On August 27th, the sun was blazing in Chongqing, and the workshop of FUTURUS Chongqing Intelligent Production Base was still busy: the workers were methodically assembling WHUD (Windshield HUD, a class of products in the Vehicle Horizontal View Display System) with the assistance of automated equipments, and the mechanical arm was orderly transmitting the products for testing.
Every 60 seconds, three intelligent WHUDs come off the line.
Production Workshop
"Our production efficiency and shipments are among the top in the industry!" Yang Zhen, the head of the production team, said proudly while showing the reporter around. Up to now, the cumulative shipments of FUTURUS' HUD products have exceeded 500,000 units, is the fastest growing company in the HUD industry in terms of shipments.
Corresponding to the shipment volume, according to the data of GaiShi Automobile and GaoGong Intelligent Vehicle, last year, FUTURUS' HUD grabbed 10.6% of the domestic HUD market share, ranked in the forefront of the local suppliers in China. Especially in the 300k+ cars, FUTURUS take 21.48% of the high-end market share, ranked first in the world.
Make smart cars smarter.
Along with the development of intelligent online new-energy vehicles, intelligent cockpit has become a new tuyere, in which the center control screen and traditional instrumentation are the main display hardware of the intelligent cockpit, and drivers can get driving information, navigation maps and other information from them.
However, when the vehicle is equipped with a traditional center control screen and instrumentation, the driver have to move their sight away from the road to see them, thus losing the perception of the road environment, there are certain safety risks. In response to this pain point, HUD was born.
Distinguished from the traditional center control screen and instruments, the HUD can fully visualize vehicle conditions, navigation and driving assistance information, projecting it intuitively on the road in front of the driver's sight through the front window glass, helping the drivers to focus on the road in front of them and improving driving safety.
Aiming at this track, in 2016, FUTURUS (Beijing) Co., Ltd. was established, focusing on the development and application of head-up display technology in the automotive field, which is one of the earliest batch of HUD startups in China, and one of the first batch of enterprises to bring HUD into mass production. Up to now we have completed the B round of financing, and has successively obtained the investment of Inno, SoftBank, Cathay, Virtue Capital, CICC, CCB, MPCi and more.
After preliminary R&D accumulation and timely adjustment of development strategy, FUTURUS (Chongqing) Intelligent Display Technology Co., Ltd. was established in Liangjiang New District in 2020, and started mass production of intelligent automotive HUD and software/hardware products.
FUTURUS WHUD Real Shot
According to Huo Quan, CEO of FUTURUS Chongqing Intelligent Manufacturing Base, since its establishment in 2016, FUTURUS has achieved high-speed and orderly development in all aspects of technological innovation, product development, mass production, etc. We have established cooperative relationships with BMW, Audi, SAIC, Li Auto, Azure, the Great Wall, Geely, BYD, and other head OEMs, and has realized a standard configuration on the Li Auto leading model.
Standing at the top of the industry with independent innovation
Guo Tao, deputy director of China's e-commerce expert service center and senior artificial intelligence expert, has said in public reports that HUD has the advantages of a strong sense of technology, high intensity of visual impact, and fits the needs of intelligent driving, which is one of the important directions of the future in-vehicle display technology.
According to CLS, Ping An Securities pointed out that domestic HUD shipments are expected to reach about 8 million sets by 2025, and the market size is expected to reach 10 billion yuan, which is about 3.5 times higher than the 2022 market size.
How to get this industry blue ocean, standing at the top of the industry? Huo Quan told reporters that the only thing to rely on independent innovation.
"Our founding team consists of basic research scientists, automotive engineers, and mobile Internet experts, with more than 75% of R&D personnel." Huo Quan introduced that at present, FUTURUS has applied for a total of 535 domestic and foreign patents, including 340 invention patents, 61 international patents and 102 interaction patents, making us the Chinese company with the largest number of patent applications for HUD technology in the world in the past four years.
Deloitte China Hi-Tech Growth 50 list, 2023 Automotive Electronics Science and Technology Award for Excellence in Innovative Products, Most Valuable Investment Award, 2023 Suzuan Award Forward-looking Intelligent Cockpit Award · Golden Award, etc. One honor after another has become the footnote of the continuous independent innovation of FUTURUS.
With the support of innovative achievements, the HUD product line of FUTURUS has covered WHUD, AR-HUD, full windshield PHUD, light field MR-HUD and many other products, and the four products have gradually advanced in the dimensions of display screen size and projection distance, which can be adapted to meet the needs of users' in-vehicle intelligent interactions at different stages of autopilot from L2 to L5.
"WHUD is the mainstream product in the current market, and the display content generally includes speed, navigation, etc. FUTURUS has already provided more than 500,000 UHD HUDs for the LI L-series, which is unanimously recognized by LI Automobile, end-users and the industry market." Huo Quan introduced that, at the same time, FUTURUS' ARHUD combines Augmented Reality technology and heads-up display, which is able to realize a stable fit between HUD display and real driving environment in key scenarios such as steering, close following, etc., to create an AR immersive experience with stronger driving guidance.
FUTURUS Light Field ARHUD Conceptual Illustration
For AR-HUD, at the hardware level, FUTURUS has independently developed a 3D virtual image display with optical depth and spatial sense, which is capable of projecting 3D light field holographic images with ultra-high brightness, ultra-long distance, super-large screen, multiple depths of field and even continuous depth of field. At the software and algorithm level, FUTURUS has been continuously optimizing and iterating its exclusive AR real-time rendering engine AR Kernel® for 5 years, which is based on multi-sensor integration algorithms, spatial motion gesture capture and time-delay compensation algorithms, and is able to realize real-time 3D rendering with high frame rate and high performance.
At present, FUTURUS' ARHUD products have also been confirmed to be equipped on a industry-top customers' strategic models, is expected to achieve large-scale mass production around the end of 2024 to early 2025.
Optimistic about the automotive industry in Chongqing and Liangjiang New Area
Talking about why choose to settle in Liangjiang New District. Huo Quan said, Chongqing is a national manufacturing town, and the two rivers new area is the main position of Chongqing automobile industry, is focusing on the development of intelligent network-linked new-energy vehicles. "HUD, as an industry that works hand in hand with automobile OEMs, should be rooted in an area with strong development of the automobile industry, coupled with the fact that the new area investment group and related departments have given us great support, so we came."
Future Black Technology Chongqing intelligent production base is located in Liangjing Industrial Park, Liangjiang New District (aka: Chongqing Liangjiang International Inspection, Testing and Certification-Liangjing Demonstration Park), with three HUD standard production lines and an annual production capacity of 700,000 units. Currently, the third-phase expansion project has been initiated, and it is expected that the annual production capacity will break through 1 million units upon completion.
The base adopts a new custom-developed production line and applies a large number of automated equipments such as automatic Kitting distribution, robotic handling, automated dispensing machine, etc., which reduces the error and time cost of manual operation and improves the production efficiency and quality.
In addition, we also ensures product quality through the high-precision machinery and vision system of the automated inspection system, realizing 100% inspection, monitoring and tracing of product quality. The automation and intelligence level of the production line is located at the leading level in the industry.
Looking ahead, Huo Quan revealed that in the future, FUTURUS will promote the industrialization and application of more innovative technologies, continuously improve the technical content and added value of products, and, on the one hand, strive to take all the top domestic car companies at an early date, especially those new forces.
On the other hand, FUTURUS is also ready to go oversea.
"Our founding team all have experience in overseas, and the European market is our target." Huo Quan said with confident, "Our technologies are all fully self-developed, which is our biggest advantage." In September, FUTURUS will also be traveling to Germany to participate in the Frankfurt Electric Vehicle Show.
