Category: Smart Driving

China Electric eMobility eV Li Auto Smart Driving

Li Auto rapidly expanding smart driving and chip teams, report says

Post author By Lei Kang/CnEVPost
Post date May 25, 2023

Li Auto is hiring talent in China as well as abroad, and some of its core executives recently visited Silicon Valley, according to local media. | Li Auto US | Li Auto HK

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI) is ramping up its R&D investment at a time when its major local peers are struggling with weak sales.

Li Auto's smart driving and chip teams are expanding rapidly, and the extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) maker is hiring talent in China and abroad, according to a report today in local media outlet 36kr.

Some of Li Auto's core executives, including senior vice president Fan Haoyu, smart driving vice president Lang Xianpeng, and product strategy chief Zhang Xiao, recently visited Silicon Valley and launched recruiting presentations at universities, the report said, citing industry sources.

As part of its efforts to ramp up recruitment of talent for its smart driving R&D team, Li Auto even asked employees to recommend resumes, according to the report.

In addition to its smart driving team, Li Auto's chip development team is also expanding, with a new chip lead, Luo Min, already on board to fill the position, which was vacant, the report said.

Li Auto's chip team had fewer than 100 people last year, and the company plans to expand it to about 200 this year, according to the report.

Li Auto invited some of Zeku's employees to talk about onboarding after cell phone maker OPPO shut down the chip design unit, the report said.

As China's new energy vehicle (NEV) industry enters 2023 with weak sales, NIO (NYSE: NIO) and XPeng (NYSE: XPEV) were seeing sales decline due to product switches.

In contrast, Li Auto maintained strong sales, delivering 25,681 vehicles in April, another monthly high and the second consecutive month over the 20,000-delivery mark.

Li Auto's 5-seat SUV, the Li L7, delivered more than 10,000 units in April, its first full month of deliveries.

On April 18, Li Auto unveiled its all-electric solution on the first day of the Shanghai auto show, along with its latest generation of assisted driving system, AD Max 3.0, and said the software will be free for life.

AD Max 3.0's all-scenario Navigation on ADAS (NOA) will kick off internal testing this quarter and will cover more than 100 cities by the end of the year, Li Auto said at the time.

Li Auto CEO predicts China NEV penetration to exceed 80% by Dec 2025

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Tags Li Auto, NIO, XPeng

BYD China Electric eMobility eV Smart Driving Tesla

BYD’s Tesla FSD-like feature said to be available in Q3

Post author By Lei Kang/CnEVPost
Post date May 11, 2023

BYD's advanced driver-assistance system, called DNP, will be available on the new Han sedan in the third quarter, according to local media.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY) is a rare exception in China's electric vehicle (EV) space, not marketing its assisted driving capabilities much.

While this seems to have had no impact on its sales, it has left some with the impression that it lags behind in smart driving technology.

Now, a new report said BYD actually has technology built up in this area and will launch a feature similar to Tesla's FSD (Full Self-Driving) later this year.

BYD's advanced driver-assistance system will be available on the new Han sedan in the third quarter, giving the model the ability of pilot-assisted driving on the highway, local auto media HiEV said in a report today.

BYD's system is called DNP, and after the Han, it will also be available for some models of the Tang and Song of the Dynasty series, according to the report.

In addition to these models, BYD's higher-positioned brands including Denza, F brand and Yangwang will also be equipped with advanced smart driving features, the report said.

The first BYD advanced assisted driving solution available for Han models will be based on the Journey 5 chip from local chipmaker Horizon Robotics, according to the report.

Horizon Robotics is a leading provider of intelligent driving system solutions in China, and Li Auto is using its chips in some of its models, and use Nvidia chips in others.

Some models of BYD's Dynasty and Ocean series will also use the Nvidia DRIVE Orin computing platform to create assisted driving systems, the HiEV report noted.

On March 23, BYD announced a partnership with Nvidia on smart driving technology to equip some of its NEVs with the Nvidia DRIVE Hyperion platform for smart driving and smart parking of vehicles starting in the first half of 2023, as previously reported by CnEVPost.

Notably, on December 27 last year, BYD announced that it had established a joint venture with autonomous driving unicorn Momenta, officially kicking off a long-term partnership between the two companies to develop high-level intelligent driving technology.

Momenta, an industry-leading autonomous driving company, will further boost BYD's rapid breakthrough and mass production in the field of intelligent driving, BYD's announcement at the time said.

The high trim version of Denza N7 is equipped with city pilot assisted driving function, with 2 RoboSense LiDARs and an Nvidia Orin X chip, with some of the system's algorithms provided by Momenta, according to HiEV's report today.

The Denza N7 will have basic L2 assisted driving features when it goes on sale in June, with other more advanced features to be released later, the report said, citing a Denza insider.

For the Yangwang brand, which is positioned above Denza, its first model, the U8, is equipped with three LiDARs, while the autonomous driving computing platform uses an Nvidia Orin chip, according to the report.

The Yangwang U8 is priced similarly to the Lotus Eletre with its smart driving solution, and both will have highway as well as city road pilot-assisted driving capabilities, the report said.

Earlier today, another local media outlet, 36kr, reported that BYD's smart driving R&D system is rapidly adjusting and the company is planning to conduct its own smart driving chip design.

While BYD's existing models are currently largely dependent on solutions from external suppliers, including Baidu, Huawei and Momenta, the NEV maker is already accelerating its focus on smart driving, the 36kr report said.

BYD ramps up smart driving R&D efforts, forms chip design team, report says

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Tags Li Auto, Tesla

China Electric eMobility eV Haomo Haomo DriveGPT Self-driving Smart Driving

Haomo’s self-driving ambitions leap forward with launch of DriveGPT

Post author By Phate Zhang/CnEVPost
Post date April 11, 2023

DriveGPT will reshape the route of vehicle intelligence technology, allowing assisted driving to evolve faster and autonomous driving to come sooner, said Haomo CEO.

(Image credit: Haomo)

The popularity of ChatGPT has led players in the autonomous driving industry to start expecting more from artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Now, a Chinese startup has released a large model of self-driving cognition, becoming the first in the industry to do so.

Great Wall Motor-backed startup Haomo.AI Technology officially launched DriveGPT today, after it previewed the AI large model in February.

DriveGPT is the first generative large model for autonomous driving that will reshape the technological path to automotive intelligence, the Beijing-based company announced today at its 8th Haomo AI Day event.

The AI model builds RLHF (Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback) technology by bringing in driving data for continuous optimization of self-driving cognitive decision models.

The goal of DriveGPT is to achieve end-to-end autonomous driving, and at this stage, it is mainly used to solve the cognitive decision problem of autonomous driving, said Gu Weihao, CEO of Haomo, at today's event.

DriveGPT has been opened to a limited number of partners, and the first batch includes Beijing Jiaotong University School of Computer and Information Technology, Qualcomm, Volcano Engine, Huawei Cloud, JD Technology, NavInfo, WEY Brand, and Intel.

What is DriveGPT?

GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer), essentially solves for the probability of the next word occurring, sampling from a probability distribution and generating a word with each call.

This continuous loop generates a sequence of characters for various downstream tasks. ChatGPT evolved on such a model.

On February 17, as the AI frenzy generated by ChatGPT continues worldwide, Haomo upgraded its large model of self-driving cognition to DriveGPT, calling it the first of its kind in the world of self-driving cognition.

DriveGPT completed model building and validation of the first phase of data with parameters comparable in size to GPT-2, the company said at the time, adding that DriveGPT will continue to introduce large-scale real data next to continuously improve its measurement.

At today's Haomo AI Day, Gu provided more technical details about DriveGPT.

Simply put, DriveGPT is the GPT large model in autonomous driving, which is also solving for the probability of the next Token, according to Gu.

Each call is equivalent to generating a Token based on a sequence of pre-trained Tokens, which are equivalent to a word in natural language processing, except that DriveGPT's Tokens are used to describe driving scenarios.

The sequence of Tokens is a complete time sequence of driving scenarios, including the next possible state of the entire traffic environment and the state of the car.

Under a unified generative framework, DriveGPT can do multiple tasks including planning, decision making and reasoning all together, according to Gu.

DriveGPT's pre-trained model uses 120 billion parameters and is based on 40 million production vehicles' driving data.

In addition to that, Haomo used partially screened human takeover data -- roughly 50,000 Clips -- for training the feedback model, according to Gu.

To easily understand the logic behind this, Gu gives an example:

Suppose we give a prompt to reach a certain target point, this prompt may come from the navigation of a map, or in the future it may come from human voice instructions during voice interaction.

DriveGPT will generate many possible driving styles, some aggressive -- change lanes continuously to overtake and reach the target point quickly, and some will be more steady -- follow other cars to the end.

If there are no other additional prompts, then DriveGPT will follow the optimal results from the feedback training and deliver a result that is more in line with most people's driving preferences.

Coming soon

Haomo is continuing to optimize DriveGPT, and the initial results will first be used in the new Mocha DHT-PHEV with Haomo HPilot 3.0, Gu said.

The Mocha DHT-PHEV is a model of Great Wall Motor's premium brand Wey, and Gu said the model will be available soon.

"We can also provide an excellent driving experience for city NOH (Navigation on HPilot)," Gu said.

In addition to city NOH, scenarios including city cruising, driving shortcut recommendations, and extrication, autonomous driving capabilities are also expected to see new breakthroughs, according to Gu.

"Ultimately we hope to arrive at the ultimate scenario of autonomous driving: driverless," he said, adding, "We believe that DriveGPT will reshape the technological path to vehicle intelligence, allowing assisted driving to evolve faster and autonomous driving to arrive sooner."

Notably, Haomo is one of the strongest players in the autonomous driving space, despite being an under-the-radar startup, especially compared to high-profile local electric vehicle companies.

Haomo was the former autonomous driving division of Great Wall Motor and became an independent company in November 2019. Its core team members come partly from Great Wall Motor's smart driving R&D team and partly from local tech companies.

In September 2022, Ora Funky Cat and Wey Coffee 01 from Great Wall Motor achieved results comparable to the Tesla Model Y in a European safety test.

Both the Ora Funky Cat and the Wey Coffee 01 were equipped with assisted driving technology provided by Haomo, which was a major reason for their high scores, especially on Safety Assist, at the time.

At the 7th AI Day event held today, January 5, Haomo announced MANA OASIS, an autonomous driving computing center launched by it and Volcano Engine, a cloud service platform owned by ByteDance, with a total computing power of 670 PFLOPS, the largest in China at the time.

The computing power support provided by MANA OASIS was key to the training and technology becoming available for DriveGPT, Gu said today.

Separately, Haomo chairman Zhang Kai said at today's event that in addition to the new Mocha DHT-PHEV, the second HPilot 3.0-equipped model, Wey Lanshan, will be launched this year.

Haomo's HPilot has been installed in nearly 20 models and has assisted users to drive more than 40 million kilometers, Zhang said.

In overseas markets, vehicles equipped with HPilot have been shipped to regions including the European Union and Israel and delivered to local consumers.

Vehicles equipped with the driving assistance system will be available in the Middle East, South Africa and Australia, and the Mexican and Russian versions of HPilot will be in mass production soon, Zhang said.

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Tags Ora

BYD BYD Sea Lion China DJI Electric eMobility eV Smart Driving Tesla

Drone maker DJI’s auto unit to supply BYD with assisted driving system, report says

Post author By Phate Zhang/CnEVPost
Post date April 7, 2023

The first BYD model to be equipped with DJI Automotive's assisted driving solution is the Sea Lion, an all-electric SUV expected to go on sale within the year, according to local media.

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY) will use the assisted driving solution provided by DJI Automotive, the automotive division of local drone maker DJI, on some of its models, according to a report by 36kr today.

The first BYD model to feature DJI Automotive's solution is the yet-to-be-released Sea Lion, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter, adding that their partnership involves a city NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) feature that doesn't rely on high precision maps.

The Sea Lion is an all-electric SUV in BYD's Ocean series, which is expected to go on sale within the year, the report said.

On July 28, 2022, Auto Home reported that BYD was building an SUV called Sea Lion, which could compete with Tesla's Model Y.

The BYD Sea Lion has a sharp, sporty front end, Auto Home said, citing spy photos they obtained of the model.

DJI announced its automotive business, DJI Automotive, in April 2021 and said at the time that it had been in the auto parts business for five years.

In September 2022, SAIC-GM-Wuling launched the 2023 Baojun KiWi EV, with one version featuring DJI's smart driving system, the first time the system has been used in a production vehicle.

The DJI Automotive team, which currently numbers around 1,300 people, has previously partnered with SAIC-GM-Wuling and Volkswagen China, the 36kr report said, adding that its partnership with BYD is expected to open up the market further in terms of mass production of smart driving systems.

For BYD, the Sea Lion needs to have a strong intelligent configuration, or at least the shortcomings can't be too obvious, to be competitive, of which high-level assisted driving features are essential, 36kr's report said.

Although DJI Automotive has a low profile in China's electric vehicle industry, especially compared to Huawei, the company has had a number of achievements in assisted driving systems.

On April 2, DJI Automotive unveiled its next-generation smart driving solution at the China EV 100 Forum, which enables L2+ assisted driving functions including city NOA with as low as 32 TOPS of computing power without the need for high precision maps or LiDARs.

(Image credit: DJI Automotive)

The pure vision-assisted driving system also supports the addition of millimeter wave radars, ultrasonic radars, LiDARs, and high-precision maps to enhance the safety redundancy of the system, it said.

The solution provides both low-threshold access to high-level smart features for budget models and an advanced technology experience for mid- to high-end models, DJI Automotive said.

The solution is now in a usable state and is actively advancing mass production with partner car companies, DJI Automotive said on April 2.

Wuling refreshes KiWi EV, DJI's assisted driving system debuts in production vehicle

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Tags Tesla

China Electric eMobility eV Smart Driving Tesla Tesla FSD

Tesla reportedly to begin large-scale testing of FSD in China

Post author By Phate Zhang/CnEVPost
Post date April 4, 2023

Tesla will soon begin large-scale testing of FSD (Full Self-Driving) in China, according to a report by Caixin on April 3. TSLA.US

(A screenshot from the Tesla China website.)

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA), despite being a pioneer among electric vehicle (EV) makers in exploring autonomous driving, has been seen as slow to move in the space in China. Now, it looks like things are about to change.

Tesla is about to begin large-scale testing of FSD (Full Self-Driving) in China, local media outlet Caixin said in an April 3 report.

The story was a feature on BYD and did not mention anything more about Tesla's FSD localization efforts in China.

Notably, this is the second time in a week that similar rumors have surfaced.

Tesla China will soon push out a major update to Autopilot, auto blogger Zheng Xiaokang, who has 532,000 followers on Weibo, said on March 27.

The blogger did not mention any more information, and in the comments section of his Weibo post, there was speculation that the update might be Tesla's vision-only V11 software.

All Tesla vehicles currently come with the free Basic Autopilot (BAP) software. In addition, Tesla offers Enhanced Autopilot (EAP), FSD software as an option.

EAP and FSD cost $6,000 and $15,000 in the US and RMB 32,000 ($4,650) and RMB 64,000 in China, respectively.

Tesla opened the EAP feature option in China on February 5, 2021, adding several features compared to BAP, including automatic assisted lane change, automatic parking, and smart summoning.

Tesla has made the EAP feature available free of charge to Chinese owners on holidays several times over the past two years, although the software has not won much praise.

The optional Tesla FSD capability has always been available, but Chinese consumers who have purchased the package have so far failed to get a significantly better experience than BAP.

In contrast, Tesla's Chinese counterparts are seeing tremendous progress with the assisted driving feature.

On March 31, XPeng (NYSE: XPEV) made its Tesla FSD-like advanced driver assistance aystem (ADAS) available for its flagship G9 and P7i models, though the capability still relies on high-precision maps for now. The feature was previously available on the P5 sedan.

XPeng plans to expand full lane-changing, overtaking and left/right turn functionality to major Chinese cities without high-precision maps in the second half of 2023, while full-scene ADAS is planned for 2024.

On February 20, NIO (NYSE: NIO) began allowing all NT 2.0 platform models to trial NOP+ assisted driving software, which enables a point-to-point assisted driving experience on highways as well as urban expressway scenarios.

($1 = RMB 6.8822)

Tesla rumored to push major Autopilot update in China soon

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Tags BYD, NIO, self-driving, Tesla, XPeng

China Electric eMobility eV Smart Driving Tesla Tesla Autopilot

Tesla rumored to be pushing major Autopilot update in China soon

Post author By Phate Zhang/CnEVPost
Post date March 27, 2023

"Tesla China will soon push a major update to Autopilot," a well-known car blogger wrote on Weibo. | TSLA.US

Tesla's assisted driving software is seen as a mediocre performer in China. Now, a rumor that has inspired a lot of anticipation.

"Tesla China will push a major update to Autopilot soon," auto blogger Zheng Xiaokang, who has 532,000 followers on Weibo, said today.

The blogger, a longtime Tesla China follower, didn't mention any more information, and some speculated in the comments section of the Weibo post that the update might be Tesla's vision-only V11 software.

In 2021, Tesla begins the transition to a vision-only Tesla Vision by removing radar from the Model 3 and Model Y, followed by the Model S and Model X in 2022.

On the Model 3 page of its China website, Tesla says the Tesla Vision processing system detects nearby vehicles to reduce the risk of collisions and assists in parking.

With a 360-degree field of view from the vehicle's front, side and rear cameras, the system has powerful vision processing capabilities and can detect distances of up to 250 meters, according to the text on the page.

Tesla has a factory in Shanghai that produces the Model 3 and Model Y.

Today, in most parts of the world, the Model 3 and Model Y are already based on the Tesla Vision solution, which relies only on cameras. But both models currently being delivered by Tesla in China still come with radar.

Earlier this month, multiple regulatory filings revealed that Tesla declared the Model Y without radar in China, which may mean that the SUV may be the first Tesla model to remove radar in China.

Tesla is one of the world's most capable automakers in terms of autonomous driving, though its assisted driving software in China pales in comparison to some of its local peers.

Several local car companies, including XPeng (NYSE: XPEV) and NIO (NYSE: NIO), are fast-tracking testing of their advanced assisted driving software and are getting many positive reviews on social media.

On March 16, XPeng announced that its P5 sedan will receive its seventh vehicle OTA upgrade, which will make its Tesla FSD-like City Navigation Guided Pilot (City NGP) feature available in Shenzhen after Guangzhou.

City NGP can achieve up to 90 percent of the efficiency of a human driver and can easily handle heavy traffic during peak commuting hours and complex road conditions, XPeng said.

At the end of last month, NIO began allowing owners of all its NT 2.0 platform vehicles to apply for a trial of NOP (Navigate on Pilot) Plus assisted driving software, which enables a point-to-point assisted driving experience on highways and urban expressway scenarios.