China AV Newsletter - Nov. 2024

November 2024 showcased the rapid evolution of autonomous driving and urban mobility, as China announce its target to deploy 100,000 autonomous flying cars by 2030! Geely’s potential takeover of Volocopter reflects the industry’s expanding ecosystem. Meanwhile, PonyAI successful Nasdaq IPO, raising $260 million and achieving a $5.25 billion valuation, strengthen back the ties between the two nations and signaling renewed confidence in Chinese tech firms on the global stage.

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China AV Newsletter - Oct. 2024

Nov.2nd: Pony.ai and BAIC New Energy held a signing ceremony for technical cooperation on the development of L4 autonomous driving models. The two sides will aim for a full autonomous Robotaxi production model, and jointly promote the large-scale deployment of Robotaxis. According to the agreement, the two parties will cooperate in the development of fully AV Robotaxi models based on ARCFOX T5 model and Pony.ai's 7th generation autonomous driving software and hardware system solutions.

Nov.3rd: Bosch announced that it has signed a new round of strategic cooperation memorandum with Tencent, in which the two will deepen their cooperation in multiple segments including public cloud, proprietary cloud for autonomous driving, autonomous driving maps, intelligent cockpit, large model base, and international expansion of intelligent solutions, aiming to merge the strengths of both companies and jointly expand the autonomous driving business.

Nov.5th: DeepRoute.ai announced the completion of $100 million C1 round of strategic financing, exclusively invested by domestic OEMs. Equity will be used to consolidate the domestic mass production project, expand overseas business, and provide financial support for exploring the commercial operation of Robotaxi and laying out cutting-edge technologies such as VLA model.

Nov.6th: Taxi platform Lyft will partner with Mobileye to bring autonomous driving cars to Lyft's ride-hailing platformand enhance R&D efforts in the field. This comes after Lyft's rival Uber signed a series of agreements related to RoboTaxis. In order to increase its competitiveness, Lyft has decided to include vehicles owned by third-party fleet operators equipped with the Mobileye Drive autonomous driving system.

Nov.7th: Volant Aerotech announced that it has reached strategic cooperation with multiple companies including China Southern Airlines, DeerJet, AvicGeneral and others, as they all signed more than 165 new VE25-100 intentional orders, accumulated to over 3.5 billion RMB. Volant VE25-100 eVTOL has signed more than 860 strategic co-operation and intentional orders, amount to 22 billion RMB. The company covers various scenarios as low-altitude sightseeing, training, short-haul transport, freight transport, emergency rescue and urban travel.

Nov.11st: Cidi.ai applied to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. If the listing is successful, it is expected to become the ‘first domestic share of autonomous driving mining trucks’. Cidi focuses on autonomous driving mining and logistics vehicles, V2X technology and high-performance sensing solutions R&D.

Nov.15th: Geely Group is in advanced talks with German flying taxi startup Volocopter to acquire a majority stake in Volocopter in a takeover deal that would save Volocopter from bankruptcy. Geely may inject $95 million in exchange for about 85% of Volocopter's shares.

Nov.15th: During Guangzhou Auto Show, IM Motors, NVIDIA and Momenta agreed to collaborate to create one of the industry's first DRIVE AGX Thor chipset mass-produced intelligent driving solutions to accelerate IM AD's product experience. The solution is planned to be firstly deployed in IM Motors‘ mass production models in 2025.

Nov.20th: QianXun has received a fixed-point notification from a global head automobile enterprise, with an expected scale of more than 1 million vehicles. QianXun will provide FindAUTO Beidou Navigation space-time intelligence production solution covering the whole life cycle for this automobile enterprise, and fully support high-level intelligent driving applications with accurate, safe and reliable space-time intelligence services.

Nov.22nd: Anhui ShineAuto completed Pre-A round of financing, raising more than RMB 100 million. The equity is planned to be used for the iterative upgrading of high-level autonomous driving technology platform, the R&D of autonomous driving products in specific scenarios and the layout of industry supply chain ecological co-operation. Anhui ShineAuto was founded in 2021, originated from the Hefei Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Nov. 27th: Pony.ai completed its Nasdaq IPO, raising $260 million from 20 million shares priced at $13 each. This IPO is the largest for a Chinese company in the US in recent months, potentially signaling a resurgence of Chinese tech firms in American markets. Pony.ai operates over 250 RoboTaxis and 190 RoboTrucks in China and is exploring collaborations with companies like Uber Technologies for global deployment. Shares jump 15% providing the company a valuation of $5.25 billion.

Nov. 28th: China aims to introduce 100,000 flying cars, known as Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Vehicles (eVTOLs), into its cities by 2030. These vehicles are expected to serve as air taxis, delivery vans, and family cars. Urban infrastructure, including air traffic networks and landing facilities, is projected to be largely completed within the next two to three years to support this initiative. The current high cost of eVTOLs is anticipated to decrease significantly by 2030, making them more accessible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG6H6Cujcns

Nov. 29th: Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta to integrate advanced driver-assistance systems into four models between 2025 and 2027. This collaboration marks Momenta as Mercedes’ first primary Chinese technology supplier, aiming to regain market share in China’s competitive automotive sector. Mercedes plans to invest $75 million in Momenta, with potential for increased investment during Momenta’s anticipated IPO in early 2025.

Nov. 30th: Baidu’s Apollo Go has obtained a license from Hong Kong’s Transport Department to test its autonomous vehicles in the region, marking its first operation outside mainland China. The trials, set to begin on December 9, 2024, will involve ten autonomous vehicles in North Lantau, initially operating with a safety operator on board. This move aligns with Hong Kong’s new legislation to expand autonomous vehicle trials on public roads.?

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Sources:Reuters; China Daily; South China Morning Post; TechCrunch; Gasgoo; Bloomberg; Financial Times; Wired; The Verge.