I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a car, why do I have to charge for assisted driving?

Huawei assisted driving, the price will increase! On June 22, Huawei Qiankun drove the ads Max high-end function package to adjust the price. The previous limited-time discount price of 32,000 yuan will expire at the end of the month, and the standard price will be restored from July 1, that is, 36,000 yuan for a one-time buyout. Of course, models equipped with Huawei's dry drive ads will generally offer a discount of 20,000 yuan for high-end feature packages. The extra 4000 blocks are also not in vain, as the benefits of ads Assisted Driving Worry-Free ("Assisted Driving Accident Bottom") and Dual Maps (Gaode Maps/Baidu Maps) are freely switched. Just four days before Huawei announced the ads price increase, NiO officially launched the industry's largest smart assisted driving synchronous upgrade, covering four platforms and more than 700,000 vehicles. Even the ET7 delivered in March 2022 has been upgraded. NiO is also the first car company in the industry to realize the development and simultaneous release of general-purpose chips and self-developed chip platforms. These two things are actually related to one thing, that is, "money"! When it comes to assisted driving and money, I'm afraid you have these two questions in mind: The same provides advanced assisted driving functions such as urban Noa. Why do some companies give it away for free, and some companies have to charge for it? As a consumer, should I buy a car that charges for driver assistance? Today, let's talk about the above issues! It is free, and it is easier to quantify. In the eyes of some users, spending money on assisted driving is simply "wrongdoing". Even if you understand the principle of "wool on sheep", most car consumers are still more willing to choose the free mode of assisted driving. After all, some models of the paid version of the city Noa function is not much better than the free version of the rival. This is one of the core reasons why most car companies choose to provide users with high-end assisted driving such as high-speed Noa/city Noa for free. In today's China's new energy vehicle market, competition has moved from the first half of electrification to the second half of intelligence, and intelligent functional experience has become a core factor affecting users' car purchase decisions. The software function is free, which can reduce users' concern about spending more money, which is conducive to stimulating more consumers to buy cars and use the assisted driving function. For enterprises, more users can not only get more relevant data accumulation, but also consolidate smart brand labels. Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Automobile, once said that assisted driving "should be in the form of free use, so that users can experience the technical charm brought by artificial intelligence". Of course, some companies choose to pay free of charge because there is a certain gap between the level of their own assisted driving function and that of the top companies. It is free and can be a lever to attract users in their own competition in related fields. Regardless of the reason, the free use of assisted driving has become the mainstream of the Chinese automobile market. Charging, more sustainable "free, will bring disaster to China's smart driving industry. Wu Yongqiao, president of Bosch Intelligent Driving Control China, called for this because the" money-burning "ability of assisted driving is becoming more and more exaggerated. Nowadays, companies that attach importance to assisted driving have software R&D teams of thousands and tens of thousands of people, and spend billions or even tens of billions of yuan on R&D every year. Many companies have a revenue of tens of billions a year. With the development of assisted driving, the demand for data and computing power continues to increase. Xiaopeng has already spent billions of yuan on hashrate cards, and in 2026, Tesla announced plans to spend another $10 billion (about 67.8 billion yuan) on cards. It is not easy to develop, and the function is not easy to land. Different models have different configurations, and the number, location, and ability of sensors are also different. Any version of assisted driving must do a lot of adaptation work. Nowadays, many car companies issue N new cars a year, resulting in a large number of new cars waiting to be launched every year, and a large number of old cars waiting to be upgraded. In the foreseeable future, the development cost of assisted driving will continue to increase. Without sustained positive cash flow, software iterations of end-of-life models may be unsustainable. This is one of the reasons why some companies with advanced driver assistance capabilities insist on adopting a charging model. For example, Tesla, Huawei, Xiaopeng, NiO, etc. all charge for assisted driving, but the strategies for charging vary. Recently, Ren Shaoqing, senior vice president of NiO and head of intelligent driving research and development, said that NiO will continue to adhere to the paid subscription model of assisted driving for a long time, hoping to provide users with longer life cycle functional availability. In addition to software charges, NiO has also adopted a hardware embedding method to equip products with hardware redundancy that far exceeds current needs, so that users have the opportunity to experience the latest software functions three to five years after purchasing a car. Consumers, should I pay? As a consumer, should I buy a car that charges for assisted driving? I think that before we make a choice, we must have a two-bar scale in our hearts: First, advanced assisted driving such as urban Noa is not a basic function, but a enjoyment function. So what are the basic functions? Throttle, brake, direction, airbag, AEB, air conditioning, radio, etc. Second, advanced assisted driving is only L2. Security is still in your hands. Assisted driving is not absolutely safe. Car companies can at most cover the loss of your property and cannot cover the safety of your life. For most people, advanced assisted driving features such as urban Noa are just icing on the cake, not charcoal in the snow. If you are looking for a car that happens to be assisted driving for free, congratulations on at least the first year of intelligent experience to keep up with the times. After that, it depends on the conscience and hardware embedding of the enterprise. If you are looking for a model that just happens to charge for driving assistance, congratulations, at least it means that the company is confident in its product experience and willing to continue to upgrade the relevant functions. If you really like the city Noa function, do a full functional experience before buying a car to see if it meets your needs. In addition, it is also best to understand the brand's hardware embedding situation and software update frequency before buying a car. If you buy a car with less than 500 tops, it's hard to expect it to remain industry-leading in 2030. NiO can update the software for the 2022 car today because the hardware has been pre-embedded before. Have you noticed that there is no question of money in my answer? Because it's not about spending, it's about using the experience and anticipating the future. From the perspective of the current assisted driving function experience, charging and free cannot be directly distinguished from the advantages and disadvantages. In the long run, software charging is more conducive to the healthy development of the industry, especially the subscription model. From the consumer's point of view, the subscription model means lower sunk costs, and a bad experience can be unsubscribed at any time. From the perspective of the industry, it can force enterprises to continuously improve technology and optimize the experience, otherwise users will be lost at any time. Would you be willing to pay for assisted driving? Welcome to the comments section to talk about your opinions ~