China AV Newsletter - Oct. 2022

2nd?largest automaker brand, Volkswagen, decided to drop their western autonomous partnership with Ford – Argo.ai and instead shift efforts towards Chinese Horizon Robotics with an investment of 2.4 billion euro! We find full stack autonomous driving VDS companies take more and more projects overseas, as over 20% of the autonomous driving licenses given in California are for Chinese companies.

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*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 - Oct. 2022

Oct.7th:?Dr. Shuaijun Li, former Chief System Architect of?Huawei Autonomous Driving, has officially joined?Freetech?and is?responsible for the development of advanced autonomous driving systems. Dr. Shuaijun Li has focused on automotive industry and autonomous driving technology for more than a decade, while at his last role he led the development and implementation of Huawei's high level autonomous driving solutions.

Oct.10th:?In accordance with the requirements of?Guangzhou's intelligent networked vehicle autonomous driving function test,?XPeng G9?successfully passed the autonomous driving closed-zone test. In the test scenarios XPeng G9 completed all driving operation safely and accurately within the scope of traffic regulations,?becoming the first production model in the industry to successfully pass the test?without changing its hardware, only by upgrading and enhancing its autonomous driving software.

Oct.12th:?Pony.ai?and?RoboSense?announced that they will?carry out in-depth cooperation?including the full business chain in the field of autonomous driving and intelligent transportation, to promote implementation and large-scale deployment of autonomous solutions. According to the strategic cooperation agreement, the two companies will jointly develop customized LiDAR products for various scenarios, based on RoboSense’s M1 hardware platform.

Oct.13th:?Volkswagen?is planning to?invest more than 2.4 billion euros in a software production joint venture in China. VW will use its wholly owned software company?CARIAD?to establish a JV with?Horizon Robotics, providing the enormous amount of equity to?stimulate the joint AV efforts. VW will hold 60% of the shares in the joint venture, and the deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023. About 40% of VW sales and over half of the automaker profits are generated in China, making it the most important market to focus on. Moreover, the Chinese auto sector is perceived more advanced market than Europe or the U.S. when it comes to digital innovation, as well as autonomous technologies. VW already established an R&D center of advanced technologies in China and this will be an expansion of its existing local resources.

Oct.17th:?Guangzhou?and?Shenzhen?issued the first urban advanced assisted driving map license, and?Baiduvehicles were in the first batch to be approved. It is reported that?Baidu HD map?will support car makers to mass-produce intelligent cars equipped with urban pilot assisted driving function to meet single vehicle intelligent assisted driving application scenarios on urban roads. This announcement marks the opening of Highway Pilot application in wide area of deployment countrywide leveraging high precision maps.

Oct.21st:?RoboSense's?North American headquarters?was officially announced in?Michigan, USA. The North American headquarters will work with the existing branch in San Jose, California to consolidate the foundation of cooperation with local North American companies. In addition, Robosense LiDAR team will continue deepen upstream and downstream cooperation establishing mass production and high volume demand.

Oct.26th:?HESAI?announced a partnership with?Changan?Automobile, and a number of new models under Changan's SDA architecture?will be equipped with Hesai's AT128?automotive-grade ultra-high-definition LIDAR, which is Hesai's long-range primary LiDAR, front-mounted mass production market, with 128 beams, claiming to provide 1.53 million points per second.

Oct.27th:?Pony.ai's autonomous driving travel service (Robotaxi) is officially connected to the?Ruqi?travel platform. Pony.ai will?cooperate with Ruqi to start Robotaxi hybrid operation, integrating both manned vehicles and autonomous driving vehicles.

Sources:?Freetech; Huawei; TechCrunch; VW; Horizon Robotics; Gasgoo; XPeng; Pony.ai; Hesai