ChinaAutoInfo

NIO's digital architecture director, Huang Junjun, stated at the event that the intelligent evolution of electric vehicles will eventually follow the same path as smartphones, with 'smart hardware', 'operating systems', and 'algorithm applications' forming the vehicle's intelligent system together.

For electric vehicles to truly move towards 'intelligence', it is not only necessary to upgrade at the hardware level, or the 'mechanical' level, by introducing electronic and decouplable technologies such as 'wire-controlled chassis', but also to upgrade the underlying software.

On December 16th, on the eve of the official launch of the ET9, NIO continued to hold a launch event around some key capabilities of the car. The protagonist this time, 'digital architecture', is the big premise for achieving all high-end intelligent capabilities.

However, for most car consumers, 'digital architecture' is an unfamiliar concept, and its real value and the changes it can bring to the experience are not something that can be explained in a 'press conference'.

Perhaps we can focus on whether, with the support of 'digital architecture', NIO ET9 has become a 'more thorough' smart car?

'More Thorough' Intelligence

Compared to other new energy models, NIO ET9 has indeed done a 'more thorough' job in the aspect of intelligence.

The reason is that, with the addition of 'digital architecture', NIO ET9 has achieved comprehensive intelligence in both hardware (mechanical parts, characterized by wire-controlled chassis) and software.

Among them, 'digital architecture' is particularly important. At the same time, to enable 'smart electric vehicles' to exert all their strength, their 'digital architecture' needs to meet four basic capabilities.

1. Provide strong computing power;

2. Have ultra-high bandwidth to achieve extremely low latency;

3. Ultimate stability and reliability;

4. Have precise point-to-point energy management capabilities.

Regarding 'strong computing power', NIO ET9 has an extremely integrated central computing platform. NIO claims that based on the 'industry's most advanced' centralized integrated architecture, most of the car's decisions, including intelligent driving, intelligent cockpit, intelligent chassis, etc., can be made by this 'brain'.

However, NIO ET9 still retains front and rear area controllers, which will take over the car's sensors and actuators, and can also quickly call on the car's atomic capabilities. Huang Junjun introduced that the front and rear area controllers are equivalent to the human 'cerebellum', mainly responsible for 'instinctive', or 'nerve reflex' command execution.

On NIO ET9, the 'front and rear area controllers' mainly manage braking, steering, and some basic capabilities, which can improve the execution efficiency of basic driving commands and also play a role in safety redundancy.

NIO ET9's 'digital architecture' also has built-in high-speed redundant communication networks, dual redundant low-voltage power supplies, and other features to meet the above-mentioned 'high bandwidth low latency', 'ultimate stability', 'precise energy management' needs.

Among them, the internal communication network of NIO ET9 can achieve a clock synchronization performance of 'nanoseconds level 0 packet loss' - in other words, from the central computing unit issuing commands to each component receiving commands, the time is at the nanosecond level, and there will be no signal packet loss.

The 'dual redundant low-voltage power supply' is likened to 'blood circulation', and its reliability is 50 times higher than the traditional single power supply design, and all electrical loads can be controlled electronically; like Cybertruck, NIO ET9 has introduced a 48V power supply system for high-power loads, making the power supply system safer.

Plus the 'super sensing system' composed of 31 sensors and the vehicle operating system 'SkyOS·Tian Shu' built on the 'digital architecture', NIO said that ET9 has taken the lead in entering the 'smart electric vehicle' category, forming a clear distinction from traditional cars.

Intelligence 'Leader'?

The emergence of a 'more thorough smart car' in the market is not about 'promoting popularity' - just as the iPhone is not the hero of promoting the popularity of smartphones.

Now it seems that if NIO ET9 can really occupy an ecological position like 'the iPhone in cars', its real value is still in the reference of products and experiences.

For example, NIO ET9's vehicle capabilities can be upgraded and iterated, have a high degree of customization, and have stronger safety redundancy... These capabilities can only be achieved under the framework of 'thorough intelligence'.

Compared with conventional fuel vehicles and first-generation new energy vehicles, they are like 'feature phones compared to smartphones', and it is difficult to provide similar experiences due to the difference in underlying logic.

Although in the short term, due to cost and other factors, some 'smart experiences' on NIO ET9 are still relatively far from the mass consumer. However, the high-end experience established by this series of 'smart cars' is believed to promote the experience innovation of new energy vehicles to a certain extent.

Li Bin said that 'Fireflies' will also be equipped with the 'SkyOS·Tian Shu' vehicle operating system in the future. Although the lack of high-end configurations such as 'wire-controlled chassis' and 'digital architecture' makes it difficult for the vehicle operating system to 'perform fully', it is enough to make people look forward to whether there will be some high-end functions to be downgraded, making 'Fireflies' refreshing in experience.

NIO ET9 does not have to become the 'iPhone', it just needs to force traditional fuel vehicles/new energy vehicles to evolve towards 'intelligence' like the iPhone.