On November 6th, a reporter from First Financial News learned that Baidu announced a new round of cadre promotion and rotation through internal emails. Among them, Wang Yunpeng, Baidu Vice President and General Manager of the Autonomous Driving Business Unit, was promoted to Vice President of the group and served as the head of Baidu's Intelligent Driving Business Group (IDG), reporting to the CEO.
Previously, Li Zhenyu, the senior vice president of the group responsible for this business, no longer served as the head of IDG, the assistant to the rotating CEO, and the chairman of the group's Technology Ethics Committee, reporting to the CEO.
According to public sources, Wang Yunpeng joined Baidu in 2012 and previously worked in Baidu's Engineering Efficiency Department, Analysis and Planning Department, Baidu Financial Platform, and other departments. He served as the Director of Baidu's Autonomous Driving Technology Department in 2018 and was also the project leader of the 2030 major special project "National New Generation Artificial Intelligence Open Innovation Platform for Autonomous Driving" by the Ministry of Science and Technology. In April 2021, he was promoted to Baidu's Vice President, fully responsible for Baidu's autonomous driving business.
Regarding the autonomous driving business, Wang Yunpeng led a team to organize the research and development of Baidu's sixth generation mass-produced unmanned vehicle Apollo RT6. Baidu's autonomous driving travel service platform, Radish Quick Run, has already entered multiple cities such as Wuhan, Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.
This wave of cadre rotation also reflects Baidu's strategic adjustment and deepening layout in the field of intelligent driving. Autonomous driving is an important development direction for the future automotive industry and also one of the core businesses of Baidu's intelligent driving business group. With the continuous progress of technology and the growing market demand, the competition in the field of autonomous driving will also become increasingly fierce.
A Baidu insider revealed to a First Financial reporter today that the adjustment announced by Baidu means that Baidu hopes to accelerate the commercialization of its autonomous driving business. The Baidu autonomous driving project started in 2013 and explored topics such as the Apollo open-source project, shared unmanned vehicles, and autonomous driving solutions. It was not until 2021 that the three business models for intelligent driving business were clarified: providing autonomous driving technology solutions for OEMs, building cars, and sharing unmanned vehicles. This year, the Intelligent Transportation Business Unit (ACE) under IDG experienced optimization and adjustment in its vehicle road collaboration, intelligent networking, and intelligent transportation business units.
According to Baidu's latest financial report for the second quarter of 2023, Baidu's autonomous driving travel service platform, Radish Run, provided 714000 ride services, a year-on-year increase of 149%. As of June 30, 2023, the cumulative number of ride services provided by Radish Run to the public has reached 3.3 million.
Not long ago, Robin Lee, Baidu's chairman, said that "with the continuous expansion of the operation scale, the continuous improvement of the technical level, and the large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles with lower costs, the Radish Express will become more and more close to commercial profits".
In addition, around intelligent driving, Baidu Apollo has also entered a critical period of technology implementation and mass production delivery this year. According to reporters, nearly ten models equipped with Baidu Apollo advanced intelligent driving products will be mass-produced this year.
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in the first half of this year, the market penetration rate of China's intelligent connected passenger vehicles equipped with auxiliary auto drive system has reached 42.4%, a significant increase from 34.5% at the end of 2022. Entering the era of large models, the trend of intelligent acceleration of automobiles will become more apparent.
From an industry perspective, a practitioner told a reporter from First Financial that in the first half of unmanned driving, everyone "can install whatever is good"; When entering the "second half", various issues such as mass production, supply, cost, and durability should be considered in order to accelerate the implementation and commercialization of operations.
In the autonomous driving market, in addition to new car manufacturing forces such as "Wei Xiaoli", along with the gradual deepening of RoboTaxi's implementation, various companies including Didi, Xiaoma Zhixing, AutoX, Wenyuan Zhixing, etc. are laying out plans on how to reduce costs and achieve mass production and large-scale operation. They are also opening unmanned taxi trial operation services to the public in specific cities, continuously expanding the pilot scope.
In addition, the hot new force of car manufacturing has also welcomed more technology players such as Xiaomi, OPPO, 360, etc. Although Huawei does not build its own cars, it has been continuously increasing investment in the automotive related field, frequently stirring up the automotive and capital circles, and is also a strong competitor for Baidu's intelligent driving. At the end of October this year, after 50 days of listing, the AITO Wenjie New M7 has accumulated over 80000 units, becoming the dark horse of the new energy vehicle industry. Yu Chengdong once revealed that the first sedan (in collaboration with Chery), the Smart World, will be launched in late November, surpassing the size and specifications of the Model S; Next in December of this year, Wenjie M9 will also be launched.