Three minutes to review! A quick overview of the development of the autonomous driving industry in December 2021

Lack of core and the impact of the epidemic, the development of the automatic driving industry has been forced to slow down this year, and after several months of recovery, the time came to December, and the automatic driving industry has long been back on track. In this context, we may wish to look at how the recovered automatic driving is soaring from several aspects such as financing and dynamics!

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Investment/Financing

Heduo Technology was capitalized by GAC Group

On December 1, Heduo Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. underwent industrial and commercial changes on November 29, and the new shareholders included Guangdong Guangqi No. 3 Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), with a registered capital increased to about 9.2481 million yuan. According to the data, Heduo Technology was founded in 2017 to create a mass production solution for autonomous driving driven by local data based on cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology and automotive industry technology.

Robotic Research completes $228 million Series A funding round

December 9 news that robotic research, a self-driving technology company, has completed a $228 million Series A funding round, which has developed on-highway and off-highway autonomous vehicles for the U.S. Department of Defense over the past 20 years. The funding was primarily led by SoftBankVisionFund2 and Enlightenment Capital, and the funds raised will continue to be used to expand the company's business.

Apex.ai completed a $56.5 million Series B round

December 9 news that Munich-based Apex.ai has raised $56.5 million in Series B funding. The software manufacturer provides solutions for mobile and autonomous driving applications, essentially combining a variety of interdependent systems. The company intends to use the new funding to expand into automotive-related verticals, including agriculture, mining, industrial automation, and the Internet of Things.

Wenyuan Zhixing received strategic investment from GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group

On December 14, WeRide, an L4 self-driving technology company, announced that it has received strategic investment from GAC Group, and the cooperation between the two sides has been upgraded again to jointly promote the research and development and manufacturing of Robotaxi front-loading mass production models. In the next few years, the two sides plan to gradually establish a multi-tens of thousands of Robotaxi fleet, with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as the core to radiate to the whole country, and launch safe, economical and green autonomous driving services for the public.

Zhixing obtained nearly 1 billion yuan of financing from the A round

On December 22, only two years after its establishment, Zhixing announced that it had obtained nearly 1 billion yuan in Series A financing, becoming the first autonomous driving unicorn company in China to achieve large-scale mass production. The investors are Meituan, Hillhouse Venture Capital, Qualcomm Venture Capital, First Trip Holdings, And Nine Wisdom Capital. The funds raised will be mainly used for investment in autonomous driving research and development and the construction of talent system.

Qianhang Technology completed nearly 200 million yuan of financing

On December 23, the self-driving truck company Qianhang Technology recently completed about 200 million yuan of financing, with a valuation of more than 1 billion yuan, and the investors in this round include SF Holdings, Baidu, Xiaopeng Motors, IDG Capital, etc. Founded in July 2021, Qianhang Technology is a start-up that provides trunk logistics and transportation services based on autonomous driving technology.

Corporate cooperation

Aurora and Amazon AWS reached a self-driving car development partnership

On December 2, Aurora, a self-driving startup, announced a development partnership with Amazon Cloud Services (AWS) to perform more than 12 million complex driving simulation tasks per day through AWS cloud computing services. Aurora will leverage AWS's online and offline capabilities to support its machine learning and simulation-based autonomous vehicle technology development.

Black Sesame Intelligent signed a contract with Matrix Partners Hengrun

On December 7, Black Sesame Intelligent released the news that the company has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Matrix Partners Hengrun on December 6, and the two sides will carry out comprehensive technical and business cooperation on automatic driving (including domain controllers, parking, etc.), smart cockpit products and related applications. The two parties to the agreement pointed out that this cooperation will give full play to their respective resource advantages and jointly create a platform-based all-scenario intelligent driving solution.

Desay SV has reached a strategic cooperation with Smart Drive Technology

On December 9, Desay SV and MAXIEYE, a core technology service provider for intelligent driving, reached a strategic cooperation, in which the two sides will jointly devote themselves to the research and development of high-end autonomous driving with large computing power, and cooperate to build L1 to L4 full-stack autonomous driving solution development and operation service capabilities. At the same time, the two sides released the "Jiukui Plan", through the collaborative innovation of technology and business models, deploy the core technology of commercial vehicle autonomous driving, and explore the operation and service model of smart heavy trucks based on application scenarios such as trunk logistics, and accelerate the commercialization of automatic driving.

NavInfo signed a service agreement with Volvo Cars for autonomous driving

On December 20, NavInfo announced that recently, the company signed a service agreement with Volvo Cars related to autonomous driving. In the next three years, the company will build an environment for Volvo Cars' autonomous driving function development and verification platform, and provide it with collection, processing and compliance services for autonomous driving-related data. The exact amount depends on the domestic sales of volvo cars that are mass-produced during the above period.

Mobileye pilots self-driving taxis in Paris

On December 17, according to foreign media reports, Intel's self-driving subsidiary Mobileye is piloting a self-driving taxi service in Paris, transporting employees of Galaries Lafayette, one of the most famous department stores in Paris, to commute. Johann Jungwirth, vice president of Mobileye, said the challenges posed by the Paris traffic will help Mobileye accelerate the development of autonomous driving systems.

Industry dynamics

EHang 216 completes flight demonstration in Bali, Indonesia

December 1 news, a few days ago EHang intelligent autonomous vehicle EHang 216 successfully completed the flight demonstration under the air tour scene in Bali, Indonesia. According to reports, EHang 216 completed a 5-minute autonomous driving flight at Bali's scenic Villa Blackstone Beach. Prior to the flight demonstration, the Indonesian Civil Aviation Administration issued a chartered airworthiness certificate to the EHang 216 autonomous vehicle.

Xiaoma Zhika completed the first test of domestic automatic driving high-speed

According to the news of xiaoma zhixing public number, on December 5, xiaoma zhika self-driving truck successfully drove into the Beijing-Taiwan Expressway and opened the normalized automatic driving test. Xiaoma Zhika said that this is the first time that a nationwide autonomous driving company has conducted a high-level autonomous driving test on a public highway opened by the policy. It is understood that the normalization test vehicle invested by Xiaoma Zhika this time is an autonomous truck developed based on the FAW J7 vehicle platform, which is mainly used in the logistics field and can achieve L4 level automatic driving on busy high and fast roads.

The 5G self-driving minibus fleet debuts in Chongqing

On December 7, the domestic head autonomous driving company Qingzhou Zhihang, together with Chongqing Mobile, Xidi Intelligent Driving, Tencent and other partners, launched the country's first 5G driverless minibus fleet for mountain urban traffic scenarios in the Collaborative Innovation Zone of Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing. Dragon Boat ONE is the first unmanned minibus deployed by Light Boat Zhihang, also known as Light Boat Unmanned Minibus, which can operate on urban open roads, with a vehicle speed of 20 to 50 kilometers per hour, positioned as an urban microcirculation unmanned bus.

YuanRong qixing released the L4 level automatic driving program

On December 8, self-driving company Yuanrong Qixing released DeepRoute-Driver 2.0, an L4-level autonomous driving solution for front-loading, at a cost of less than $10,000. It is understood that DeepRoute-Driver 2.0 uses 5 solid-state lidar and 8 cameras to form a 360-degree accurate perception of the surroundings.

SAIC Motor announces the start of operations of Theronaltaxi

On December 8, SAIC Motor officially announced the launch of its L4 autonomous driving operation platform, Xiangdao Robotaxi, and officially launched in Jiading, Shanghai, the first batch of 20 operating vehicles were deployed, based on the Feifan MARVEL R model, and users can call through the Xiangdao Travel APP. It is understood that the Robotaxi vehicle released this time is provided by SAIC Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, passenger car technology center, Lianchuang Automotive Electronics and other SAIC Group companies to provide original automatic driving software and hardware integration.

Beiqi Blue Valley Robotaxi was officially mass-produced

December 14 news, recently Beiqi Blue Valley said in response to investor questions that the company's Robotaxi model developed in cooperation with Baidu has completed the preliminary technical development and official mass production. The car is based on the Jihu Alpha T model, and is equipped with Baidu's lidar solution, with 800TOPS computing power, which can achieve L4 automatic driving, and the fusion design of lidar + camera ensures the vehicle's accurate perception of the peripheral environment.

Huawei's Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Center and Intelligent Connected Proving Ground were launched

On December 21, 2021, during the 2021 Huawei Intelligent Vehicle Solution Ecosystem Forum, Huawei announced that the Intelligent Vehicle Solution Innovation Center (the "Innovation Center") was officially put into use. It is reported that the innovation center is located in Huawei's Suzhou Research Institute, with a total area of about 2,000 square meters, and will be mainly open to car companies' customers and partners for joint development, testing, verification, and display of achievements. In addition, on the Yangcheng Peninsula not far from the innovation center, Huawei has also invested in the construction of an intelligent network test field with reasonable layout, intelligent efficiency, and comprehensive scenarios.