Auto Chips

Li Auto's smart driving chip is expected to see tape-out results in the fourth quarter and start being loaded into cars in 2026, according to local media.

Xpeng's Turing chip saw a successful tape-out, with one chip having three times the computing power of the autonomous driving chip it currently uses.

Xpeng's chip is a centralized computing architecture chip that supports powering the cockpit and smart driving, with AI computing power close to the level of 3 mainstream smart driving chips, according to local media.

Nio's Shenji NX9031 has taped out and is currently in testing, while Xpeng's smart driving chip is already in the process of being taped out.

The chip, called the Shenji NX9031, is built on a 5 nm process and has over 50 billion transistors.

Nio's current use of four Nvidia Drive Orin chips is fine for autonomous driving algorithms, but the next generation smart driving chip should do better, an executive said.

Li Auto is ramping up its efforts to develop chips in-house, working on both an AI inference chip for smart driving scenarios, and a SiC power chip for driving motor controllers, according to local media.

Nio's chip R&D team has also poached many people from Huawei, Alibaba's Damo Academy, and Nvidia, and has a clear tape-out plan, according to local media.

BYD's smart driving chip could tape out by the end of the year at the earliest, according to local media.

BYD models equipped with Horizon Robotics' latest Journey 5 chip will be available as early as mid-2023.