Horizon Journey 6P Launched: Modular Domain Controller for Upgradable In-Vehicle Computing Platform

[PCauto] At the 2025 Horizon Advanced Intelligent Driving Product Launch, an innovative achievement caught the attention of many— the Horizon Journey 6P Domain Controller officially made its debut. Its flexible, pluggable design provides a new perspective on upgrading in-vehicle computing platforms, offering a convenient solution for intelligent driving systems akin to upgrading a personal computer.

As the automotive industry accelerates its drive towards smart technology, the demand for computing power in intelligent driving has seen exponential growth. Traditionally, once a vehicle leaves the factory, its in-vehicle computing hardware configuration remains largely fixed, making it difficult to meet the continually evolving demands of intelligent driving features. This is exemplified by Tesla's potential challenge in the U.S. with recalling 4 million vehicles to upgrade their autonomous driving hardware.

However, the Horizon Journey 6P Domain Controller breaks from this tradition. Drawing inspiration from the flexibility of personal computers that allow hardware upgrades, the domain controller is designed with a pluggable structure. This means that vehicle owners can enhance their in-vehicle computing platform’s performance simply by replacing or adding relevant hardware modules, without the need to replace the entire electronic and electrical architecture of the vehicle, thereby providing enhanced intelligent driving capabilities.

The Journey 6P chip itself boasts a powerful performance foundation. It features 18 ARM Cortex A78AE cores and 4 BPU Nash cores, delivering up to 560 TOPS of computing power, supporting 18MP front-facing perception, with an image processing bandwidth of 5.3 Gpixel/s. With such a chip, Horizon has tailored various flexible upgrade options for vehicles across different prices.

For entry-level models, there is the option to use a dual Journey 6M chip, providing approximately 300 TOPS of computing power, enabling these vehicles to be equipped with a certain level of intelligent driving functionality, thereby initiating a new experience in smart mobility.

For mid-range models, a single Journey 6P chip solution offers around 500 TOPS of computing power, capable of supporting more advanced driving assistance functions, such as adaptive cruise control and automatic parking, optimizing and expanding these features to provide drivers with a more convenient and comfortable experience.

For high-end models, a dual Journey 6P chip solution can deliver around 1000 TOPS of computing power. This robust computing capacity is sufficient to support high-level intelligent driving capabilities, such as Navigation on Autopilot (NOA), enabling vehicles to operate with a high degree of automation on urban roads, significantly enhancing driving safety and efficiency.

Compared to replacing an entire vehicle or undergoing major overhauls of the in-vehicle system, the Journey 6P dramatically reduces the cost of upgrading the in-vehicle computing platform with its pluggable domain controller. Automakers no longer need to redesign and produce entirely new vehicle hardware for every functionality update, and consumers don’t have to spend excessively on new cars to enjoy the latest intelligent driving features.

The hardware upgradeability allows vehicles to consistently keep pace with the advancing intelligent technology throughout their life cycle. As intelligent driving technology continues to evolve, owners can upgrade their vehicle’s hardware at any time, giving older cars access to the smart driving experiences typical of new models, thus extending the overall lifespan of the vehicle and reducing resource waste.

The flexible and pluggable domain controller serves as a testing ground for more technological innovations. Software developers and hardware suppliers can more easily develop and adapt new intelligent driving algorithms and hardware modules tailored to different vehicle models and user requirements, accelerating the application and popularization of new technologies within the automotive sector and driving rapid growth across the intelligent driving industry.

The flexible, pluggable design of the Horizon Journey 6P Domain Controller brings unprecedented convenience and possibilities for upgrading the in-vehicle computing platform.

It will not only revolutionize the updated ways of intelligent driving features but will also have far-reaching impacts on the entire automotive industry, ushering in a new era of more flexible, efficient, and personalized intelligent driving. In the future, we can reasonably anticipate more intelligent driving applications based on this innovative design, bringing further surprises and transformations to our mobility experiences.