Smart Driving

Li Auto's local counterpart Nio has unveiled its first in-house developed autonomous driving chip, which will be used in the ET9 executive flagship sedan.

As of today, XNGP's smart driving capabilities cover 90 percent of the cities where owners of Max version Xpeng vehicles are located.

"I strongly believe that the demand for ADAS will surge in the next five years, and Xpeng will be the preferred smart EV brand for consumers," said Xpeng CEO.

In Shanghai, NOP+ is now available on 99 percent of the city's main roads, while the coverage of all urban roads in the city, including main roads and all side roads, reached 78.4 percent.

BYD said it received its first permit on July 21, the first in China, and emphasized that L3 autonomous driving is not fully self-driving.

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

Automakers including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and IM Motors have announced that they are authorized to conduct L3 autonomous driving tests after China announced new regulations last month.

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.

IM Motors is applying to the Chinese industry regulator for L3 product entry, with its models expected to be among the first to begin L3 self-driving pilots.

Last week BMW said it was licensed to test vehicles with L3 self-driving features in Shanghai.