From November 15 to 18, 2016, the maiden open urban trial operation of 10 EQ full-automatic driverless cars, built by Chery and Baidu, took place in the Tongxiang Smart Car Demonstration Zone and Smart Transportation Demonstration Zone. Under complex open urban road conditions, the cars accomplished full-process L4 self driving, achieved a leap in self driving from enclosed R&D and testing to public operation, showed a world-class level of self driving technology, and displayed the convenience, safety and intelligence brought by self driving technology to the lives of people.
As a leading Chinese auto brand, Chery has established a intergrated technology and product R&D system, and achieved breakthroughs in core technologies such as power-train, new energy, and smart technology so as to boost the overall development of China’s auto industry. Chery began to develop smart cars early in 2010, built a self driving platform in 2014, and successfully developed its first-generation driverless car Arrizo 7, in 2015. With its functions including automatic emergency braking, lane keeping, automatic following, and automatic obstacle avoidance, the car is capable of point-to-point self driving in urban roads.
Through independent R&D and cooperative development, Chery has mastered technologies such as lane detection, MMW radar data processing, vehicle detection, local path planning and bottom control, as well as smart vehicle technologies such as laser radar data processing, RTK data processing, and map data processing, so as to become China’s first automaker with smart vehicle bottom control technology.
In early 2016, Chery successfully developed its second-generation driverless car, EQ, in cooperation with Baidu. Based on Chery’s first-generation self driving technology, the function of navigation and positioning together with map information processing technology were added to EQ to ensure smooth self driving. In June 2016, Chery completed bottom control development and acceptance testing for 19 smart cars; in September 2016, Baidu completed smart driving technology integration testing for EQ on Beijing’s roads. In November 2016, Chery and Baidu signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement. Based on early cooperation, Chery and Baidu worked out a further strategic plan to deal with the development trend of electrification, sharing and intelligence in auto industry, enhance the market and industrial competitiveness of both sides, and highly integrate the internet and AI with the auto industry.
Baidu is the world’s largest Chinese search engine as well as a pacesetter in cross-field innovation. Baidu launched its driverless project in 2013, and currently has ten technologies: environmental perception, behavior prediction, planning control, operating system, smart connection, vehicle hardware, man-machine interaction, high-precision positioning, high-precision mapping, and system security. In 2016, Baidu signed a cooperation agreement with Wuhu to build the first driverless car operation zone in the world; and the cooperation agreement signed with the Shanghai International Automobile City on building a self driving demonstration zoneas well as other agreements,, paving the way for the smooth development and operation of driverless cars.
With mature vehicle technologies, precise development processes, an integrated industry chain, and a perfect sales service system, Chery plays a leading role in China’s auto industry. The strategic cooperation between Chery and Baidu is a powerful combination and has complementary advantages inrealizing the ultra goal of self driving, laying the foundation of providing the human society with safer, more efficient and economical methods of transportation.
