6 “Autonomous Vehicles” out of Auto Shanghai 2021

(Source: www.autochinashow.org)

At the Shanghai motor show in April, nine halls were packed with new offerings from local and foreign automakers. It seemed like everyone could find a model tailored to his/her needs and budget but the common theme is no doubt electrification and automation.

Six EV models stood out with advanced automated driving features, which represented the direction of Chinese traditional and new generation OEMs.

Arcfox Alpha S HI

• Arcfox is a premium EV brand under BAIC BJEV (SHA: 600733).
• Alpha S HI version is a collaboration between BAIC and Huawei, and the first vehicle model to deploy Huawei HI (HI is the brand name of Huawei Intelligent Automotive Solution).
• HI’s attribution to Alpha S is on several levels, such as smart cockpit (HarmonyOS and its application ecosystem), smart charging (fast charging technology and wireless charging at high efficiency), and smart driving.
• Huawei described its AD capability as no human intervention for 1,000 km in the urban areas of Shanghai.

BAIC has long been a motor brand serving businesses and is less considered by individual consumers. Arcfox is trying to change that image with a dedication to performance and design. Concerns were raised with the Alpha S HI pricing but perhaps with Huawei’s B2C image and joint branding efforts, the new model could make a difference.

R ES33

• R is a premium EV brand under SAIC Motor.
• ES33 is equipped with SAIC’s self-developed high-level intelligent driving solution “PP-CEM”, which might be offering certain level of automation in highway, urban and parking scenarios like the other models, although not officially specified.
• It also comes with the “Galaxy Full-Stack Solution” for smart cockpit from SAIC’s software unit Z-One.

Zeekr 001

• Zeekr is the premium EV brand under Geely, which was just announced in March.
• Zeekr 001 is the first model built on Geely’s SEA EV platform and equipped with Mobileye’s SuperVision, which would enable Navigation on Autopilot on highways and urban roads by 2023.
• Zeekr will adopt a direct sales model by opening retail shops and building an online community as part of a broader plan to become a frontrunner in the smart electric vehicle race.

IM L7

• IM Motors is another EV brand under SAIC, jointly created by Alibaba and Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Group.
• The brand’s first production model, L7, is equipped with advanced intelligent driving system that doesn’t include LiDAR sensors in the angel edition but can be upgraded with 2 in the future.
• Meanwhile, IM introduced a Customer Share Option Plan (CSOP), which is about IM users exchanging driving data for benefits. For example, the first 3,000 customers pre-ordering the angel edition can upgrade the intelligent driving system to include LiDARs after safely driving 5,000 km.

SAIC is certainly initiating an innovative relationship between auto OEM and its users with the concept of CSOP. It could be a solution to the rising issues around data rights and usage from smart cars.

Xpeng P5

• P5 is the 3rd model from Xpeng, positioned at a market similar to the Tesla Model 3.
• P5 is equipped with 2 LiDARs, one on each side of the front fascia. It is racing with Arcfox Alpha S to be the world’s first production model with built-in LiDAR sensors.
• Xpeng started taking reservations of P5 with a deposit of RMB 99 at the auto show and received over 10,000 orders in the first 53 hours, according to its official post.

NIO ET7

• ET7 was unveiled during NIO Day in January of this year but the interior was debuted at the auto show.
• ET7 is aiming at the traditional buyers of BMW, Benz, and Audi — besides the luxury interior and exterior design, it comes with the most powerful battery pack.
• NIO Autonomous Driving (NAD) system is a stacking of 33 high-performance sensing units (including 1 LiDAR positioned on top of the front windshield) for “Super Sensing” capability and 4 Nvidia Drive Orin chips for “Super Computing” power.

In conclusion, the local OEMs tend to develop automated driving features to cover 3 major scenarios (highway, urban roads and parking) that are equally important in daily use. The features are strictly speaking Level 2+ but can be upgraded to higher level in the future. New sensors like LiDARs (reference read) and 4D radars start to be carried by production models, as well as HD Map and C-V2X. Some companies also invest in the R&D of domain control unit for autonomous driving to grasp control of the underlying hardware.