Shanghai, February 22, 2022 – ZF and Jidu officially signed a strategic agreement to help Jidu build the world's leading automotive robot. The two companies will work closely together in the chassis components and control systems, electric drive systems, and passive safety systems, and jointly develop intelligent chassis technology for automotive robots. Xu Huanping, Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Development at ZF Asia Pacific, Yang Hongjie, Vice President of ZF Active Safety Technology Business Unit Asia Pacific, Thomas Klein, Vice President of Steering Engineering of ZF Asia Pacific, Together with Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, and Luo Gang, Head of Operations of ZF Asia Pacific, attended the press conference.
Jidu's automotive robot runs through the three major product concepts of "free movement, natural communication, and self-growth". First, the car robot has the L4 level of automatic driving ability, can move freely; second, the human-vehicle interaction and the accurate recognition of speech semantics, so that the car and the person can "naturally communicate", understand the user's emotions, and respond to user needs in real time; third, the car robot can carry out self-learning and iteration according to the user's usage habits, continuously optimize the automatic driving and intelligent cockpit experience, and achieve "self-growth".
Jidu will adopt self-research and joint development methods, with the goal of mass production delivery, and promote the continuous upgrading and evolution of automotive robots to higher forms. Among them, ZF and Jidu will jointly develop the next generation of intelligent chassis technology to support better "free movement" of automotive robots. Jidu is responsible for the development of exploratory new functions related to intelligent driving and some product experiences, and ZF is responsible for developing high-quality chassis components and creating safe and reliable digital execution interfaces.
Jidu believes that leading, safe and reliable autonomous driving requires not only strong software strength, but also smarter chassis and other hardware support. The chassis by wire is one of the core technologies of automotive intelligence, and the chassis is controlled by digital signals, which can realize the mechanical decoupling of the control system and the execution system. The wire control chassis includes steer-by-wire steering, drive-by-wire, line-controlled motion, and suspension-by-wire suspension, which correspond to the six degrees of freedom of the front, rear, left, right, and bottom of the car movement. The in-line chassis will not only meet the requirements of higher-level autonomous driving, but also enrich the imagination space of the intelligent cockpit, bringing a safer and more comfortable driving experience to the occupants. At present, China has started the formulation of relevant industry standards such as performance requirements and test methods for passenger car automatic driving by-wire control chassis.
Jidu has carried out relevant layouts in the field of online control chassis three-way fusion and chassis domain control technology. Among them, steer-by-wire is a revolutionary technology of the chassis-by-wire, which can be controlled laterally by digital signals to achieve complete decoupling of steering wheel and steering execution system, which is a necessary actuator for high-level automatic driving. Jidu has officially launched the wire steering R&D project in 2021 and formed a strong technical research and development team.
ZF is the world's leading supplier of components with a history of more than 100 years and a global presence in the field of automotive chassis systems, powertrains and active and passive safety systems. In the era of automotive electrification and intelligence, ZF has top knowledge and professional experience in the fields of chassis domain control, advanced safety, electric drive and autonomous driving, and will use the world's leading multi-dimensional strength to help build industry-leading, safe and reliable, free-moving automotive robots.
ZF's technology, which focuses on the ultimate demand for high intelligence and safety in future intelligent driving cars, supports intelligent driving at L3 and above, has a redundant functional safety design mechanism, and meets the functional definition of the new design concept of the future intelligent cockpit.
Dr. Holger Klein, Director of ZF Group, said: "Jidu's concept of automotive robots is very leading and imaginative, and intelligent chassis technology is a breakthrough for automotive robots to achieve some high-end autonomous driving functions and cutting-edge design related to intelligent cockpits. We are honored to reach a strategic cooperation with Jidu to help Jidu automotive robots achieve higher-level intelligent driving function development and mass production, and ultimately bring unprecedented and benchmark product experience to Jidu users." ”
Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, said: "I am very pleased that Jidu has reached a strategic cooperation with ZF and exerted its respective advantages to jointly develop an intelligent chassis system, which will bring great help to Jidu to build a leading automotive robot, better meet the personalized functional needs of Jidu automotive robots, and iterate to a higher form of automotive robots." Jidu will surely create a benchmark for smart cars and provide users with a leading, safe and reliable driving experience. ”
Jidu will showcase the first concept car of automotive robot at the 2022 Beijing Auto Show, and the first mass-produced automotive robot will be delivered in 2023, when it will have L4 level automatic driving capabilities.
About set size
Jidu is an automotive robot startup initiated by Baidu and strategically invested by Geely. The company was officially established in March 2021 with Xia Yiping as CEO. Jidu is committed to the engineering research and development and commercialization of the world's top autonomous driving and human-computer interaction technology, creating a revolutionary car robot with emotion and intelligence, and giving people more space and time to achieve more possibilities.
About ZF
ZF is a global technology company dedicated to the next generation of mobility systems for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technologies. ZF enables vehicles to observe, think and act autonomously. In the four technology areas of vehicle motion control, integrated safety systems, autonomous driving and electric drives, ZF offers a wide range of solutions for existing car manufacturers as well as start-up mobility service providers. ZF offers electric drive solutions for a wide range of vehicle types. With its product portfolio, ZF is committed to energy conservation and emission reduction, environmental protection and safety in travel.
With sales of €32.6 billion in 2020, the ZF Group now has around 270 locations in 42 countries and more than 150,000 employees.