China AV Newsletter - Sep. 2024

September was a pivotal month for China’s autonomous driving sector, marked by significant strategic partnerships and financial markets confidence. Pony.ai’s ambitious move to file for a U.S. IPO aiming for a $4.5 billion valuation underscores the growing confidence in Chinese autonomous vehicle technology on the global stage. Moreover, Xiaomi’s aggressive expansion in the electric vehicle market, with a delivery target of 130,000 units, highlights the escalating competition growing globally. On the software side, Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxi service achieved over 100 million kilometers of autonomous driving without major incidents and Momenta unveiled its first mass-produced intelligent driving model. All together those developments further cements China’s position as a leader in self-driving innovation.

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China AV Newsletter - Sep. 2024

Sep.4th: ECar Tech announced that it has recently closed a round of RMB 200 million strategic investment. This round of financing is planned to be used for the construction of intelligent factories. ECar Tech has developed more than 20 products, with applications covering urban distribution, sanitation and cleaning, security patrol and more. Production and sales reached over 1,000 autonomous driving vehicles, with a cumulative mileage of more than 10 million km.

Sep.4th: Pony.ai announced the opening of an autonomous driving test, connecting Guangzhou South Railway Station and Baiyun Airport. Pony.ai has accumulated more than 35 million kilometers of autonomous driving road test mileage, including more than 3.5 million kilometers of non-supervised mileage.

Sep.5th: Tesla plans to launch its FSD advanced driver-assistance system in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approval. Tesla management sees FSD as one way to boost its sales and get ahead of its Chinese rivals.

Sep.10th: WeRide has been approved to launch commercial autonomous minibuses in Hengqin, Zhuhai. The company has been approved to carry out the operation with NO safety driver and NO steering-wheel required. Remote and highly automated driving road tests in Hengqin, laying a solid foundation for the new autonomous commercial service.

Sep.14th: GAC announced that its flying car GOVE has officially obtained the civil autonomous aerial vehicle licensed flight certificate issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), marking a significant step in the validation and commercialization of GAC's flying car. GOVE is a pure electric vertical take-off and landing, multi-rotor flying car independently developed by GAC Research Institute, which target three major scenarios: ground driving, air flight and air-ground docking.

Sep.19th: He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of XPeng Automobile, drove his new model XPeng P7+ for the first time to attend the 2024 Apsara Conference. Positioned as the world's first AI car, this was P7+ first appearance to the public. From the beginning of the new model R&D, AI application technologies were build in, with an ability to learn independently and to take initiative, to meet the driver’s needs as well as other passengers.

Sep.20th: Horizon has announced an in-depth partnership with Chery Automobile, launching an all-encompassing collaboration based on its latest Journey 6 series of in-vehicle intelligent computing.

Sep.24th: Dongfeng Motor and Tencent Cloud signed a strategic cooperation agreement. According to the agreement, the two will collaborate R&D efforts in multiple areas including intelligent cabin, intelligent network connection, AI and LLM. In autonomous driving, Tencent will help Dongfeng to build a perception software leveraging Tencent cloud and map among other technologies.

Sep.25th: WeRide officially announced that it has established a strategic partnership with Uber, and the two parties will jointly promote the launch of WeRide’s autonomous driving vehicles on the Uber platform. The cooperation will be launched in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, at the end of this year. Local passengers will be able to summon a WeRide's RoboTaxi to complete their journeys when they use the Uber App to call a taxi.

Sep.27th: Yihang Intelligence announced the completion of hundreds of millions of yuan of Series C financing. This round of financing will be used to accelerate mass production solutions to position Yihand as a leading Tier 1. Yihang plans to focus its R&D on new generation of high-level intelligent driving solutions for urban use case.

Sep.29th: Momenta released its mass-produced Intelligent Driving Big Model, which integrates perception and planning into one big model to form an end-to-end, deep-learning autonomous driving solution. Momenta Intelligent Driving Big Model claims to support accurate prediction of vehicle or pedestrian's intention to pass in various complex road environments, automatically adjusting the speed of the vehicle, changing lanes flexibly and avoiding obstacles.

Sep.30th: AICC officially announced that it has received hundreds of millions RMB equity investment, invested by the Beijing Information Industry Development Investment Fund. AICC management announced they plan to further strengthen mass production of computing infrastructure products. Founded in 2020, AICC focus its R&D on computing infrastructure platforms and system development for autonomous vehicles.

Sep.30th: Tiny Chip announced that it has recently completed a round of financing, rising tens of millions RMB. Strategic investors including Zhejiang Lianyi Holdings. The equity will be used for the design of additional automotive-specific digital-analog hybrid SoC chips, as well as new R&D for multiple application scenarios of autonomous vehicles.

Sources: Ecar Tech; Pony.ai; Tesla; WeRide; GAC; NavInfo; Gasgoo; Chery; Dongfent; Tencent; Momenta.