Jidu's robot car completes design, enters production preparation stage

To make the futuristic design ready for mass production, Jidu's engineering team solved a number of technical challenges for the molding process, its CEO said.

Jidu Auto, the car-making arm of Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU, HKG: 9888), has completed the design of its first model and is beginning to enter the production preparation phase, two weeks before the unveiling of its concept car.

Jidu's first production vehicle has launched the casting of its body molds, officially moving from model design to the preparation phase of vehicle production manufacturing, the company's CEO Xia Yiping said on Weibo today.

"In order to make the very futuristic design ready for mass production, Jidu's engineering team solved numerous technical challenges for the molding process, achieving an engineering breakthrough of extra-large press depths," Xia said.

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Here are a few images Xia shared.

Jidu was officially launched on March 2, 2021, and will build models based on Geely's Sustainable Experience Architecture (SEA) platform and Baidu's technology in autonomous driving.

On December 27, 2021, Robin Li, founder, chairman and CEO of Baidu, said that Jidu will unveil its first concept robot car in the first half of 2022, with mass production and delivery in 2023.

At the end of February this year, Jidu said that the production model of the first car would be officially unveiled at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November and would be available in 2023.

Jidu had originally planned to hold its inaugural JIDU ROBODay event on April 18 and unveil its robot car concept.

But with the Beijing auto show, scheduled for April 21-30, postponed, Jidu's plan was also postponed.

Earlier this month, Jidu said it would hold its inaugural JIDU ROBODay event on June 8 and unveil its robot car concept.

Notably, Jidu's event will be held online, considering that major cities including Beijing and Shanghai still face challenges with Covid prevention and control.

Jidu said the robot car is inspired by spaceships and has the ability to drive at a high level of autonomy on highways and city streets, with an intelligent cockpit.