On January 13, foreign media autofutures reported that the third-generation driverless delivery car jointly developed by BYD and the American science and technology innovation company Nuro was officially released, which was designed by BYD and Nuro provided driverless related technology. Nuro has successfully completed automated delivery tests in communities in Texas, Arizona, and California, and is expected to be rolled out on a larger scale in the future.
It is understood that the project was launched in August 2019 and has now been upgraded to the third generation, and the new car is scheduled to be put into mass production on a large scale in early 2023. The unmanned delivery vehicle adopts a pure electric system, and BYD is responsible for the development, testing and manufacturing of the whole vehicle, and provides blade batteries, motors, electronic controls and other technologies. Nuro offers technologies for autonomous driving, gateways, control modules and sensors.
The unmanned delivery vehicle is produced by BYD's China factory, and the assembly of vehicle power batteries and autonomous driving components is completed by BYD's Lancaster plant in the United States. Unfortunately, this unmanned delivery vehicle did not hang on BYD's LOGO, but used Nuro's brand.
The car has a large load capacity and higher safety, and the body is equipped with partitions to flexibly allocate storage space according to actual needs. The compartments also support temperature-controlled technology to ensure that the goods are kept at the right temperature. The exterior of the car is equipped with airbags and components such as cameras, lidar, and thermal imaging cameras to perceive the surrounding environment in an all-round way and ensure the safety of travel.
Although the car is not a regular passenger car and does not have BYD's license plate, it is also a good development of BYD in the US market. Chinese companies that want to develop in the United States are often hindered by various obstacles, especially companies such as BYD that master their own core technologies, and will be more severely suppressed. With this cooperation, BYD's subsequent development in the United States may be much smoother.
Back in China, in fact, many technology companies have launched unmanned delivery vehicles, such as JD.com, Meituan, etc., and have achieved relatively good results in a small range. Unmanned delivery vehicles can reduce the delivery pressure of couriers and riders to a certain extent, and deliver goods to customers more quickly and in a timely manner, which may be more popular in the future. Now that BYD has been able to produce unmanned delivery vehicles, Jingdong and Meituan do not consider introducing some?