XPENG Motors Signs Strategic Partnership with NVIDIA

On Nov. 21, XPENG Motors, the electric vehicle startup announced that it has signed a strategic partnership agreement with NVIDIA, the world’s leader in AI computing, and NVIDIA’s Chinese partner Desay SV to jointly develop Level 3 autonomous driving technology tailored to the driving environment in China.

Based on the Xavier, NVIDIA’s super computing chip, XPENG Motors will be able to develop a software system suited for China’s traffic conditions and user scenarios and will work with Desay SV to jointly develop the computing hardware platform for autonomous driving.

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The company plans to implement in various phases the L3 intelligent driving features in its new models starting in 2020. These features include parking pilot, traffic jam pilot, fully auto lane change and highway pilot, best route navigation and personalization.

In addition to partnering in hardware development, the three companies will also work extensively on data collection and bench marking, software development and cloud-based machine learning.

Dr. Gu Junli, Vice President of Autonomous Driving at XPENG Motors, Mr. Rishi Dhall, Vice President of Automotive Business Development at NVIDIA and Mr. Gao Dapeng, CEO of Desay SV attended the signing ceremony at GTC China, the annual NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference held in Suzhou.

“Our mission is to lead the innovation of intelligent vehicles and make them widely available for Chinese consumers. We are very excited about working with the world’s leading players in this field and are confident that this partnership will accelerate our technology advancement.” said Dr. Gu Junli.

“Independent research capability is one of our core competences. Understanding China’s specific user scenarios is critical in developing smart driving solutions for Chinese consumers and we strive to provide them with the best driving experience,” she added.

Rishi Dhall, NVIDIA’s Vice President of Automotive Business Development, said: “XPENG Motors is leading the way in China with the production of next-generation EVs that also will need autonomous driving capabilities. XPENG Motor’s selection of NVIDIA DRIVE as their AV platform gives them the performance and scalability necessary to bring safe, self-driving systems to the market in China.”

XPENG Motors will launch the XPENG G3, an intelligent pure electric SUV, on Dec. 12 2018 in China. It is equipped with X-pilot automatic assisted driving technology tailored for China’s traffic conditions, all-scenario auto-parking, advanced AI voice assistant and customized X-mart OS vehicle operating system with OTA upgrading ability.

Featured photo credit to XPeng Motors