China AV Newsletter - Aug. 2023

Toyota is not holding back on its partnership with Pony.ai for Japanese market only and use GAC to establish a new RoboTaxi JV in China. The competition continues as Baidu launches a new RoboTaxi service that manage mixed environments of urban and highway, providing an airport to downtown autonomous service. The only potential slowdown for this rally is coming from US as president Biden limits investments in Chinese entities active in 3 segments: AI, semiconductors and quantum computing.

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China AV Newsletter - August 2023

Aug.1st: HESAI announced an upgrade of its cooperation with NVIDIA, as it officially joined Omniverse ecosystem. Developers from automotive manufacturers and autonomous driving companies can now directly access HESAI's LiDAR models through NVIDIA Drive Sim, and obtain sensor simulation data based on physical reality in digital twin scenarios for R&D, testing and validation.

Aug.2nd: GAC Group announced that GAC Capital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Guangzhou Yingpeng, intend to invest 40 million RMB to jointly establish of "Guangdong Guangqi Mapping Equity Investment Partnership". This is ~20% of the total fund which raised 205 million RMB. The fund will focus on investments in high-precision mapping technologies, intelligent network and automotive intelligence.

Aug.4th: Toyota and Pony.ai announced that under GAC Toyota the group will establish a RoboTaxi joint venture to spearhead mass production and scale deployment of Robotaxi. Under the agreement, the JV will receive an investment of more than RMB 1 billion, and will provide Toyota's pure electric vehicle platforms produced by GAC-Toyota for use in Robotaxi.

Aug.8th: GAC announced the the latest research and development results of its AI technology - GAC AI big model platform. This platform aggregates a variety of AI models and deeply integrates with the underlying capabilities of GAC Intelligent Network Connection, which will be equipped with high-end intelligent coupe Hyper GT debut in the near future.

Aug.8th: ABUP announced that it has recently completed a B2 round of financing of over 100 million RMB. ABUP is an OTA solution provider, mainly providing customers with firmware upgrade (FOTA), software upgrade (SOTA), cloud diagnostics (DOTA), Internet of Things upgrade program (IOTA), and based on its own OTA cloud platform data it provides big data services.

Aug.9th: President Joe Biden signed an executive order authorizing the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to prohibit or restrict new U.S. investments in Chinese entities in three areas (Semiconductors and Microelectronics, Quantum information technology, and certain AI systems) and to require government notifications in other science and technology areas. The proposal also focuses on investments in Chinese companies that develop software for designing computer chips and equipment for manufacturing computer chips.

Aug.14th: Huawei released its H1 2023 operating results, saying "overall operations were solid and results were in line with expectations." According to the data, in the first half of the year, Huawei realized sales revenue of RMB 310.9 billion, up 3.1% YoY, with a net profit margin of 15%. Revenue from ?intelligent car solutions BU amounted at RMB 1 billion.

Aug.25th: Mobileye and Polestar (under Geely group) have announced that they will work together to bring autonomous driving technology powered by Mobileye Chauffeur? AV platform to Polestar 4. The platform is said to be manufactured and integrated by ECARX. Polestar 4 is currently equipped with Mobileye SuperVision and already available for pre-sale in China, it will be available in other countries around the world in 2024.

Aug.25th: Baidu “Radish run” announced the opening of autonomous driving shuttle service to Wuhan Tianhe Airport. Baidu officials said, that this is not only the first time to realize an autonomous commute from Wuhan downtown to the airport, but also the first time domestic autonomous driving operation has a mixed ride that includes urban roads and highways.

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Sources: Huawei; GAC; Nvidia; Gasgoo; Polestar; TechCrunch; Baidu; ABUP