October 22, 2021, Chery New Energy Automotive Co., Ltd. held a strategic cooperation conference with Anhui Kuwawa Robot Co., Ltd. at the headquarters of Chery Group and signed a strategic cooperation agreement.

The strategic cooperation between the two parties has provided more landing applications for Kuwawa in the field of autonomous driving. In the future, Kuwawa will join hands with Chery to create an open-scene L4-scale commercial application. In addition, the two parties will deepen their cooperation in the areas of online control chassis, autonomous driving perception devices, autonomous driving algorithms based on their respective advantages.

• Regarding the autonomous driving solution, the two parties will focus on the development of Robotaxi and urban delivery logistics applications and related market demands based on their respective industry resources and technological advantages.

• In terms of intelligent connected vehicle, the two parties will focus on promoting innovative research and development and deep application of advanced driving assistance, controller integration, high-precision map surveying and mapping, and data processing, jointly developing L4-L5 level autonomous driving vehicles and creating autonomous driving whole vehicle products.

• In terms of intelligent connected travel, the two parties will jointly create travel services based on L4-level autonomous driving in the Yangtze River Delta region, and explore in the fields of autonomous driving testing, passenger transportation, and standard certification, forming a dual-core autonomous driving “research and development-testing-operation” linkage mechanism.

The strategic cooperation between Kuwawa and Chery still focuses on autonomous driving, and the target focused on this time by both parties is still L4 or higher-level autonomous driving business. The Robotaxi trend in recent years is booming, but there has not been a very substantial breakthrough in the commercial exploration aspect of it within the industry currently, and the wind has begun to slowly shift towards cooperating with automakers to build mass-produced cars.

Overall, the development path and business model of high-level autonomous driving have not yet been established, and the strategic cooperation between Kuwawa and Chery can provide some experience and reference for the future autonomous driving technology, data accumulation, and operation strategy.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.