- Stav Shvartz
- January 10, 2020
- 3:37 pm
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China AV - Jan. Newsletter
With the outbreak of coronavirus this month, I would like to begin this edition with admiration for the strength and solidarity shown by the people of Wuhan and all over China. Volunteers, medical personal and individuals present the highest moral standards at this challenging time. I send condolences for the families that lost their dear ones and wish fast recovery for those who are fighting the virus at hospitals. Please join me in donation to support China at this difficult time – Coronavirus Relief Fund or you can share other alternatives for our readers at the comments.
Automaker impact : coronavirus first identified at Wuhan, Hubei Province, and spread across Chinese. Local authorities closed several cities and blocked roads. In addition, specific districts announced the prolonging of Spring Festival holiday till Feb. 10 for employees and Feb. 17 for students. As one of the pillars of the national economy, the automobile manufacturing industry is affected by the epidemic. According to reports, in addition to the collective postponement of work at Shenlong, that affect OEMs that have factories at Wuhan, Hubei Province as Dongfeng Motor. Toyota, Ford and Tesla have announced the postponement of resumption of work.
Jan.2nd: RoboSense (速腾聚创), a Shenzhen based LiDAR manufacture, announced that its solid-state lidar product RS-LIDAR-M1 Simple was officially launched accept orders, at a price of US $1898. RoboSense revealed the new MEMS product during CES 2020.
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opened to the public on January 7 at Las Vegas. As the world’s largest automotive consumer market, China’s influence on CES is significant as seen before, as many enterprises have shown strong interest in the Chinese market as well as local brands expend globally.
Jan.7th: AutoX and European auto giant FCA announced their cooperation to launch an autonomous driving taxi in China. According to AutoX spokesperson, the unmanned Robotaxi will be operated jointly by FCA and AutoX, and will be launched at Shenzhen, Shanghai and additional cities a large scale this year.
Jan.7th: Livox (览沃科技), a subsidiary of DJI (大疆), has launched two LiDAR products, which are targeted for L3 or L4 level autonomous driving. One is called “Horizon” that will be used for close detection at a distance up to 260 meters. The other is called “TELE-15” and it will be used for remote object detection. The retail prices of these two lidars are relatively low, “HORIZON” at 6499 RMB and the “TELE-15” at 9000 RMB.
Jan.7th: Intel subsidiary Mobileye announced cooperation with SAIC Group (上汽集团) and Daegu city of South Korea during CES, focusing on the fields of autonomous driving assistance system (ADAS) and mobility as a service (MAAS). According to the agreement, SAIC will adopt Mobileye’s road experience management (REM) technology to promote the deployment of L2 ADAS system in China. SAIC will also collect road data together with other global OEM partners of Mobileye to create real-time HD map possible.
Jan.7th: Valeo and Meituan cooperated to develop an electric driverless distribution prototype vehicle target to serve last-mile food deliveries. Valeo eDeliver4U is a fully electric pod, driving at 12kmph at a range of 100km and capable of delivering approximately 17 meals per trip at China crowded cities. The vehicle is equipped with 4 fisheye cameras, 4 Valeo Scala LiDARs, a front camera, 12 ultrasonic sensors and 4 radars.
Jan.7th: Great Wall Motors and Neusoft announced a formal cooperation focused on vehicle computing platform (VCP). The two will jointly develop a central computing platform for upper car body (top-head) of the future. Joint business cooperation will allow to create unique system of unmanned control on the basis of Neusoft VCP.
Jan.8th: Horizon Robotics announced a strategic cooperation with the French tier 1 supplier Faurecia, covering the development of advanced assisted driving, autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit.
The company also unveiled Horizon Matrix 2, an autonomous driving computing platform. Matrix 2 specs present improve performance compared to previous model, lower power consumption and affordable price. Matrix 2 is target to meet the perception computing needs of high-level autonomous driving operation teams as well as unmanned low-speed pods in different scenarios.
Jan.9th: China EV manufacturer Byton unveiled a production version of its M-Byte vehicle during CES2020. The OEM announced a developer’s program to create applications for its 48-inch display, to increase in-car experience. M-Byte presents an impressive range of 250 miles and starts at a 45,000 USD.
Jan.14th: Xpeng Motors (小鹏汽车) announced it had delivered a total of 16,608 units of model Xpeng G3 during 2019. China’s electric vehicle market is experiencing fierce competition, particularly with the installation of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai. Therefore, government subsidies to EV makers are also playing a pivotal role in EV market growth in the long run. After cutting the subsidy in 2019 for new energy vehicles with over 400 kilometers of range from USD 7200 to USD 3600, the government announced it would not cut the subsidies of NEVs in 2020.
Jan.15th: Volvo and China Unicom signed a 5G strategic cooperation agreement at Shanghai, announcing that the two sides will jointly promote the development of V2X vehicle road collaborative technology at China, based on 5G next generation mobile network technology. 5G technology is commercial at few parts of China since the end of 2019 and expected to have a significant distribution during 2020.
Jan.17th: Freetech (福瑞泰克) announced that its Wuzhen plant has officially started operation. The plant is committed to meeting the growing demand for automobiles intelligent systems, and providing a complete solution from hardware manufacturing to software and functional system development.
Jan.19th: Horizon Robotics and SD (英博超算), a subsidiary of ZTE, signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two sides will carry out in-depth cooperation in product and technology, jointly develop intelligent driving AI solutions, and work together to accelerate the commercialization of intelligent driving in the Chinese market. The solution developed by the two sides is expected to be adapted at mass production models during 2020.
Jan.20th: AutoX announced the closure of a Pre-Series B round worth tens of millions of dollars, following a USD 100 million Series A that was announced last September. As the latest round started at December, it positions AutoX as the only autonomousdriving enterprise that during 2019 completed two consecutive rounds of financing.
Jan.20th: Chery and Baidu will deepen cooperation and jointly build the next generation of smart cockpit products. The two sides will also explore the internationalization scheme of intelligent Internet connection. Baidu will develop targeted technical solutions to help Chery group strengthen its development in North America and Europe through its experience in the field of multilingual voice semantic technology. Chery group will share overseas market cooperation resources with Baidu and expand the influence of Baidu group in the automobile industry by virtue of its advantages in engineering R&D, production and manufacturing.
Sources: Gasgoo; Robosense; ScienceChina; Equalocean; Autohome; TMCnews; Tigerobo; PEDaily
