On September 22, IIA learned from Li Auto that the automaker signed a tripartite strategic cooperation agreement in Beijing with the world's leading artificial intelligence computing company NVIDIA and NVIDIA's China partner Desay SV. Li Auto will be the first to use the most powerful product in the NVIDIA Orin system-on-chip in the full-size extended-range smartSUV launched in 2022. And this also means that Li Auto will strengthen its independent research and development capabilities and make full efforts in the field of autonomous driving.

The NVIDIA Orin autopilot chip selected by Li Auto was released in 2019 and is expected to be officially mass-produced in 2022. Orin uses a 7nm production process to achieve 200TOPS computing performance per second, which is 7 times faster than the previous generation Xavier system-on-chip computing performance. With a huge increase in computing performance, Orin's power consumption is only 45 watts, which is consistent with the previous generation.

In addition, Li Auto will provide end users with an upgradeable solution. The standard single-chip Orin can have 200TOPS computing power and can provide Level 2+ advanced driving assistance functions. After upgrading to dual-chip Orin, the computing power reaches 400TOPS, which can provide Level 4 autonomous driving scheme. In the future, the use of dGPU can further expand the computing power, theoretically up to 2000TOPS, and reserve sufficient hardware capabilities to realize Level 5 autonomous driving.

Wang Kai, Chief Technology Officer of Li Auto, said: “As one of the leading companies in the new power of car manufacturing, Li Auto will invest more R&D resources in the field of autonomous driving. Auto has a good hardware foundation, and through in-depth cooperation with NVIDIA and Desay SV, it will help Li Auto to develop faster in the field of autonomous driving."

Zhang Jianzhong, NVIDIA's global vice president and general manager of China, said that the time of Orin chip SOP will be synchronized with Li Auto, and the final time will be earlier than previously estimated. Li Auto will become the first car company to launch Orin. According to reports, the second model of Li Auto is positioned as a full-size SUV, which is expected to be released in 2022.

Desay SV, as a leading supplier of autonomous driving in China, will provide Li Auto with an autonomous driving domain controller with excellent performance based on the powerful computing power of Orin system-level chips. Li Auto will independently complete all autonomous driving on this basis. It has become the first domestic new energy vehicle company that can fully and independently develop Level 4 autonomous driving systems.

The assisted driving chip used by Li Auto ONE currently on sale is Mobileye EyeQ4, and the assisted driving software is jointly developed by Li Auto and Yihang Intelligent. Regarding why the NVIDIA Orin chip should be installed in the next model, Wang Kai explained that before working with Mobileye, the perception algorithms for driving assistance came from Mobileye. Although this system is relatively mature but not sufficiently open, and the proportion of Li Auto's own participation in it is limited, the development pattern of future autonomous driving systems will be restricted.

In fact, Li Auto has expressed similar views before. In June this year, Li Auto announced that because traditional Tier 1 suppliers may not be able to meet the company’s future technological development needs, the company will conduct independent research and development on autonomous driving, computing power platforms and smart cockpits. . The cooperation with NVIDIA and Desay SV undoubtedly demonstrates Li Auto's determination to fully develop autonomous driving.

After Li Auto cooperates with NVIDIA and Desay SV, the layout of the autonomous driving part will be more open, and the three parties will also achieve a win-win situation through friendly cooperation. In this sense, NVIDIA chips, Desay SV autopilot domain controllers, plus Li Auto’s self-developed autopilot software (including perception and other subdivisions) will form a relatively complete technical closed loop to achieve faster Iterate to improve user experience.

In terms of autonomous driving research and development, Wang Kai introduced that the development direction of Li Auto’s next car is based on the Orin-based development platform, with expansion ports reserved to allow the vehicle’s life cycle to be longer. Upgrade to L4 autonomous driving. In terms of autonomous driving software, Li Auto's next plan is to achieve NOA, and then to achieve more L3 application scenarios, and hope to achieve L4 by 2025. But Wang Kai also said that Li Auto pays more attention to user experience than the level of autonomous driving, so the entire development should be a matter of course, a gradual technological revolution.

In recent years, car companies, Internet companies, and autonomous driving suppliers have cooperated more and more closely. For forward-looking technologies such as autonomous driving, the trial and error costs of leading companies are very high. If multiple companies cooperate to advance, they can share Risks promote technological progress.

For Li Auto, this cooperation also means that the pace of independent research and development of autonomous driving software has officially taken. With the core algorithm in hand, Li Auto will also take the initiative in the future autonomous driving battlefield.