Tesla will open the FSD patent, and the free one is the most expensive？

There is a free lunch in the world. Can you believe it?

Recently, Tesla CEO Musk said: "Tesla hopes to help other auto companies as much as possible … We are also very happy.License Autopilot /FSD or other Tesla technologies to companies in need.. "

As Tesla’s signature technology, FSD, if the patent is open, it is quite a pie in the sky for friends.

The spirit of "selfless dedication" also made domestic netizens shout: "Why can’t there be a person like Musk in China?"

However, don’t rush to worship, it’s not that simple behind Musk’s opening of FSD.Free may be the most expensive..

Tesla’s self-driving products can be divided into three categories: BAP (basic version of automatic assisted driving), EAP (enhanced version of automatic assisted driving) and FSD(Full Self-Driving Computer). Among them, FSD has the highest grade, and it needs to spend an extra 64 thousand yuan to choose and install.

It is worth noting that FSD is not really fully autonomous driving.

According to the classification of SAE (American Society of Automotive Engineers), there are 6 levels of autonomous driving, including L0-L5. According to this standard, FSD still belongs to L2 level.

Musk has repeatedly stressed that the FSD needs the driver to be ready to take over the vehicle at any time, and the steering wheel cannot be separated from his hands, so the FSD has not reached L3 level. But in fact, some functions of FSD have surpassed L3 and L4.

From the technical route, Tesla is a fan of the pure visual route. Since February 2022, millimeter-wave radar has been cancelled on all North American models.

Most mainstream car companies adopt multi-sensor fusion solutions, including "Wei Xiaoli", BYD and Volkswagen. The purely visual route is relatively small. In addition to Tesla, there are now manufacturers such as Toyota and Baidu Apollo to follow up.

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There are two main reasons why FSD is highly respected.

First, FSD is self-developed for Tesla. Tesla is the only OEM that automatically drives the whole stack and realizes mass production. From algorithms, hardware to chips, Tesla has absolute control over the core technologies.

Recently, Drive Pilot, a Mercedes-Benz L3-class system, was approved for commercial use in California, USA, but it uses NVIDIA Orin chip.

Second, FSD is the closest autopilot technology to mass production at present. As early as 2021, Tesla had already pushed the version of FSD Beta V9 (the beta version of FSD software) to 2,000 American users. As of the first quarter of this year, Tesla has400 thousandA car owner pushed FSD Beta, and the user has accumulated driving.190 millionMiles (approx.306 millionKilometers).

From the timeline, Tesla’s research on Autopilot assistance system can be traced back to September 2013. It has been nearly 10 years since Musk disclosed the research and development of Autopilot on Twitter.

As far as R&D cost and R&D results are concerned, car companies in the field of autonomous driving that have not yet entered the market or entered the market late are facing enormous challenges. At this time, Musk said that he wanted to open the FSD technology, just like leaving a big "pie".

On the bright side, Musk hopes to provide as much help as possible to other car companies, but he is still a businessman in the final analysis. It is probably not that simple to "help the world" at this key node that started in the second half of new energy vehicles.

In 2020, a serious crisis of mobile phone chips broke out in China. Under the sanctions of the United States, the chips of many enterprises in China cannot be mass-produced.

After September 2020, due to chip sanctions, SMIC’s required equipment was cut off, resulting in the failure to mass-produce the 14-nanometer chip orders received; In 2020, even if Huawei successfully developed the Kirin chip, it could not be mass-produced due to the lack of key equipment.

And this core equipment is EUV mask aligner, which can only be produced by ASML (Advanced Semiconductor Material Lithography, ASML) in the world.

However, in the research of mask aligner technology, China started very early. In 1965, China Academy of Sciences had developed the 65-type contact mask aligner, and ASML was not established until 1984.

However, at that time, the concept of "buying is not as good as renting" prevailed, and finally mask aligner and other sophisticated technologies were dismounted after the 1980s.

As a result, as you and I can see, in 2020, China’s mobile phone was strangled by the chip.

Fates are always strikingly similar, and the development of mask aligner has somehow advised domestic car companies to take a rational view of Musk’s opening of FSD.

FSD has become a "moat" recognized by Tesla in the field of intelligence, and autonomous driving is the general trend of automobile development, and it is definitely a battleground for all families.

For autonomous driving technology, car companies either develop their own or choose to cooperate with suppliers.

For new power brands that are not so big and have not delivered yet, driven by short-term interests, the development mentality of "self-research is not as good as rent" will be amplified to the extreme by FSD. The cost of choosing FSD is lower than that of self-research, and it can also superimpose Tesla’s influence buff, which seems to be a loss.

But if some enterprises really adopt this way, then the whole automobile industry in China may be taken care of by Tesla.

On the one hand, the disguised "price war" will probably change the R&D mentality of the industry. Even if it is not free, the probability of the authorized price of FSD will not be too high, and the automatic driving results invested by domestic car companies will gradually become worthless, so how many can continue to persist?

Under the vicious circle, will autonomous driving technology be exactly the same as mask aligner’s dismounting, and the whole industry in China will stagnate?

On the other hand, if a car company chooses FSD, it will be deeply adapted from the aspects of software and hardware, and any kind of materials, equipment and even accessories may be stuck. Once stuck, can your car be built?

On the other hand, even if it is not sanctioned, Tesla will wait until the technology fault of friends reaches a certain level before charging at a high price. Is there any way for car companies that have chosen FSD not to follow?

In the case that the basic R&D and the underlying facilities are not clear, adopting FSD is to lay a "thunder" for yourself in advance. Once dependence occurs, it is a matter of time before you get stuck.

So, don’t be afraid to walk slowly, at least we still have the opportunity to catch up.

However, we don’t need to sell ourselves short in autonomous driving.

Self-owned brands such as Tucki, SAIC Zhiji and Aouita have gradually realized "automatic driving" under our feet.

Tucki introduced the city NGP to users last year, and it was opened in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities. It can realize the functions of overtaking, changing lanes, merging/exporting roads and avoiding pedestrians in busy urban roads. However, the usage scenarios of Tesla FSD are almost all on the sparsely populated roads in North America, and the road conditions are far less complicated than those in China. Therefore, some usage effects of NGP in Tucki may be better than FSD.

In addition, the NCA of Aouita Expressway has been covered.259A city,300 thousandKm structured road, accumulated mileage has exceeded.1 millionKilometers; SAIC Zhiji has pushed the high-speed NOA function on L7, which will be opened in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Huzhou and other cities.

Companies such as Baidu Apollo and Didi Autopilot are also promoting the process of China’s autonomous driving industry. Baidu’s "Radish Run" unmanned self-driving vehicle has been operating in Yongchuan, Chongqing; Dongfeng enjoys the Sharing-VAN "Spring Bamboo Shoots" driverless bus running in Wuhan; Didi has achieved mixed delivery in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and users can call a car on the APP to experience Didi’s autopilot service …

For autonomous driving, Chen Hong, chairman of SAIC, said: "SAIC cannot accept the cooperation of third-party companies in autonomous driving, and SAIC should take its soul into its own hands."

This is not only the soul, but also the confidence to walk independently and resist foreign technological hegemony.

We can’t make autonomous driving the next mask aligner, do you think?