The advanced intelligent driving track has sparked a "verbal battle".
"Huawei Intelligent Driving is indeed very leading in China, and after evaluation, Baidu is only slightly ahead of it." Recently, Wang Yunpeng, Vice President of Baidu Group and President of Intelligent Driving Business Group, stated at the China Electric Vehicle Hundred People Conference Forum (2024) that the trend of electrification in the automotive industry has been determined, but intelligence has just begun. In the field of advanced intelligent driving, Baidu Apollo hopes to cooperate with more car companies.
As a provider of advanced intelligent driving solutions, ANP (Apollo Navigation Pilot) under Baidu Apollo and Huawei ADS are competing with each other. However, unlike Huawei's cooperation with brands such as AITO, Avita, and Jihu, Baidu Apollo previously appeared as a platform operator, and end consumers did not have a strong perception of it.
"Many people joke that Baidu's autonomous driving is like 'getting up early and catching up late'." Wang Yunpeng said that the first half of the sentence is not wrong. Baidu started and invested the most in autonomous driving, not only opening up source code, but also cultivating talents for the industry. But the latter half of the sentence is not correct, because after so many years of hard work, autonomous driving has just seen the dawn, and the true "big episode" has not yet begun.
In fact, Baidu has been accelerating the implementation of autonomous driving technology and commercialization since it began laying out its presence in the field of autonomous driving in 2013. According to Wang Yunpeng, Baidu Apollo has more than 90 million kilometers of high-level automated driving safety testing mileage, more than 5000 autonomous driving patent families, and more than 5 million turnip sprint autonomous vehicle are served.
"Chairman Wang Chuanfu once said that autonomous driving is' deceptive 'because he has not yet ridden a real autonomous driving vehicle. It is not surprising that people who have not ridden an autonomous vehicle say that it is' deceptive'. I still remember a few years ago, people who had not driven an electric vehicle said that it was a 'mobile bomb'." Wang Yunpeng said that now, the booming development of electric vehicles has made "electric vehicles are mobile bombs" a joke. ". I believe that in no time, autonomous driving will become a pride in China's history of technological innovation, just like electric vehicles today.
It is worth mentioning that in the discussion about autonomous driving technology, Wang Yunpeng's "gunpowder smell" is not the strongest. Just after He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of Xiaopeng Motors, stated that "intelligence will become the magic weapon for Xiaopeng Motors to stand out from the knockout stage", Yu Chengdong, Executive Director of Huawei, CEO of Consumer BG, and Chairman of Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, directly stated in his subsequent speech that Huawei will transform Xiaopeng Motors' advantageous position in the field of intelligent driving.
"Previously, Xiaopeng was the best player in the domestic market for intelligent parking and driving, but today Huawei has arrived, and this situation needs to be changed." Yu Chengdong said that Huawei ADS is widely recognized as the best advanced intelligent driving experience.
However, Yu Chengdong admitted that due to supply chain constraints, the cost of Huawei's intelligent driving system is still relatively high. "Using Huawei's intelligent driving system for models priced below 300000 yuan is still a bit challenging. Only cars priced above 300000 yuan can afford it and make a profit." Yu Chengdong said that thanks to the hot sales of high-end models, Huawei's intelligent selection car business has turned losses into profits in the first three months of this year; Huawei's car BU business is approaching the edge of breakeven.
"It is expected that Huawei Car BU will be able to turn losses into profits and achieve a positive development from April onwards," said Yu Chengdong.