"Car News Weekly": New National Regulations for Pre-installed CMS Released; Zeekr 009's First Batch of Mass-Produced Vehicles Rolls Off the Assembly Line; Honda and Sony Unveil the Afeela Brand.
The National Standards Information Public Service Platform is helping kick off 2023 as the inaugural year for CMS mass production. Meanwhile, Honda and Sony have unveiled their Afeela brand, with the first prototype vehicle debuting at CES. Additionally, Zeekr’s first batch of mass-produced 009 models has rolled off the assembly line and is set to begin official deliveries soon.
Car News Weekly
Smart Driving-Related Information
▶ Introduction
Hot Topic This Issue:
1. Week 1 of January: Passenger Vehicle Sales
2. Honda and Sony launch the Afeela brand, unveiling their first prototype vehicle at CES.
3. Mercedes Receives Level 3 Autonomous Driving Approval in the U.S.
1. Ambarella: Unveils the New CV3-AD685, Expanding the CV3 Automotive AI Domain Controller
2. Baidu Unveils UniBEV, Its Autonomous Driving Vehicle-Road Integration Solution
This issue's keywords: Industry New Regulations, Automaker Updates, Autonomous Driving
PART.1 Industry New Regulations
1. The National Standards Information Public Service Platform Fuels the Launch of 2023 as CMS Mass Production's Inaugural Year
Recently, according to information released by the National Standards Information Public Service Platform, the new national standard GB15084-2022, "Performance and Installation Requirements for Indirect Vision Devices in Motor Vehicles," was published on December 29, 2022, and officially came into effect on July 1, 2023. This means that new vehicle models equipped with CMS will now be permitted to enter the market, officially opening the door to the pre-installed CMS market.
PART.2 Factory Updates
1. Week 1 of January: Passenger Vehicle Sales
In the first full week of January 2023, the automotive market recorded total new car sales of 290,900 units, averaging 41,500 units per day. This figure represented a 52.25% decrease compared to the last week of 2022. Meanwhile, new energy vehicle sales for the first week of January 2023 reached 77,000 units, with an average daily sales volume of 11,000 units—down 50.26% from the final week of December.
New energy pure-electric vehicle sales reached 44,300 units, averaging 6,300 units per day. This represents a week-on-week decline of 58.25% and an 11.3% drop compared to the same period last month. Meanwhile, plug-in hybrid vehicle sales totaled 26,500 units, with range-extended models accounting for 6,200 units.
2. Honda and Sony launch the Afeela brand, unveiling their first prototype vehicle at CES.
After Sony and Honda, two industrial giants, announced the establishment of a joint venture to jointly develop cars, they unveiled the name of their new electric vehicle brand—Afeela—at CES in North America, along with debuting a prototype vehicle for the first time.
Featuring a sleek, minimalist design with graceful curves, the vehicle boasts a prominent fastback silhouette, eliminates door handles entirely, incorporates camera-based rearview mirrors, and is equipped with 21-inch low-drag wheels.
The "media light bar" at the front of the car is also a standout feature—it’s inherently interactive, allowing it to engage with both people and the vehicle itself, while displaying everything from Afeela’s name to animated visuals depicting the weather.
3. Mercedes Receives Level 3 Autonomous Driving Approval in the U.S.
On January 7, Mercedes-Benz announced that the company has received approval from U.S. regulators to operate its Level 3 autonomous driving feature on Nevada’s roads.
According to SAE International, Level 3 automation allows vehicles to drive autonomously under limited conditions. When this occurs, drivers can take their eyes off the road, and the person seated in the driver’s seat is no longer considered to be "driving."
Mercedes' Drive Pilot system uses radar, LiDAR, cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and humidity sensors to provide the onboard computer with real-time road condition data. Additionally, the system can instantly request the driver to take back control of the vehicle—this is also a prerequisite for Level 3 automated driving.
Additionally, Mercedes-Benz announced that the Drive Pilot’s automatic lane-changing feature will also be launched in North America in 2023. This system allows vehicles to change lanes while cruise control is active.
4. Zeekr 009's first batch of mass-produced vehicles rolls off the assembly line and will soon begin official deliveries.
On January 8, the first batch of mass-produced vehicles for Zeekr's second model—ZEEKR 009—officially rolled off the production line at Zeekr's smart factory in Ningbo Hangzhou Bay, with deliveries set to begin soon.
The ZEEKR 009 was launched on November 1 last year, with a price ranging from 499,000 to 588,000 yuan. Built on the SEA Intelligent Evolution Architecture, it positions itself as a pure-electric, luxury, mid-to-large-sized MPV. In terms of advanced driver-assistance systems hardware, the entire lineup comes standard with seven 8-megapixel cameras, four 2-megapixel surround-view cameras, one 250-meter millimeter-wave radar, and 12 ultrasonic radars—paired with two Mobileye EyeQ SH chips manufactured using 7nm process technology, enabling advanced navigation-assisted driving features.
In 2022, Zeekr delivered a total of 71,941 units of the ZEEKR 001 model, surpassing its annual delivery target, with cumulative deliveries reaching 77,948 vehicles to date.
PART 3. Industry Chain Information
1. Ambarella: Unveils the New CV3-AD685, Expanding the CV3 Automotive AI Domain Controller Series
Recently, Ambarella launched the first mass-produced version of its CV3 series automotive AI domain controller—CV3-AD685—primarily designed for L2+ to L4 autonomous vehicles. Compared to the previous-generation CV2 SoC, the next-gen CVflow® AI engine delivers neural network processing speeds that are 20 times faster and includes advanced general-purpose vector processing capabilities. This enables the CV3-AD685 to deliver the comprehensive performance required for a full-stack autonomous driving solution, seamlessly integrating computer vision, high-definition radar, sensor fusion, and motion planning.
Additionally, it integrates advanced image processing, a dense stereo and optical flow engine, Arm® Cortex® A78AE and R52 CPUs, an automotive GPU for visualization, and a hardware security module (HSM). The CV3-AD685 also introduces new radar processing capabilities, enabling unique, single-chip centralized handling of raw video and 4D imaging radar data.
2. Baidu Unveils UniBEV, Its Autonomous Driving Vehicle-Road Integration Solution
Baidu announced that the Baidu Create Conference (also known as the Baidu AI Developer Conference) will be held on January 10. Baidu showcased its autonomous driving vehicle-road integration solution, UniBEV.
Building on the BEV framework, Baidu has introduced UniBEV, an integrated vehicle-road collaboration solution. It combines tasks such as online map building using multiple in-vehicle cameras and sensors, dynamic obstacle detection, and multi-sensor fusion across multiple intersections from the roadside perspective—making it the industry’s first end-to-end perception solution for vehicle-road integration.
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