from their foreign headquarters. "

The first generation of self-driving robots is priced at one million, which is not expensive, especially for enterprises.

There are indeed few individual customers, but the main target is corporate users.

In the comments of this video, people are discussing another issue:
"Why do I feel that it is quite cost-effective for official receptions? The leader has to be equipped with a car and a driver, and the driver has to be replaced by his own confidant. Now there is no need for so much trouble, just a robot driver will do.

There is no need to change the leader or the driver, the driver just follows the leader.”

"Yes, and drivers can say the wrong things, do the wrong things, and be at risk of being hacked, but robots don't. You can't give Maozi Huazi to robots, right?"

"Audi's self-driving robot is not good. If it is replaced by a domestic brand's self-driving robot, it may really encourage people to buy it.

If not encouraging them publicly, at least encourage them privately.”

"I think what the blogger said makes sense. Self-driving robots are somewhat useless if used at the household or individual level, as there are very few families that have such a demand.

But for enterprises, maybe a small enterprise with 30 or 40 people, as long as there is business reception, there is a demand. I can't always call Didi to entertain customers, right? Hiring a driver is also a cost, it is better to buy an autonomous driving robot.

Loyalty alone is the greatest benefit."

“I think what the blogger said makes sense, but there is still a risk, that is, what if it is hacked? After all, it is a robot, what if it is hacked?
Loyalty, which was originally the biggest advantage, has become the biggest disadvantage, and even safety may become a problem. If this problem is not solved, it will be difficult to open up the market.

I think Audi should at least purchase the highest level of cybersecurity services from cutting-edge technology to reassure the outside world.”

This prompted Audi to urgently issue a statement, saying that the HBM robot can choose not to be connected to the Internet, and that not being connected to the Internet will not affect its L4 level of autonomous driving, and there is no possibility of it being hacked.

In the first month after being launched on the market, sales of Audi's new models increased. The increase was limited, but much better than the previous half-dead state. The sales of the S1 robot gave the Volkswagen Group a shot in the arm, with monthly sales in China exceeding 10 and global sales exceeding 1000. It is expected that annual sales will reach the level of , which means annual revenue of billion RMB.

The GMV of a single product can exceed 100 billion, which is absolutely an amazing figure.

Even if it is just an expectation, it is enough to cause the market value of Volkswagen Group, which is listed in Frankfurt, to soar sharply, with a single-day increase of more than 20%.

29 points is considered a small increase. In 2021, Volkswagen only announced an electric vehicle expansion plan at a media communication meeting. It was just a plan, but the stock price rose by 29 points.

This also made Volkswagen realize that it was right for Lao Lao to cling to Guangjia Aerospace. Otherwise, it would take a long time for them to launch an autonomous driving robot based on their own research and development.

(End of this chapter)