Original title: Weilai cars frequently fall into safety storms, L2 autonomous driving exposes cognitive defects in recognition
Our reporter Gong Mengze
Within half a month, Weilai had two consecutive fatal accidents involving the auto-driving function of vehicles.
According to an obituary, at 2 pm on August 12, 2021, Lin Wenqin, founder of Shangshan Ruoshui Investment Management Co., Ltd., founder of Yitong Tianxia Catering Management Co., Ltd., and founder of Meiyihao Brand Management Co., drove a Weilai ES8 car to enable autonomous driving. (NOP pilot status) After that, a traffic accident occurred in the Hanjiang section of Shenhai Expressway and unfortunately passed away at the age of 31.
And half a month before the accident, on July 30, Weilai also had a serious car owner fatal accident. At about 5 o’clock in the morning that day, a black Weilai EC6 was on Lingang Avenue in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. After hitting the isolation stone pier, the vehicle ignited a raging fire, and the owner of the vehicle was unfortunately killed.
Different from the fire-causing accident, the public opinion of the Lin Wenqin accident directly focused on “autonomous driving” and referred to the case as the “first case of autonomous driving” of the new car-building forces. Although Weilai clearly stated that “NOP is not autonomous driving, this is a traffic accident and is waiting for the traffic police to investigate.” In any case, two consecutive accidents pushed Weilai into an unprecedented crisis.
At present, when Tesla, Xiaopeng, Weilai and other major new energy vehicle manufacturers launch advanced assisted driving functions, they clearly require drivers not to leave the steering wheel with their hands, and take over the steering wheel at any time depending on the actual road conditions. Sina Finance columnist Lin Shi said that the accident once again sounded the alarm for the use of autonomous driving systems. On the one hand, car companies should not over-promote the capabilities of autonomous driving to consumers; on the other hand, they also require vehicle users to pay attention to the road conditions in real time when turning on advanced assisted driving functions and be responsible for their personal and property safety.
Weilai cars frequently fall into safety storms
Two consecutive accidents occurred within half a month
Regarding the cause of the fire in the accident car on July 30, many netizens pointed the finger at the battery pack. Up to now, half a month has passed since the accident, and there is still no qualitative accident investigation report released.
No. Just half a month later, on August 12, Weilai user Lin Wenqin drove a vehicle on the Hanjiang section of the Shenhai Expressway and was unfortunately killed in a traffic accident. Regarding the accident, Zhang Bo, general manager of the NIO Xiamen regional company, confirmed the incident in the NIO community, but Zhang Bo did not announce more details of the accident, nor did he mention whether the NOP pilot function was enabled when the accident occurred. He only called NIO. It is cooperating with the local traffic police and other relevant departments to investigate the accident, and will assist the user’s family in the aftermath.
A person familiar with the matter said that at the time of the incident, the Weilai ES8 driven by Lin Wenqin was indeed in the NOP state. “This is a confirmation from the staff of Weilai. The reason for emphasizing this point in the obituary is to remind riders to use the NOP navigation function carefully.”
According to the “Securities Daily” reporter, Lin Wenqin rear-ended the engineering vehicle in front of him after turning on the NOP piloting function. The vehicle was seriously damaged due to the fast speed on the highway. The front right of the ES8 was severely damaged, the right front fender directly hit the cockpit, and a large area of the vehicle’s engine cover was lifted. The A-pillar of the vehicle is no longer visible, the roof is also trapped in the car, the driver’s door is deformed seriously, and the two front wheels are damaged.
Judging from the degree of damage to the vehicle in the published photos, the speed of the vehicle should not be slow when a rear-end collision occurs. The reporter noticed that Lin Wenqin’s Weilai App recorded the driving data of the accident car before the accident. The data showed that there were three driving records on that day. The last driving distance from the incident was 85 kilometers, which lasted 113 minutes, and the average speed was 45.1. Km/h, top speed is 114.6 km/h.
Among the above 85 kilometers of mileage, the mileage of the owner using NIO Pilot is 72 kilometers, accounting for 84.7% of the total mileage, and the driving time is 48 minutes; the mileage of the owner using the pilot assist function is 68 kilometers, accounting for 80% of the total mileage, and the driving time is 44 minutes. In addition, during the driving process before the incident, the person involved abruptly accelerated once without any rapid deceleration.
Regarding the above series of data, Qin Lihong, the co-founder of Weilai, said that the vehicle was seriously damaged and the technicians on the spot were limited in the first time. Weilai has arranged a professional team to go to Fujian. In response to the request of Weilai users to publish more information about the accident, Qin Lihong also responded, “We will not release any unilateral information until the conclusion of the investigation is reached.”
Expose forward slowly
Stationary object recognition problem
It is understood that the NIO pilot is an L2 automatic driving assistance system developed by Wei, equipped with the Mobileye Eye Q4 chip. Among them, the NOP pilot assist function is a new function launched by Weilai in 2020. After this function is turned on, the driver can hand over as much vehicle control authority as possible to the vehicle according to driving needs, and can automatically take over driving according to the navigation distance set by the vehicle.
In fact, the current NIO Pilot system of NIO cannot identify ice cream cones (roadblocks) and obstacles parked in front of them, such as animals, pedestrians, and motorcycles. According to Zhang Bo’s personal confirmation with the police handling the accident, the high-speed road administration vehicle that was rear-end collision was collecting ice cream cones, and the owner used the NOP pilot assist function. Therefore, the core cause of the accident should be the NOP system’s inability to respond to slow, stationary objects ahead. This is also a common problem faced by L2 autonomous driving systems at the current technological level.
“At present, the main sensor of most L2 autonomous driving solutions is a camera, and the auxiliary sensor is a millimeter wave radar. When monitoring obstacles in front, video imaging and obstacle echo are combined to make avoidance actions.” Lin Shi told reporters, But if there is a stationary or slow-moving vehicle ahead and it is close to the railing on the roadside, the radar will have a low angular resolution, and it will be difficult to distinguish whether the obstacle in front is a railing or a vehicle, and then filter the target. And Weilai is precisely the combination of camera + millimeter wave radar.
Lin Shi introduced that all current L2 assisted driving functions, including the adaptive cruise ACC of fuel vehicles, cannot effectively identify the stationary vehicle in front. This defect in recognition recognition can only be completely resolved with the upgrade of millimeter-wave radar or the replacement of lidar. The reporter observed that Tesla has been stubbornly rejecting the use of multi-sensor fusion solutions, but has continuously strengthened the visual recognition of the camera to replace the millimeter wave radar.
In addition to being limited by the capabilities of sensors, actual road conditions may also become an important reason for the “dementia” of automatic assisted driving. According to the “Securities Daily” reporter’s observation, in the past year, the Weilai ES8 has a total of three accidents on Shenhai Expressway, and the vehicles involved in two accidents have the NIO Pilot system turned on.
A Weilai car owner, who did not want to be named, revealed to reporters that he was driving on the Shenhai Expressway in Fujian Province all year round due to commuting reasons. The road section is “mostly hilly terrain, and there are particularly many up and down slopes. In addition, the setting of some road instructions and dashed and solid line facilities is unreasonable.” In summary, road ups and downs and unclear markings may have become one of the reasons for Weilai’s frequent accidents on Shenhai Expressway.
Talking about the division of responsibility for accidents that occur after the NOP pilot assist function is turned on, senior civil litigation lawyer Ma Xiang said in an interview with the “Securities Daily” reporter that the final cause of the accident and the responsibility for the traffic accident still need to wait for the traffic police department’s notice. In his view, the current L2 level of automatic assisted driving is clearly defined as assisted driving, which means that the driver acts as the absolute subject of driving functions and driving responsibilities, and the driver should be fully responsible for the accident.
As for the division of responsibilities between the driver and the expressway department, Ma Xiang said that it is necessary to find out whether the expressway department’s high-speed construction and pile bucket placement have fulfilled the necessary notification and reminder obligations, and whether it is implemented in accordance with the requirements and specifications. “The above-mentioned circumstances have yet to be concluded after the police’s investigation results.”
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