“If you rear-end someone, you’ll be fully responsible. The car has complete audio and video recordings. AEEIS has already completed its warning task, and the vehicle is not in autonomous driving mode. The responsibility lies entirely with the driver. AEEIS will truthfully report to traffic police, and the dashcam footage will be simultaneously uploaded for backup.”
“There’s a speed camera ahead. Please slow down.”
“Estimated speeding violation: exceeding the speed limit by more than 10% but less than 20% – 3 points deducted, 50 yuan fine. AEEIS will automatically generate a fine order after speeding.”
“Detected that the car behind seems to have abnormally accelerated just now. Recommend staying away from its direct front and paying attention to avoiding it.”
“Through the driving habit algorithm, detected that the approaching vehicle on the front right has a danger index of Level B – relatively dangerous. Recommend keeping distance.”
“Detected that you are engaging in dangerous driving behavior. Recommend reviewing Subject 4: When passing through sharp curves, non-motorized vehicle lanes, railway crossings, residential roads, narrow bridges, downhill roads, when making U-turns, or on icy, snowy, or muddy roads, speed should not exceed 30 kilometers per hour.”
“Your speed is still not below 30. Do you need to reschedule your driver’s license test?”
Zhang Yan exclaimed, “Good grief!”
She thought AEEIS had changed its nature, but now she realized it was still the same old flavor—pure and undiluted!
As soon as it detected even a slight dangerous driving behavior from the driver, AEEIS would immediately start “reminding” them, though these reminders were often quite irritating…
Fortunately, Zhang Yan had also experienced the fully automatic contrarian machine before, so she had a thorough understanding of AEEIS’s temperament. Therefore, these apologies didn’t make her angry; instead, she found them quite interesting.
After all, everything AEEIS said was based on traffic rules.
The AEEIS intelligent system on this car obviously had two modes: one was the autonomous driving mode, where AEEIS would not only navigate but also mock other cars’ cutting-in behavior; the other was the driver-controlled mode, where AEEIS would target the driver, mercilessly criticizing whenever the driver exhibited unsafe driving behaviors.
How did AEEIS determine these dangerous driving behaviors?
This was because the car’s autonomous driving system was still working when the driver was driving. Although the driver had the highest authority, in some extremely urgent situations—such as an imminent rear-end collision or hitting a pedestrian when the driver hadn’t reacted in time—the autonomous driving system would also help brake to a stop.
Even without such extreme situations, the car’s large screen would still display real-time information about nearby vehicles, pedestrians, and other information, calculating the optimal driving method under current conditions. It would provide reminders and warnings as needed, helping the driver obtain more road information.
It just wasn’t taking control of the vehicle’s driving, but the relevant computations were still ongoing.
Zhang Yan also noticed that this car could not only detect its own dangerous driving behaviors but also those of other vehicles.
For example, if a car outside was frequently accelerating and decelerating, cutting in, or accelerating in places where it shouldn’t, once it was scanned by the K1’s intelligent system, AEEIS would consider this vehicle to have a certain level of danger. It would mark it on the display and give voice prompts to the driver.
Based on these vehicles’ dangerous driving behavior patterns, it would estimate a hazard rating to remind the driver to be cautious.
Some people might wonder, what’s the use of this?
When you encounter a car on the road, you might not see it again after a few minutes. What good is this little bit of data?
But having it is better than not having it.
Actually, when driving, especially in traffic jams, you often find yourself stuck in the same section with several other cars. Maybe a certain car cuts into a lane and moves ahead, but after a while, you see it stuck in another lane—this kind of situation is quite common.
In such cases, as long as this car makes a dangerous move, the system would remember it for a period of time, reminding the driver to stay away and try to avoid accidents.
Moreover, this was just the initial function. In the future, this feature had strong expandability.
If there were more and more K1s on the road, collecting more and more data, storing more and more information, then it would be possible to determine the danger level of a certain vehicle based on a large amount of calculations. The more data, the more accurate the specific numbers would be.
Perhaps someday in the future, when a K1 owner gets on the road, they would be able to see the danger level of most vehicles around, giving the owner a clear understanding.
Not only that, but this intelligent driving system also had another advantage: more accurate reminders compared to navigation.
Navigation would only provide reminders for the road ahead, but it wouldn’t know if the driver took a wrong turn.
Only when completely off course would the navigation system notice and then recalculate the route.
But since the K1’s autonomous driving system knew very clearly when to change lanes and when to prepare for actions, if the driver didn’t make these actions in time, AEEIS could provide reminders in advance and even explain the reasons for the errors.
For instance, at certain intersections in city roads where left turns are not allowed, navigation might simply indicate to go straight. If the driver didn’t see the no-left-turn sign and wondered, “Can’t I just turn left directly?” they might impulsively make a left turn without thinking too much.
At this point, the navigation system wouldn’t have any reaction.
But as long as AEEIS detected that the driver was turning on the left turn signal or turning the steering wheel, it would know the driver intended to turn left and immediately remind them that left turns are not allowed at this intersection, and making a left turn would result in three points deducted and a 200 yuan fine.
At this point, the driver would still have a chance to correct their action, rather than being completely bewildered when receiving a ticket later.
There were many similar situations. In short, AEEIS drove very properly on its own, strictly following traffic rules—it might be a bit slow, but it was very safe. When a human was driving, AEEIS would also constantly remind and correct erroneous driving behaviors.
For some drivers who are used to cutting in, this might be quite annoying, and they might turn off AEEIS. But for others, this might not be a bad thing.
After all, accidents can happen anytime. You might have cut in for ten years without any issues, but if the next driver is stubborn and doesn’t yield to you at all, what awaits you might be an accident or a rollover.
The game is called “Safe and Civil Driving,” and it truly lives up to its name.
During the driving process, Zhang Yan also realized that apart from autonomous driving, this car had another advantage: it expanded the driver’s field of vision, increasing driving safety!
Even without activating the autonomous driving mode, it was safer than other cars.
Autonomous driving technology actually faces a paradox: it requires high-definition cameras and sensors, powerful onboard chips and algorithms, all of which cost money. Therefore, new energy vehicles equipped with autonomous driving might be more expensive than traditional brand-name gasoline cars.
If you don’t use autonomous driving, these equipments are unused, wouldn’t that be a waste of money?
But if you use autonomous driving, the driver naturally becomes less vigilant. What if the autonomous driving system has a problem?
In other words, the driver still needs to constantly keep an eye on things. Even if the autonomous driving system has run for tens of thousands of kilometers without issues, it doesn’t mean it won’t have problems in the next second. The driver still can’t be completely at ease.
So how much peace of mind can this autonomous driving technology really give the driver?
Using it isn’t safe enough; not using it wastes money.
This paradox is an important reason why many people believe that autonomous driving is still far from true maturity.
But now, while driving the K1, Zhang Yan realized another function of this technology: expanding the driver’s field of vision.
Because of the high-definition sensors and cameras, the vehicle could monitor the driver’s blind spots and provide timely reminders.
In other words, even without using autonomous driving, buying this car was like having an AI-powered experienced driver in the passenger seat watching out for you and giving you suggestions.
So the money spent on these sensors and cameras was worthwhile because they served as the driver’s second pair of eyes and were genuinely useful!
As long as you could tolerate AEEIS’s nagging.
Zhang Yan drove the car away from the bustling area, with AEEIS nagging her all the way.
“Alright, alright, seeing how impressive you are, I’ll let you drive. I’ll go back to driving on the race track.”
Racing drivers drive aggressively on the track, striving for that extra tenth of a second, but on city roads, they drive very properly, completely different from their behavior on the racetrack.
This is because racing drivers are professionals. They deeply understand that racetracks and city roads are different, racing cars and family cars are different, so naturally, the two driving styles are different.
The more inexperienced people are, the more they like to show off on city roads, racing recklessly, drifting—this is because they have absolutely no sense of their own skills and don’t take their own and others’ safety to heart.
Although Zhang Yan wasn’t a racing driver in reality, she had practiced in the game for so long that she had developed a similar mindset.
She switched the car to autonomous driving mode, continuing to accept ride-hailing jobs while chatting with the viewers in the comment stream.
At this moment, all the discussions in the comments were focused on the K1’s autonomous driving.
“This is too ridiculous, how does it feel like AEEIS drives better than humans? This isn’t scientific at all, right?”
“Reminds me of the fully automatic contrarian machine… Before, I couldn’t win arguments against AEEIS, and now I can’t drive better than it either…”
“Isn’t this autonomous driving technology almost at L4 or L5 level? It’s been driving for so long without needing intervention even once, right?”
“When it was driving at the mall entrance with so many people, I thought it would definitely need to be taken over, but it actually slowly drove through? Even more steady than human driving!”
“That’s why they say this car is an official cheat code. Isn’t it invincible for ride-hailing? Making money might be a bit slower, but you can just leave it running!”
“Buy a K1 and let it earn money by itself as a ride-hailing car.”
“I know why this DLC is free, could it be because they received advertising fees from Stefer? Although Stefer’s cars are indeed quite good, isn’t this approach a bit excessive?”