Volkswagen China is working with DJI to develop advanced assisted driving features, according to the China Securities Journal.

Chinese drone maker DJI says its automotive team nears 1,000 people-CnEVPost

(Image credit: CnEVPost)

Many Chinese tech giants are betting that the automotive business will become a new revenue driver and are rapidly expanding their teams, and drone maker DJI is one of them.

DJI Automotive, DJI's automotive business, is rapidly expanding its team and now has close to 1,000 people, China Securities Journal quoted the company's marketing chief Xie Tiandi as saying today.

Much of DJI Automotive's business is moving forward, and as a Tier 1 supplier, the company is choosing partners who are like-minded with DJI to work with, Xie said.

SAIC-GM-Wuling's models with smart driving solutions provided by DJI Automotive are nearing mass production, and Volkswagen China is working with DJI to develop advanced assisted driving features, according to the report.

DJI is currently working on L2 assisted driving technology, and the company's technology can be upgraded to L3 and L4 when regulations and infrastructure related to autonomous driving become more established, Xie said.

DJI announced DJI Automotive in April of this year and said it has been in the auto parts business for five years. At the time, DJI said the team for that new brand was not recently formed and numbered more than 700 people.

DJI said the new brand is dedicated to serving the mobility market with space intelligence technology, focusing on the development, production and sales of intelligent driving systems and their core components.

Under the brand, DJI will provide customers with different levels of front-loaded mass production operations for autonomous driving capabilities, including hardware solutions, software solutions and hardware and software packaged solutions.

SAIC-GM-Wuling announced on April 19 that DJI's smart driving solution will be used on BAOJUN vehicles.

Wuling said it chose DJI because BAOJUN defines intelligent assisted driving systems in terms of functional scenarios rather than capability levels, which is a high fit with DJI.

Wuling said its cooperation with DJI is not simply a procurement model of parts, but is based on R&D trials and road tests by both parties to promote the implementation of the whole intelligent driving system.

SAIC-GM-Wuling to be first car company to use DJI's smart driving solution