Chinese EV maker Li Auto hinted on its WeChat account Monday that there will be a big chip-related announcement on September 22, and a video accompanying the Weibo post featured logos from NVIDIA and Li Auto, suggesting a deeper collaboration between the two companies.
Barring any surprises, the new generation of Li Auto vehicle will be powered by NVIDIA's chip.
In the comments, a user asked if Li Auto's current products could be upgraded or replaced. In response, Li Auto said that this is for the next generation of products.
This is in line with earlier reports by Autohome that Li Auto will sign a strategic partnership with NVIDIA and Huizhou Desay SV Auto on September 22, at the Li Auto Beijing Delivery Center.
The signing will be attended by Li Auto's newly appointed CTO, Wang Kai, NVIDIA's President of China, and Desay SV Auto's General Manager, the report said.
The assisted driving chip used by Li Auto is from Mobileye, model number EyeQ4, while the assisted driving software is developed in collaboration with Yihang Intelligence.
As for the new strategic partnership, it is widely speculated that Li Auto will switch its next-generation computing hardware from Mobileye's EyeQ4 to NVIDIA's Orin, which can increase its computing power from 2.5TOPS to 200TOPS.
The next-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class, released earlier this month, is equipped with three powerful computer chips featuring NVIDIA GPUs, making the car's computing power greater than any previous car.
Equipped with NVIDIA chips, the new generation of Li Auto's AI computing power and intelligence experience will be further enhanced.
According to Li Auto, as of August 31, Li Auto has 31 retail centers across the country, covering 26 cities.
Li ONE delivered 2,711 units in August, a new monthly delivery record, and from January to August 2020, Li ONE has delivered 14,656 units.
It is worth mentioning that on September 15, 2020, Li Auto announced Wang Kai as its CTO, who will be responsible for the development and mass production of smart car-related technologies, including electrical and electronic architecture, intelligent cabin, automated driving, platform development and Li OS real-time operating system.
He is a expert in automotive electrical and electronic architecture, domain controllers, smart grid and autonomous driving.
Prior to joining Li Auto, Kai worked at Visteon, an American automotive electronics supplier, for 8 years, where he was the global chief architect and director of automated driving, responsible for the planning and implementation of the company's software and hardware products.
Wang Kai was also the core founding designer of SmartCore, the world's first production-grade cabin-centric domain controller, and the core founding designer of DriveCore™, an open and scalable automated driving platform.In addition, Wang Kai is also a visiting professor at the School of Automotive at Tongji University from 2019 onwards.
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