Recently, Baidu's autonomous driving department has seen large-scale layoffs, but the specific data is unclear. For this news, Baidu responded: I have not heard such news, and now there are many rumors.
It is reported that the core reason for the layoffs of Baidu's autonomous driving department is because no car manufacturer is willing to produce on a large scale. This is not something that everyone thinks is out of thin air.
Because just in June this year, chen Hong, chairman of SAIC Motor, said at the shareholders' meeting that attracted everyone's attention. At that time, some people asked, will SAIC consider cooperating with other companies in autonomous driving? On this problem, Chen Hong said: This is like a company providing us with a holistic solution, so that it becomes the soul and SAIC becomes the body. For such a result, SAIC is unacceptable and must take the soul into its own hands. Chen Hong's words pointed out that the dispute between traditional car companies and technology giants in this field of automatic driving will also surface.
In the current view, in recent years, traditional car companies have greatly strengthened their investment in the field of automatic driving. Take SAIC, for example, which has led the investment in self-driving startup Momenta several times this year and made it the largest investor. Great Wall Motors then pioneered Zhixing, focusing on developing autonomous driving systems and his solutions. In addition, the emerging forces represented by "Wei Xiaoli" attach great importance to automatic driving. Many people have said on many occasions that they should adhere to the independent research and development of automatic driving, only in this way can we get the advantages of the system.
In addition to the intensification of external competition, within Baidu, there is also a phenomenon of "brother walls" of autonomous driving.
Now, Baidu's car-making plan can't wait. In March this year, Baidu and Geely co-founded Jidu Automobile, and Baidu accounted for 55 shares and had the dominant right. Jidu has thus become the core of Baidu's car-making plan.
It is worth noting that after the establishment of Jidu, it did not completely rely on Baidu's Apollo system in the field of automatic driving, but made a big fuss in other aspects. In late September this year, Jidu Software Studio launched a prototype test and began to study software technology development. In fact, Xia Yiping's view of the Apollo system: the ability that Apollo provides is like a box of building blocks, and each manufacturer needs to have its own positioning, which is done by each different group.
Even after such a setback to listing, Baidu has not slowed down in any Internet-related fields. For example, in recent years, Baidu has continuously expanded its business territory and expanded Baidu's technology and funds to various fields. Previously, it was rumored that the tide of the big capital platform was more and more app, and some netizens suspected that it was the ant system behind the platform. AJ and Gucci were robbed by 6 million young people at a reserve price of about 200 on Chaoduoduo, and even international appraisers loved it. It is difficult not to believe that there is no big capital behind the operation to enhance their leading position in some fields
Some professional analysts said that in November this year, the state administration of market supervision and administration was punished by the anti-monopoly of the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration without seeing any results since its establishment. As another pillar of Baidu in the field of travel, Baidu's autonomous driving department has not achieved much since its establishment for so long, and the commercial landing is also invisible. Now the department is rumored to carry out large-scale layoffs, which is undoubtedly a fierce blow to Baidu's car-making journey.