China AV Newsletter - Jun. 2023

It’s a hot summer in China but the autonomous vehicles sector is still moving forward rapidly. In the last month we saw the re-rising of full stack VDS players with a growth of 200% for Haomo.ai HPilot, CIDI’s Dragon Pilot MAX launch, and FreeTech announce new Hangzhou AV R&D center with 2 Billion RMB investment! Furtheremore, in the Autonomous Robo-Truck long-haul sector China is still showing the global lead as TuSimple announce its operation launch in Japan, while Dongfeng and CIDI launch and autonomous electric truck.

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China AV Newsletter - June. 2023

June.6th:?Haomo.ai?announced that the company's?assisted driving mileage has exceeded 50 million km . The highest single autonomous operation mileage reached 393.4 km, and the average monthly growth rate of Haomo.aiHPilot?usage is over 200%. HPilot, a passenger car assisted driving product developed by Haomo.ai, has been installed on nearly 20 models by brands such as?Wei,?Tank?and?Ola.

June.6th:?TuSimple?has officially announced its?entry into the Japanese market ?and has started testing autonomous driving on the Tomei Expressway in Japan. The test route connects three major metropolitan areas in Japan (Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka) and is one of the most important long-haul trunk logistics transport routes in Japan.

In addition, TuSimple officially announced that it has been awarded the first autonomous driving truck road test license in China by?Shanghai Pudong New Area. It is reported that TuSimple is permitted to conduct "fully unmanned testing " of L4 autonomous driving heavy trucks on designated public roads.?Shanghai is the first city in China to allow ?"fully unmanned testing" of L4 autonomous driving heavy trucks. TuSimple is showing a repeated trend recently to focus on Asia Pacific region.

June.7th:?Dongfeng Liuzhou Auto, together with its autonomous driving eco-partner?CIDI?(Changsha Intelligent Driving Research Institute) and?China Mobile Guangxi Branch, has jointly?launched "Dragon Pilot MAX" an intelligent network-linked electric logistics solution .

After more than a year of R&D, the company released autonomous driving heavy trucks without a safety driver, for commercial operation logistics in industrial parks. "Dragon Pilot MAX " solution has accumulated tens of thousands of kilometers in autonomous operation, while so far its indicators have meet the required local autonomous driving standard.

June.12th:?ECARX?announced its first quarterly results report for 2023. The data shows that in the first quarter, ECARX achieved a total revenue of RMB762.9 million, up 16% year-on-year; gross profit was?RMB210.8 million, up 52% year-on-year . As of March 31, 2023, the technology products developed by ECARX have been installed on approximately 5 million vehicle products.

June.15th:?Hefei CAS-Juche Technology Co., Ltd. (中科智驰 ) has?completed Series A financing round of tens of millions RMB . Founded in August 2018, CAS-Juche Technology is a full stack autonomous driving VDS provider and parts vehicle supplier with a strong technical team from the?Chinese Academy of Sciences. The equity is planned to be used for building an autonomous driving vehicle production line, expending technical and sales team, as well as expending R&D of autonomous driving vehicles and systems for innovative applications in the military and civilian fields.?

June.15th:?XPeng Auto?announced that its urban NGP is officially open in?Beijing.

Officials said that this is?the industry's first high-level intelligent assisted driving open within Beijing city , currently mainly applicable to Beijing's ring roads and major expressways. XNGP is the second generation of intelligent assisted driving system launched by OEM, following the XPILOT system. The new system adds a full intelligent assisted driving function in city conditions (urban NGP), as well as enhanced functions of high-speed NGP and VPA (valet parking assistance) memory parking.

June.19th:?Baidu's RoboTaxi service platform?Radish Run?has recently received an?official license ?from?Shenzhenmunicipality, to carry out L4 autonomous driving commercial Robo-Taxi operations in?Pingshan District, Shenzhen. The vehicle will be fully unmanned without any operator or safety driver.

June.20th:?FreeTech, a provider of intelligent driving solutions, has entered an agreement with?Hangzhou?Municipal Government, to build a new global R&D management headquarters in Hangzhou to accelerate the research and development of intelligent solutions with hardware and software as the core of high-level autonomous driving. The R&D headquarters and innovative manufacturing application base will be located in Hangzhou's?Binjiang District,?with a total investment of RMB 2 billion .

June.21st:?AICC , a provider of intelligent automotive computing infrastructure platforms, announced the successful?completion of a new round of investment of several hundred million RMB . The round was co-led by?Chongqing Tech Holdings?and?CIMB Capital fund, and followed by?CATL?and?Delta Capital. AICC said that this round of financing will accelerate the commercialization of its autonomous driving operating system and ecological construction.

June.30th:?ECARX?has announced its plan to increase its investment in?JiCar Intelligence?and?become a controlling shareholder . The two parties signed a transaction agreement under which ECARX 's stake in JiCar Intelligence will increase from 50% to 70%. Founded in April 2021, JiCar Intelligence was co-founded by?Geely?Group and ECARX and is dedicated to meet the demand for L2+ and L3 autonomous driving solutions with cost-effective systems.

June.30th:?Black Sesame?has?submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange ?for listing on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

According to the prospectus disclosed on the HKSE website, Black Sesame management intends to use the net proceeds from the IPO for the development of intelligent car vehicle-grade SoCs, intelligent car software platforms and autonomous driving solutions, as well as to improve its commercialization capabilities. Between 2021 and 2022, Black Sesame revenue showed 175% YoY growth to $165 million in last year’s reports.

June.30th:?Geely?Aerofugia ?announced the completion of its first market-based financing round, with a?funding amount of over 100 million RMB . This round of financing will be mainly used for R&D and market development of the intellectual property rights of the AE200, to promote the application of urban intelligent three-dimensional transportation scenarios and to promote the innovative development of the low-altitude sector economy.

Sources:?AICC; China Daily; Haomo.ai; TuSimple; Gasgoo; CIDI ;ECARX; Juche; Xpeng; Baidu; FreeTech;