My autobiography is definitely not a tragedy!
Chapter 701 - 437: The Rise of the Empire

Chapter 701: Chapter 437: The Rise of the Empire

"Hello! Isn’t this voice intelligent assistant a bit too fake?"

"Exactly, do they think we haven’t used Xiao Du, Xiao Ai, or Little Elf before?"

"It’s confirmed, this is definitely ’artificial’ intelligence."

"If they dare, let them call the customer service out!"

"Everyone, please understand that it’s just for the effect of the show. They prepared a few questions in advance to set the mood, that’s all. What’s the big deal?"

"A publicity stunt for sure. The one who went up must be a shill, right?"

Listening to the discussions of the crowd below, the journalist in the car rolled his eyes.

Was it a shill or not, didn’t he know himself?

Considering how it went just now, with almost no delay in response, it was hard to imagine it was a "manual customer service" at the back end fabricating answers on the spot and converting them into robot voice replies that fast.

It would take longer than this even just to type these words. It couldn’t be that the opponent was some sort of tentacle monster, could it?

This "Bajie"... was a bit uncanny...

Compared to the public’s attention which was quickly drawn by "Bajie," Xiao Peng and his two companions were looking rather solemn.

You laymen, you are obviously focusing on the wrong thing!

Price! The price is the key!

"How much did they just say? 6.98w?" Xiao Peng asked his companions with a constipated look on his face.

"Is there a mistake? Can they sell it at that price? Even using the worst materials, wouldn’t this price be selling at a loss?"

"The key is the autonomous driving equipment, that’s the main cost! Just one LIDAR costs fifty to sixty thousand!"

The three were utterly baffled, their faces a picture of bemusement.

If they still could make a gross profit with that price, how low would the total vehicle production cost have to be?

They couldn’t possibly be giving away the vehicle with the purchase of a LIDAR, could they?

"Uh... do you think... could they be following Tesla’s technical route?"

"How is that possible! Even we haven’t achieved that!"

It’s common knowledge that for vehicle autonomous driving, the mainstream technological approaches currently are camera vision, millimeter-wave radar, and LIDAR technologies.

Among these, LIDAR is the most expensive, while the cost of millimeter-wave radar is only about one-tenth of that of LIDAR, and pure vision is the cheapest.

Although future autonomous driving technology will definitely be "multi-sensor collaboration," as it stands now, the simpler the sensor, the lower the cost, the higher the requirements for algorithms and technology—this is an inescapable truth.

Tesla, precisely, bases its system on "no dependency on LIDAR," emphasizing that through algorithm optimization, they rely solely on cameras + millimeter-wave radar to achieve advanced assisted intelligent driving.

It does not need to know what the obstacles are specifically, only that they exist to carry out the next operation!

In terms of technical prowess, implementing L2 (Tesla level) autonomous driving with a vision-only scheme is extremely difficult, and many high-tech companies in China have tried without success.

For instance, Baidu, one of the earliest to start autonomous driving research, explored using a fusion approach of LIDAR + vision for many years until they began to explore pure vision technology in 2017.

It wasn’t that they thought pure vision would be better than the safety redundant approach of LIDAR, but purely due to the prohibitively high costs.

The motivation behind technological research is clear when comparing cameras that cost a few dozen yuan at 2 million pixels with LIDARs that cost tens of thousands of yuan apiece.

Meanwhile, the three new forces represented by Xiao Peng are currently using an entry-level solution of LIDAR + high precision maps. Therefore, the price of the cars they design could not possibly be below 15w.

However, with a selling price above 15w only capable of entry-level autonomous driving, there’s no competitive edge against traditional fuel vehicles; this is the current awkward situation faced by new energy vehicles with intelligent features.

Technology and cost are, in fact, the biggest reasons why Tesla has been able to dominate globally with the Mao Dou Series!

"Ha ha! It seems that everyone has some doubts about the theme of our launch today. Well then, let’s invite another guest to the stage to experience our ’talking car!’"

At this moment, Mr. Bao on the stage, facing the wave of doubt regarding shills from the audience, proactively suggested changing the guest.

"Here we go, shill number two is about to take the stage!"

"No matter how many times they act it out, it won’t become real!"

"Exactly, we can change the person, but this time Mr. Bao can’t pick the volunteer!"

"Right, who knows if it’ll be another actor?"

"Why not let me do it?"

The crowd was surprised as they looked towards the figure standing up in the front row.

It wasn’t anyone else; it was our Xiao Peng!

"Eh? Isn’t that Mr. He?"

"Right, I didn’t expect him to be here. And the two beside him... aren’t they Mr. Li?"

Mr. Bao naturally recognized the three seated in the front row early on—after all, there are only a few players in the new energy vehicle field, and everyone generally knows each other.

"Ha ha! If Mr. He is willing to come up as this experience guest, then there couldn’t be a better option.

Surely no one thinks Mr. He would be in cahoots with me, right?"

"Of course not! We absolutely trust Mr. He!"

Finally, a person of recognized status and credibility, who would never act as a shill, had stepped forward, and the journalists and guests naturally supported in unison.

"Thank you!"

Xiao Peng went on stage, thanked the audience, and took the microphone handed over by the previous "guest."

However, he didn’t immediately enter the driver’s seat; instead, he circled the "Holy Bean" twice...

"Two cameras, front and back, integrating ADAS warning system and in-vehicle and external driving recorders..."

After a careful examination, Xiao Peng’s expression became a bit twitchy.