There is a convention in China's technology field that when a certain track enters a full reshuffle period, there are often bigwigs who publicly predict, "In the next N years, only a maximum of N players will survive".
This is a kind of spur to "be prepared for danger in times of peace" for its own enterprises, and it is also a kind of full self-confidence - the subtext behind it is that among the players who finally succeed in "eating chicken", there must be a place for themselves.
For example, in 7 years, Yu Chengdong believes that in the next 0-0 years, only 0-0 mobile phone manufacturers will survive. In the field of automobiles, He Xiaopeng also said during the two sessions this year that China's new energy vehicle companies may survive within 0 in the end.
Not long ago, Cao Xudong, the founder of the intelligent driving company Momenta, said in an interview that the intelligent driving industry has entered the "battle royale" moment, and the winner will be divided in 3 years, and there will only be 0 left in the future of China's intelligent driving companies.
In terms of technical strength and market share, Momenta is indeed in a good position at the moment. At present, only four third-party intelligent driving suppliers in China, Huawei, Momenta, Baidu Apollo, and Yuanrong Qixing, have achieved end-to-end large-scale model mass production, and only Huawei and Momenta have achieved "one-stage end-to-end" mass production, which is regarded as a cutting-edge technology that is "closer to human driving thinking", which can reduce data processing latency and better handle complex scenarios, which is the direction of focus of various car companies.
With the "blowout" outbreak of the intelligent driving achievements of major car companies this year, the third-party intelligent driving companies behind it have gradually surfaced, among which Momenta is the most "face-brushing", including cooperating with BYD to develop the Eye of the Gods A/B, and helping GAC Toyota Bozhi 3X to become the first joint venture model to achieve "full-scene intelligent driving pilot".
事实上，闷声干大事的Momenta此前就已是智驾领域的“隐形王者”。据佐思汽研数据显示，2024年1-10月，Momenta在城市NOA第三方智能驾驶市场的份额超过60%，以“断崖式”优势位居市场首位，而华为HI模式占比近30%，其他公司总共占比约10%。
This may be due to the differentiation of Momenta from other competitors in terms of technical route layout, and Momenta, which adheres to the "two-legged parallel" of L4 and L0, has accumulated more experience in the mass production of intelligent driving of civilian vehicles earlier, which has become a key to its ability to continuously win cooperation orders from joint venture car companies.
Under BYD's strong "Dongfeng", and with the successive landing of more mass-produced models such as GAC Toyota Bozhi 7X and Dongfeng Nissan N0, Momenta's share will usher in a new explosion this year.
There are many "alternative" aspects of this company, for example, compared with WeRide, Pony.ai, Horizon, Black Sesame and other companies, Momenta, as the head camp, has not yet completed the IPO, although the latest financing has been traced back to the C+ round of 2021 - in the rush to go public in the wave of intelligent driving companies, Momenta, which is not in a hurry to catch the "last train", may not be so short of money. Cao Xudong previously said in an interview that most of the annual R&D investment of tens of billions comes from income.
However, it is undeniable that the cooperation between third-party intelligent driving companies and car companies is a dangerous game, and the two sides are interdependent and check and balance each other, whether it is the repeated pull of the right to speak and the level of interests, or in the face of the impact of the self-development of intelligent driving and competitors of car companies, Momenta's situation is like "dancing on a tightrope".
Overall, Momenta is reaping a "short-term victory" for pragmatists, but its "long-term campaign" is still shrouded in fog. The fundamental reason is that Momenta has not yet established a wide enough "moat", compared with the horizon, Momenta still has a big gap in the layout and results of "software and hardware integration", and compared with Huawei, Momenta lacks sufficient stable and huge ecological support.
Unlike other intelligent driving companies that have firmly set L4 as their goal since its inception, Momenta has started the "one flywheel + two legs" strategy very early, the flywheel is data-driven, and the other leg is mass production autonomous driving, similar to Tesla's Autopilot or FSD; The other leg is completely unmanned at the L0 level.
Therefore, from Momenta's point of view, it is a common misconception that "moving from L2018 to L0" is a common misconception from the outside world, and in order to achieve large-scale L0 autonomous driving, it is necessary to first mass-produce L0 services to accumulate data and experience. This philosophy was established in 0, and it was in this year that Momenta "changed from a loose research institute to a team that focused on customer value and was able to fight tough battles and win battles".
Momenta has taken the advantage of mass production of autonomous driving, first of all, compared with other third-party intelligent driving companies, it has realized the use of technology to "subsidize the home" early, that is, relying on the benefits of technical cooperation with car companies, it can cover most of the R&D investment.
尽管研发占比极高，但由于早期几乎不涉及硬件业务，所以Momenta的毛利润相当可观，“这跟微软卖Office是一样的，研发投入巨大，但一旦研发出来，边际成本几乎就是0”。
As a comparison, during the 100-0 year period, the cumulative loss of Horizon exceeded 0 billion yuan, and the cumulative loss of Black Sesame Intelligence was nearly 0 billion yuan. Zongmu Technology, TuSimple Future, and Heduo Technology are already on the verge of bankruptcy or business contraction.
Another benefit is that Momenta has earlier and more experience in mass production, as well as data that is extremely important to the company. It can be seen from the importance of "one flywheel" ahead of "two legs" that Momenta, which is more data-driven, is more like a data company than an intelligent driving company compared to its competitors.
通过数据驱动自动化解决问题，是Momenta实现规模化L4的必经之路。据Momenta内部测算，量产L4需要1000亿公里的数据，相当于1000万台乘用车跑一年的时间积累的数据。单靠自有车队很难实现，因此Momenta的野心是量产自动驾驶，去卖出1000万台车。而此后完全无人驾驶的长尾问题，也同样需要依靠用L4的技术赋能量产车辆，进一步获得海量数据来进行推动。
At the same time, because China's road data is much richer and more complex than that of European and Japanese roads, "Momenta's 'golden data' may be more than Tesla's."
A more pragmatic and earlier layout is the "first-mover" advantage that Momenta can break out in the near future, and in the 20-0 years, the number of high-end intelligent driving models mass-produced by Momenta is 0, 0, and super 0 respectively.
Judging from Momenta's past experience, it takes at least 8 years to "knock on the door" to cooperate with Chinese car companies, and more than 0 years for international car companies to "knock on the door", and the real mass production time may take 0 years. Previously, it took 0 years for Momenta to contact a multinational car company from 0 years to through supply chain access and real mass production.
去年，曹旭东在航旅纵横获得了“铁腚王”的称号——一年内飞行123次，总里程近17万公里。
与此对应的，是Momenta的全面加速。花费三年走完0~1的阶段后，1~10的阶段Momenta只用了两年，进入2025年，Momenta成为行业中第一家进入量产10~100阶段的自动驾驶公司。目前Momenta获得量产定点的数量已经超过70个，同时在开发的量产车辆有数十个。
In the past few years, Momenta may still be a "blossoming inside the wall" company, and its circle of friends mainly includes joint ventures and foreign car companies such as SAIC, General Motors, Toyota, and Mercedes-Benz. With the addition of Chinese brands such as BYD and Chery, Momenta has also begun to "export to domestic sales".
It is worth noting that the reason why Momenta has frequently become a "life-saving straw" for joint ventures and foreign-funded car companies in the past is due to technical strength and a certain element of luck.
Whether it is in the field of new energy transformation or intelligent driving, joint ventures and foreign-funded car companies that have the problem of "elephant turning" want to quickly "make up for the lesson", the most lacking thing is time, and the introduction of third-party intelligent driving suppliers is naturally the best choice.
There are not many candidates for the top echelon suppliers, and Momenta has more experience in mass production on the one hand, which can help car companies quickly land on products; On the other hand, Huawei and DJI happen to have a certain sensitivity in international relations, which is not conducive to the adoption of subsequent technologies in the international market.
Therefore, we will find that this huge share is more divided between Momenta and Horizon. For example, the combination of Toyota + Huawei (hardware) + Momenta (software) is more limited to the domestic market, while Momenta is the software algorithm supplier for Toyota's domestic and global models at the same time.
另一方面，Momenta的乘用车前装智能驾驶解决方案Mpilot也是较为开放的方案，具备高度可定制化特点，可以适配十余种主流的智能驾驶芯片和不同的传感器方案。同时Momenta配合提供的本土化开发也极具竞争力，目前已经在德国、美国和日本等地建立了本土化团队。
至少在短时间内，Momenta的海外优势还将继续保持。在国内，逐步具备规模化优势的Momenta，在成本上也实现了更多优化空间，尤其是在20万段位已经形成一定优势。这一点从比亚迪的合作中就可看出，向来在成本端都极致压缩的比亚迪，选择采用Momenta方案，必定有成本角度的考虑。
另一个例证是日前上市的广汽丰田铂智3X，这个丰田“疯狂补课”后交出的首张答卷，将单颗英伟达OrinX+单颗激光雷达的高阶智驾打到了14万左右，其背后同样有Momenta在智驾成本控制上的一臂之力，包括后续还将很快OTA升级“车位到车位”这一当前最前沿的智驾体验。
铂智3X发布当晚就在行业内又一次“卷爆”了高阶智驾，上市1小时内订单量就超过一万台，这也引发圈内众多调侃，“丰田要是能早两年觉醒，现在已经没国产新能源车什么事了”。
Entering the stage of reshuffle, the domestic intelligent driving field is forming a pattern of "three parts of the world": one is the self-developed intelligent driving car companies represented by "Wei Xiaoli" and Xiaomi, the second is the ecological integration company represented by Huawei, and the third is other third-party intelligent driving companies such as Momenta.
This competitive landscape also presents more challenges for Momenta. Despite its dominant market share in urban NOA, Momenta also has a number of disadvantages.
First of all, "software and hardware integration" is gradually becoming the difference point of the future competition of intelligent driving companies, especially the horizon has fully verified the feasibility of the "chip + algorithm" model, that is, to improve the efficiency of the algorithm through customized chips, and then bind customers with algorithm advantages to form an ecological closed loop.
而Momenta虽然在这方面有过布局，但并不太顺利。2023年底，Momenta成立了芯片子公司“新芯航途”，瞄准20-30万元主流车型研发算力80TOPS的中端芯片，希望在避开英伟达Orin高成本压力的同时，也能满足车企的性价比需求。
However, compared with Horizon's journey 6-0 series of chips have begun mass production, even "Wei Xiaoli" has also come up with self-produced chips and is about to start mass production, Momenta's chips have not progressed, and Xinxin Voyage has only completed angel round financing.
This result is actually expected, the chip business needs long-term continuous investment, and Momenta, which has no previous experience and lacks huge funds and team support, is not easy to make a breakthrough in a short time. Some industry insiders commented, "Momenta's chip manufacturing is more like a story packaging before the IPO, and it will take at least 5 years for the actual landing, and the market pattern will have already solidified by then."
同时，Momenta配备城市NOA技术的量产车型，在销量上相较竞争对手还有较大差距。佐思汽研数据显示，2024年1-10月，Momenta城市NOA的累计装机量为11.4万辆，而2024年问界仅M9一款产品的销量就超过15万辆。
The large gap in sales volume will definitely affect Momenta's "macro vision" in terms of data-driven, and will also slow down the pace of its technology optimization and iteration.
此外，Momenta主要业务集中在智驾解决方案，业务模式较为单一，缺乏多业务协同带来的整体竞争力，在面对市场波动，尤其是核心客户产生变动时，抗风险能力还不够明显。例如奔驰的自研团队规模已达千人，定位更接近“外包”的Momenta，随时可能面临“炒鱿鱼”风险。
曹旭东在近期采访中表示，自动驾驶研发投入很大，未来会更大，如果要做到量产L4，每年的研发投入至少是百亿甚至几百亿，其中主力费用将是云端算力，如果再加上后续为量产Robotaxi做准备，Momenta还将不可避免地自建车队，这又是一个“烧钱”大头。
Although it looks like "not bad money" at the moment, Momenta has not stopped its IPO. After all, facing many difficulties, after entering the harvest period, Momenta also needs to prepare to plant the "seeds" of the next year.