Chedongxi
文?|?六毛
In recent years, the automobile and travel industries are ushering in waves of new technological changes. Smart electric cars, self-driving cars, and even new travel technologies such as flying cars and hyperloop are constantly emerging, and human transportation methods are about to undergo major changes.
On the surface, black technology travel methods such as autonomous driving and flying cars seem to be far away from mass production applications. But in fact, countries in the Middle East, represented by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and other countries, are working hard to introduce these technologies into practical applications.
In December last year, the Middle Eastern country Qatar and the Volkswagen Group signed a cooperation agreement called "Porject? Qatar Mobility". By 2022, Qatar will join forces with the Volkswagen Group to deploy ID.BUZZ self-driving shuttles and high-tech buses produced by Scania in the country.
But in fact, this is not the first time that autonomous driving technology has been introduced in the Middle East. At the end of 2017, the autonomous patrol vehicle OR-3 joined the Dubai Police Force and began performing patrol missions.
Domestic aircraft company EHang’s flying cars have also conducted many test flights in the Middle East, while Virgin Hyperloop and HTT, two active players in the hyperloop field, have signed research and development and deployment contracts with Middle Eastern countries respectively. protocol.
As for the Dubai Police Force, which has always been not short of money, it not only followed the trend and announced that it would add Tesla's electric pickup truck Cybertruck to its fleet, it also considered using flying motorcycles to perform tasks early on.
And Israel, driven by companies such as Mobileye, has become a world-renowned research and development center for autonomous driving technology.
To a certain extent, it can be said that no matter which travel black technology it is, you can see it in the Middle East. The Middle East is also using its extremely open attitude and abundant financial reserves to help major companies around the world verify their own travel black technologies.
1. Autonomous driving enters the Middle East? Unmanned vehicles will act as police
If you plan to go to Qatar to watch the World Cup in 2022, congratulations, you will also have the opportunity to see people working The ID.BUZZ self-driving shuttle bus and the high-tech bus produced by Volkswagen Group Scania (although the Volkswagen Group has not yet disclosed the extent of "high-tech").
But in fact, before Qatar signed this agreement, the Middle East had already been associated with autonomous driving technology.
If all goes well, in 2017, the self-driving car OR-3 from a Singaporean startup—a mini patrol car about the size of a children’s toy car—has become a part of the Dubai Police Force. a member of.
1. Volkswagen’s self-driving shuttle is about to debut? The time is scheduled for the 2022 World Cup
▲ID.BUZZ concept car
In December 2019, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) CEO Mansoor AI-Mahmoud and Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess signed a project called "Qatar Mobility Project" (Project Qatar Mobility) in Doha, the capital of Qatar. cooperation agreement.
According to the agreement, the Qatar Investment Authority will work with the Volkswagen Group to achieve the goal of integrating self-driving fleets into Doha’s existing public transportation network, including providing services for the operation of self-driving cars. Prepare the required infrastructure.
▲The CEO of Volkswagen Group signed a cooperation agreement with the CEO of Qatar Investment Authority
They will deploy 35 self-driving electric vehicles ID.BUZZ. These self-driving shuttles will be deployed in half of the West Bay area. Driving on fixed routes, each ID.BUZZ can pick up and drop off up to 4 passengers.
In addition, 10 high-tech Scania buses will provide pick-up and drop-off services for more passengers.
These self-driving shuttles and buses will start closed testing next year, and ride effect testing will begin as early as 2021. By the end of 2022, during the World Cup, shuttle buses and buses will be put into use.
Although the driving route of the ID.BUZZ self-driving shuttle has not yet been finalized, which means it is not yet clear whether passengers can actually experience this travel service when traveling to and from World Cup venues, but by then Everyone who wants to go to the World Cup can still look forward to it.
In fact, since the Qatar Investment Authority, a global investment institution, is actually Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the implementation of this autonomous driving project can be regarded as having official support.
According to official information, the origins of the Qatar Investment Authority can be traced back to the establishment of the Supreme Council for the investment of State Reserves in 2000.
In 2005, the Qatar Investment Authority was formally established and began investment business in 2006. Now, the main goal of the Qatar Investment Authority is to consider how to use the funds allocated to it by the government of the State of Qatar to "create long-term value for the country and future generations."
2. Dubai Police deploys autonomous driving patrols The car also has drones as assistants
▲OR-3 (Source: Engadget)
The self-driving shuttle bus that will be unveiled at the World Cup is not the first time that self-driving technology has been introduced in the Middle East.
In 2017, after learning about the O-R3 mini self-driving car from OTSAW through the media, the Dubai Police proactively contacted the company.
According to Lianhe Zaobao, the two parties signed a cooperation agreement about a month after the negotiations.
▲OR-3
The Dubai Police asked Baoke Digital to order the self-driving car O-R3 produced by the company. This is a mini unmanned patrol car, the size of A children's toy car.
OR-3 uses navigation technology based on patented 3D? SLAM, has a 360° computer vision field of view, and is equipped with a variety of sensors including high-definition cameras, which can capture, record and process a large amount of information.
▲OR-3 police car introduction video, note that it can alarm in real time
What’s more interesting is that this mini patrol car is also equipped with its own drone partner, the drone Ability to identify intruders and subsequently track their location.
According to Baoke Digital, the Dubai Police hopes to reduce the number of police officers patrolling the streets by 25 by 2030, and seeking cooperation from Baoke Digital is one of the ways for the Dubai Police to achieve this goal. one.
According to the plan, OR-3 will start its patrol work in Dubai at the end of that year.
In addition, according to media reports, by the end of 2020, the Dubai Police plans to rent 100 OR-3s to patrol the streets of Dubai.
2. The Dubai Police Force will purchase a new Tesla Mars pickup truck
The previous Dubai Police Force was famous for owning luxury cars, and the future Dubai Police Force is likely to be... Get a Tesla Cybertruck and become the most fashionable police force.
I believe that people who have never dealt with the Dubai Police or have never been to Dubai have also heard the legends about the Dubai Police Force that are circulating in the world:
Become a police officer in Dubai ≈Driving a luxury car.
▲Lamborghini of Dubai Police (picture source: Gulf? News)
According to foreign media Motor?Biscuit, there are currently at least 10 supercars in the Dubai Police fleet: Brabus G700, two Audi R8 V10, McLaren MP4-12C, Nissan GT-R, Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG, Bugatti Veyron, Aston Martin One-77, Lamborghini Aventador, Ferrari FF, BMW i8.
▲Dubai Police’s McLaren
▲Dubai Police’s Bugatti Veyron
Although on the other hand, some people have said that they believe that the Dubai Police’s fleet Most of the luxury cars mainly play the role of supporting the appearance, because these cars are mainly arranged to be used as patrol cars in tourist attractions. At the same time, Toyota Prado, Runner and other models are also common models in the Dubai Police Force.
But "rich" has indeed become synonymous with the Dubai Police, and now, the Dubai Police has become synonymous with "fashionable".
On November 21, 2019, U.S. time, Tesla’s electric pickup truck Cybertruck, which has been planned for 7 years, was officially unveiled in Los Angeles, USA.
Although from the outside, the Cybertruck without the rearview mirror is almost not reminiscent of a traditional pickup truck.
▲Tesla Cybertruck will join the Dubai Police fleet
But obviously, the Dubai Police does not mind this.
Less than a week after the release of Cybertruck, the Dubai Police posted a picture of a Tesla electric pickup truck on Twitter. In the picture, the Cybertruck has "put on" the green uniform of the Dubai Police Force.
Dubai Police Major Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri revealed in an interview with Arabian Business that Tesla electric pickup trucks will be used as patrol vehicles in areas with many tourists in the future.
3. Is it a big goal to reach heaven? Flying cars/motorcycles have been tested many times
Both flying motorcycles and flying cars are typical representatives of automotive black technology. The current method of air travel Not only is it facing considerable controversy, but from the perspective of the technology itself, it is still at a stage that requires demonstration.
But even so, regardless of whether it is a flying motorcycle or a flying car, Dubai’s decision is still: no one will refuse.
1. The first batch of flying motorcycles has been delivered to the Dubai Police
According to CNN, California startup Hoversurf has delivered its first flying motorcycle to the Dubai Police through an agreement signed in 2017. The mass-produced flying motorcycle S3? 2019? Hoverbike.
At that time, Brigadier Khalid Nasser Alrazooqi, Director General of the AI ??Department of Dubai Police, once described such vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) as the first to arrive in difficult areas. He said that he would plan Let these flying motorcycles be officially put into use in 2020.
▲A flying motorcycle that was tested in Dubai (Source: CNN)
However, in the eyes of some people, the technology of flying motorcycles is not mature enough yet.
Chris Monti, author of foreign media Drone DJ, believes that flying motorcycles are a terrible idea in themselves.
Chris Monti said that although the production version of the flying motorcycle is 10 times quieter than the prototype, it is still very loud, and the flying motorcycle will also roll up objects on the ground when it takes off.
In addition, the maximum speed of the Hoverbike is about 96 kilometers per hour, which is nothing compared to the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ’s top speed of 351 kilometers per hour.
Tim Robinson, editor-in-chief of the magazine Aerospace, has expressed a similar view. He believes that the flight time of this electric flying motorcycle with vertical take-off and landing design will be limited by current battery technology.
In this regard, both the Dubai Police and Hoversurf, which provides flying motorcycles, have stated that they are overcoming these difficulties by developing battery technology or more efficient propulsion systems.
But no matter what, it would be exciting if one day we could see police officers flying flying motorcycles on duty.
2. EHang’s flying cars have completed multiple test flights in the Middle East
In 2014, Sheikh Mohammed, the Chief of the Emirate of Dubai, launched a project aimed at transforming Dubai into a “smart city” (Smart? City) plan, Dubai’s exploration in the direction of smart transportation and smart travel also started.
Now, flying cars - a car technology that sounds more like it will be implemented in the future - have also found room for growth in Dubai.
The flying car EHang 184 of the domestic autonomous aircraft company EHang caused quite a stir at the 2016 CES show. However, at the same time, the EHang 184 also encountered many doubts from the industry. .
In this case, Dubai extended an olive branch to EHang 184.
In 2017, EHang participated in the 5th World Government Summit held in Dubai, and subsequently announced that it had established a partnership with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) during the conference.
The two parties plan to work together to integrate the flying car EHang 184 into Dubai’s smart city transportation system.
At that time, according to Mattar AI Tayer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dubai Roads and Transport Authority, EHang 184 had conducted several test flights at the airport designated by the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and completed A number of adaptive aviation flight test projects have been carried out.
▲EHang 184 test flight
However, at present, this plan seems to have stalled.
At the same time, the German flying car company Volocopter signed an agreement with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in June 2017.
The two parties decided to conduct regular testing of flying taxis in the Emirate of Dubai. According to the plan, the testing will start in the fourth quarter of 2017, and the test plan is expected to run for 5 years.
On the other hand, on September 28, 2019, EHang successfully completed a test flight of EHang 216 at the Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar during the 5G Summit jointly organized with Qatar Telecom and Huawei.
Although there is no news about EHang and Qatar deploying flying cars, given Qatar’s love for travel black technologies such as autonomous driving, we do not rule out that we will see this in Qatar one day. New means of transportation.
4. Dubai and Saudi Arabia signed contracts for hyperloop? Core players gathered in the Middle East
Two active players in the field of hyperloop: Virgin Hyperloop and HTT? Both are popular in the Middle East. Welcome. Among them, Virgin Hyperloop has signed agreements with two Middle Eastern countries to develop hyperloop.
In 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk published an article about Hyperloop on his SpaceX company’s website, and followed the article with the title "Hyperloop" "Alpha" hyperloop planning and design document.
Musk said he was disappointed with the "high-speed rail" project that was underway in California, USA, because the project was expensive and slow.
In his view, hyperloop and similar things are the best solutions for inter-city commuting within 1,500 kilometers.
▲Hand-drawn sketch of the hyperloop in Hyperloop? Alpha
According to the original idea, the hyperloop will be such a travel tool:
1. Different from airplanes , trains, cars, ships,? Hyperloop belongs to the fifth new type of transportation.
2. The hyperloop consists of a low-pressure pipeline with a built-in transport cabin (i.e. "capsule"). The transport cabin will travel at high or low speed within the pipeline.
3. Hyperloop can shorten the one-way time from San Francisco to Los Angeles to 35 minutes (it takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to fly between the two places, which is simply too long compared to the hyperloop) .
4. Each transportation pipeline transports an average of 7.4 million passengers per year, and the total cost of the hyperloop will be within US$6 billion (approximately RMB 41.79 billion).
The new idea of ????Silicon Valley Iron Man quickly detonated the Internet. In fact, although the design of vacuum tube transportation was not pioneered by Musk, some startups currently active in this field such as Virgin Hyperloop ( Virgin? Hyperloop? One) and HTT (Hyperloop? Transportation? Technologies) generally regard Musk as a close friend.
Now, these two active players in the field of hyperloop are deployed in the Middle East.
In 2016, the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with the two-year-old Virgin Hyperloop. Dubai RTA agreed to evaluate the construction of a hyperloop between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. .
It is said that after the opening of this traffic route, the more than 90-minute journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi will be directly shortened to 12 minutes.
In addition, in order to obtain a positive impact on the economy and employment, Saudi Arabia also decided to explore this new travel technology.
According to the agreement signed between the Saudi Economic City Authority and Virgin Hyperloop, the two parties plan to build a 35-kilometer-long hyperloop testing and certification track in Saudi Arabia. It is said that this was the The longest hyperloop test track.
HTT is another company that is very active in researching hyperloop. Before the Virgin Hyperloop was renamed, some people would still confuse the two companies.
According to media sources, HTT used passive magnetic levitation technology when studying the hyperloop.
At the same time, according to the introduction of the company's founder Dirk Ahlborn, HTT has developed a smart material - a vibrator with the same name as Captain America's shield - in response to problems with track, car body structure and pipe materials. Gold (Vibranium).
In December 2016, the Abu Dhabi Ministry of Transport and HTT signed a cooperation agreement on the development of hyperloop. According to CNBC, Dirk Ahlborn said in 2018 that the company was planning to build a 10-kilometer hyperloop track in several phases near the 2020 Expo site and Maktoum International Airport.
At the time, Dirk Ahlborn said he hoped that with the support of local regulatory authorities, the first part of the track could be put into use before the 2020 World Expo.
The 2020 World Expo will open in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in October this year, which means that before self-driving cars, we may be the first to see the hyperloop in the Middle East. In other words, whether HTT can complete its plan as expected, the answer may be revealed soon.
5. Israel - the emerging automotive Silicon Valley
The Middle East is like a fan chasing stars, except that the stars it chases are many emerging automotive technologies, from autonomous driving to , flying cars to hyperloop, the Middle East has not missed any of the most cutting-edge automobile and travel technologies.
However, this is only one aspect of the Middle East.
Another aspect seems to be more well-known, that is, the Middle Eastern country Israel has now grown into an important automotive technology exporter.
In 2019, the McKinsey Center for Future Mobility released a report stating that Israel is becoming a global center for autonomous driving technology. According to statistics compiled by the consulting firm Zinnov in early 2017, there were already more than 70 automotive technology-related startups in Israel at that time.
▲Israeli automotive-related startups (source Zinnov)
Now, many automotive industry chain players who are optimistic about Israel’s advanced technology and human resources are building strongholds and setting up offices in Israel. On the other hand, its own R&D center is also actively exploring the technical resources here through cooperation and even acquisition.
General Motors was the first OEM to establish a base here. In 2008, General Motors opened a technology center in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya.
After Ford completed its acquisition of the computer vision company SAIPS in 2016, it opened its own R&D center in Tel Aviv, Israel’s second largest city, in 2019.
▲List of cooperation between Israeli startups and OEM/Tier1
Through cooperation with OEMs and Tier1, automotive technology from Israel is having an increasingly profound impact on the development of the automotive industry. Influence.
For example, Mobileye, which is committed to the research and development of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving systems, has established cooperative relationships with many OEMs and Tier1s around the world.
Mobileye is a leader in visual ADAS and autonomous driving technology. According to media reports, the company currently has more than 80% of the market share in the automotive pre-installation market. Now, we can all see the technology from Mobileye on BMW 5 Series, 6 Series, 7 Series, Volvo S80, S60, XC70, XC60, V70 and General Motors’ Buick Lucerne and many more models.
Conclusion: Promoted by technology and policy? The Middle East has turned into a black technology incubator
With the growth of automobile sales in the region and the establishment of multiple free trade zones, the Middle East is becoming more important than ever before. Attention from the automotive industry.
Although it is still unknown when black technologies such as flying cars and hyperloop will land in the Middle East, and the adoption of these technologies themselves will also need to be tested by time, but at least for now, some advanced automotive technologies have been found in the Middle East room for growth.
On the one hand, it seems that Middle Eastern countries such as Dubai and Saudi Arabia are not short of money and have enough funds to invest in the research and development of automotive technology. But on the other hand, the original technology accumulation and related incentive policies are the underlying reasons why Middle Eastern countries have the opportunity to nurture and export these cutting-edge technologies.
As far as Israel is concerned, Israel has invested heavily in research and development, and ultimately it has mature technology and talent resources in autonomous driving, AI, network security, etc.
Countries or regions such as Saudi Arabia and Dubai have provided policy support for the promotion of intelligent transportation. At the same time, the relatively loose policy environment has also provided some automotive black technologies that require stricter certification standards in other places. Create a space where testing can take place.
As the global automotive industry transforms towards intelligence and electrification in the future, the Middle East will become another engine driving the development of the automotive market.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.