China AV Newsletter - Jan. 2023

As we begun 2023 and the year of the Rabbit, the Chinese market and even air travel is back to normal from mid-January and it is expected to see a rapid development in the autonomous sector among others. Several local firms even made it to CES presenting autonomous driving on the streets of Las Vegas, as WeRide RoboTaxi successful AV shuttle. Despite the opening of physical borders, trade limitations push local autonomous platforms to prioritize relaying on local compute chips, as recent announcements by Horizon Robotics which include both Pony.ai and GAC.

Enjoy reading~

?

*If you prefer reading in Chinese or would like to share with colleagues – don’t forget that China AV Newsletter is also available in Mandarin via Weibo?or at?TheAutonomous?website.

China AV Newsletter - Jan. 2023

Jan.5th: Haomo.ai announced the official opening of Intelligent Computing Center MANA OASIS. The new center is the largest intelligent computing center in China's autonomous driving sector. MANA OASIS is jointly built by Haomo.ai and VolcEngine, providing 6.7 billion IPS, 2T per second storage and 800G per second communication bandwidth.

Jan.5th: WeRide announced WeRide Sensor Suite 5.1, a new generation of autonomous driving sensor suite, at CES 2023. WeRide SS 5.1 fully integrates automotive-grade high-resolution semi-solid-state LiDAR, side-blind LiDAR, and high-precision camera to achieve 360 degrees perception with 200 meters detection range.

Jan.7th: HESAI announced that it has been awarded the front-mounted mass production project of Rising Auto, a new energy vehicle brand of SAIC Group. The new model of Rising Auto will be equipped with HESAI's AT128.

Jan.9th: Pony.ai announced a strategic cooperation with Horizon Robotics. Based on self-developed driving algorithms and Horizon's Journey? series of in-vehicle intelligent chips, Pony.ai will create mass production-grade intelligent driving solutions and promote mass production solutions for autonomous driving.

Jan.11st: Baidu announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with Wuhan Municipal Government. Both parties will jointly open a large-scale autonomous driving commercial operation service to create an autonomous driving operation area. Baidu's RoboTaxi service platform "Radish Run" has already launched fully unmanned commercial operation in Wuhan, with new vehicles being put on the road according to the policy.

Jan.17th: Horizon Robotics and GAC Aion signed a strategic cooperation. According to the agreement, Aion will build intelligent driving and cockpit intelligent interaction platform based on Horizon Journey? series chips.

Jan.18th: WeRide announced that its Robobus has officially been granted an autonomous driving road test license by the Beijing High-Level Automated Driving Demonstration Zone Working Office. According to the license, WeRide's Robobus can drive on the open road within the entire area of Beijing's High-level Automated Driving Demonstration Zone, which covers a total area of 60 square kilometers.

Jan.28th: Isurestar announced that it has recently received an investment of 180 million RMB led by Huiyou Capital. Isurestar said that the financing has optimized the company's equity structure and will accelerate the mass production and large-scale application of LiDAR in the future. It is reported that Isurestar was established in 2005, focusing on the development of LIDAR, covering two business groups of automotive electronics and digital twin.

Jan.29th: China's Ministry of Commerce intends to restrict the export of LiDAR systems. The Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology have made some adjustments to the content of "China's Export Prohibition and Restriction of Export Technology Catalogue". Among them, the LIDAR system is included in the restricted export category. Some people in the LiDAR industry pointed out that the revision will not affect the normal export and sales of car LiDAR products. The definition of "LIDAR system" included in the restricted export catalog is "vehicle-mounted laser detection and ranging system technology", which actually restricts the core technology, not the product.

Jan.30th: XPENG AEROHT announced that its full-stack self-researched Traveler X2 has officially been granted a licensed flight certificate by the South Central Regional Administration of Civil Aviation of China. The Traveler X2 became the first unmanned eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) product in China to apply for and be successfully approved.

Jan.31st: Freetech announced the completion of several hundred million RMB Series B+ financing, this strategic financing follows Freetech receiving nearly $100 million in financing in November 2022, bringing the total amount of Freetech Series B financing to nearly 1 billion RMB. The equity will finance iterations of Freetech's technology products for higher-order intelligent driving.

Sources: Haomo.ai; WeRide; Pony.ai; Horizon Robotics; Hesai; Gasgoo; Freetech;?