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On the evening of the 21st, the launch conference of Great Wall Motors' new Blue Mountain was held in Baoding, Hebei Province. Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, returned to the conference after six years. Wei Jianjun said that Wei brand is a brand that has staked its founder's surname on it and will continue to do so.

“Wei brand took some detours”

In 2024, the bosses of car companies entered the live broadcast room to embrace traffic. Wei Jianjun, who had been standing behind the scenes, also chose to step forward. In April this year, Wei Jianjun started his live broadcast debut and interacted with netizens on Weibo. Before that, his last appearance at a press conference was the "WEY 2nd Anniversary Brand Night" event in 2018.

Image source: Wei Jianjun's Weibo

At the press conference, Wei Jianjun said that Weipai is a brand that has staked its founder's surname on it. It was in good condition when it was first launched, but the market is far more complicated than expected. It has indeed faced many difficulties in recent years, with sales declining, positioning wavering, and extremely involution. In this unstable state, it has indeed taken some detours. Some people even asked him if he wanted to give up Weipai, but Great Wall Motors is a company born out of passion, and will not forget its original intention of making cars. The Wei brand will definitely continue.

According to Great Wall Motors' 2023 annual report, Great Wall Motors owns five major brands: Haval, Weipai, Ora, Great Wall Pickup and Tank; its products cover four categories: SUV, sedan, pickup and MPV, with both traditional and new energy power. Weipai has formed a "large six/seven-seat dual flagship" with Gaoshan + Lanshan, and its brand image is a high-end smart new energy brand.

In 2023, Weipai sold 35,466 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 81.26%. However, in 2024, Weipai encountered a growth bottleneck. According to Great Wall Motor's July production and sales report, Weipai's cumulative sales in the first seven months were 22,632 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 8.75%, and its sales in July alone decreased by 58.43% year-on-year.

Great Wall Motors hopes to boost brand sales by launching new products. The new product launched at this conference, Wei's new Blue Mountain, is Great Wall Motors' first intelligent six-seat flagship SUV equipped with NOA (advanced urban assisted driving function).

China News Service noted that Great Wall Motors has attached great importance to intelligence. In the 2023 annual report, it was mentioned that Weipai will continue to iterate smart cockpit, smart driving, and smart hybrid technologies. Mu Feng, president of Great Wall Motors, also said in an interview with the media during the Chengdu Auto Show that 2024 will be a big year for Great Wall Motors' electrification and intelligence.

“I use Blue Mountain technology every day when I commute to get off work”

It is worth noting that Wei Jianjun tried out the urban NOA function of the Weipai Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition in Baoding and Chongqing in April and June this year. According to public information, the basic hardware components of the Weipai Blue Mountain Intelligent Driving Edition include: Orin-X domain control platform, 1 laser radar, 3 millimeter wave radars, 11 high-definition cameras, 12 ultrasonic radars, and a high-precision positioning perception unit.

The so-called NOA is a point-to-point navigation assisted driving function that users can use within a specific road range. The vehicle can wait for traffic lights, change lanes, give way, and finally reach the destination without anyone taking over.

In the live broadcast in April, Wei Jianjun drove the vehicle from the complex "Six Roads" in the center of Baoding to the narrow streets, and conducted driving scene tests such as traffic light recognition and intersection turning, obstacle recognition and flexible detour, full-scene lane change and lane line management. After that, Wei Jianjun conducted a live broadcast on the road in Chongqing.

At the press conference, Wei Jianjun admitted that he was under a lot of pressure when talking about live broadcasting on the road, and there were many stories behind it.

"When I was live streaming in Baoding before, I didn't have such high requirements. I also told my subordinates that it didn't matter if I took over once or twice, but our team had very high requirements. After that, we went to Chongqing, the '8D'. The road conditions were complicated. When I was turning, I appeared to be relatively relaxed, but in fact my back was sweating. Later, it was proved that our level of intelligent driving is definitely the best in China." Wei Jianjun said.

The new Blue Mountain car Photo by Wang Yuling from China News Service

Regarding Great Wall Motors' intelligent driving technology, according to an article published on Great Wall Motors' official account in June 2024, it was mentioned that Great Wall Motors' NOA system is inseparable from Great Wall Motors' end-to-end big model - SEE (Safety, Efficiency, Experience).

At the conference, Wei Jianjun further introduced the big model. "Our big model is developing intelligent driving with AI logic. I use Blue Mountain's technology every day when I go to and from work. It iterates very quickly, and although the computing power is not the largest, it is the smartest because it has the best algorithm. It changes every day, and as the mileage increases, its maturity will increase exponentially. The model learns 'how to drive' directly like a driver." Wei Jianjun said.

In addition, Wei Jianjun also addressed the problem directly at the press conference, saying that the process of developing intelligent driving is not always smooth.

"In 2021, Wei brand was equipped with the most advanced cockpit system at the time. We also found a major supplier and developed a complete system. However, if this kind of intelligence cannot be connected at each stage, it will be a disaster. After our products were launched on the market, there were black screens, freezes, slow speeds, and a lot of problems. The experience was very poor. Of course, we were the first (manufacturer) to apply this kind of high-computing power cockpit system chip, but this was not done well. The first thing we wanted to do most was to make a quick transition." Wei Jianjun said that Great Wall later fought a tough battle. To achieve the smooth flow of the entire system, it was necessary to do a good job in hardware, middle layer, software, and even ecology, and every link had to be mastered.

China News Service noted that various brands are planning urban NOA in 2024. Kaiyuan Securities' July 2024 research report mentioned that new forces such as Xiaopeng, Weilai, and Ideal, Huawei-related companies such as Changan and Seres, and traditional car companies such as Geely and Great Wall have entered the market and competed to launch their own urban NOA solutions, but different manufacturers have different investment resources, technical routes, and layout time. Therefore, the level of autonomous driving functions is far from entering the era of homogeneity, and users will still often encounter scenarios that need to be taken over. The improvement of automakers' autonomous driving capabilities is still "in progress."

According to the "Smart Car and Urban NOA Market Research Report (2024)" recently released by Taibo Think Tank, which provides industry insights and consulting services, urban NOA is showing a rapid warming trend and is expected to explode in 2024. The number of brands that released urban NOA in the first half of the year exceeded the total number in 2023. 2024 is expected to be the first year for the large-scale implementation of urban NOA.

The report analyzes that in 2024, mapless and rapidly increasing urban coverage will become important development directions for urban NOA. With the introduction of "pure vision" solutions and the gradual mass production of urban NOA to help mass-produced vehicles collect road conditions and driving experience, mapless NOA will be more accurate and cover the entire country, providing data assurance for the safety of autonomous driving. With the improvement of on-road applications and data compliance policies, L3 autonomous driving is just around the corner.