Introduction
Author: RuiChen Zhang
Editor: Xianzhi Wu
On October 27th, Jidu unveiled its first mass-produced car robot: the ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition, priced at 399,800 RMB. The Lunar Exploration edition will have only 1,000 units available, and a production version of the car will be released soon.
Jidu is an automotive robot start-up launched by Baidu, and invested by Geely. It was founded in March 2021, and is headed by CEO Yiping Xia.
What is a Car Robot?
Jidu envisions car robots as those that can communicate naturally, move freely, and self-grow.
Introduction to Jidu’s ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition
Appearance:
The car body design continues the aesthetic design language of the robot in the concept car. The two originally designed laser radars on the top of the hood have been adjusted to be inside the headlamps, similar to the XiaoPeng G9. The interactive AI pixel headlights and AI voice interaction system from the concept car have been preserved. Instead of traditional door handles, ROBO-01 is equipped with a button on the B-pillar of the car body. In addition to the conventional button unlocking, Jidu also provides users with five other ways to open the door: Bluetooth, NFC, voice control, proximity sensing, and remote control.
ROBO-01’s charging port is located on the left rear of the vehicle, and users can control the switch of the charging port cover through touch, voice control inside and outside the vehicle, and control on the in-vehicle screen. In addition, the Lunar Exploration Limited Edition only has a DC fast charging port and is not equipped with a home slow charging port. We do not know what kind of solution the manufacturer will provide for the production version of the car.
Here is the comparison of dimensions between Jidu RoBo-01 and Tesla Model Y：
It is clear that RoBo-01 exceeds Model Y significantly in body size.
Jidu RoBo-01 has achieved a “terrifying” drag coefficient of 0.249. Note that the common drag coefficients of sedans are between 0.28 and 0.4, while sports cars are below 0.25. The vehicle is also equipped with four electrically controlled silent closing doors, a trunk volume of 555L, and a capacity of up to 1528L after the second-row seats are folded down.
The car is equipped with 31 external sensors, including 2 lidars, 5 millimeter-wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars, and 12 cameras. The cameras are divided into 7 with 8 million pixels, 4 with 3 million pixels, and 1 with 20 million pixels.
Motor and System:
RoBo-01 is equipped with dual motors with a peak power of 400kW, achieving a 0-100km/h acceleration time of 3.9 seconds. It is powered by a Snapdragon 8295 with 5nm technology and 30TOPS of computing power, which is 8 times more than its own Xiaolong 8155.
A：
我们非常珍视每一位客户对 ROBO-01 的关注和期待，将会在最短的时间内交付车辆，具体的时间安排将根据订单时间和生产进度来决定，在交付前我们将第一时间联系车主确定交付时间。同时，我们也将提供包括七天无理由退换、终身车辆质保、终身无忧充电等一系列优质服务，为车主提供更好的购车体验。A: Based on the current trial production vehicles, the overall matching and quality are very good. We still need to see the quality of the entire car manufacturing process at each stage. According to our established plan, it can be delivered in Q3 next year.
Q: You have been mentioning Tesla all the time. Is Jidu aiming to benchmark Tesla?
A: First, we need to anchor it. If we compare with Model Y, our space and mileage are definitely better, and our interior and exterior must be better than theirs. Although we are doing intelligence, the car itself must be made well, which is still very important, otherwise how can we compete with others? When we announce the price of our mass-produced models next, I am very confident. Everyone needs to understand that for an enterprise that is 0 to 1, its approach to many mature enterprises is still different at this stage. Because it needs to retain users in a timely manner, we will also appropriate some advance quantity because we are confident that this car is worth waiting for.
Q: Argo AI has announced bankruptcy recently, and there were many arguments within the industry about the cooling of automatic driving. Given the relationship between Baidu and Jidu, has Robotaxi encountered some practical issues? Are there any challenges in the level where the two cars are linked together?
A: We and Robotaxi are taking different paths. Robotaxi focuses on operation, and we face different business issues. When we design a product, we need to consider whether the product is needed or not. There is no point in developing something that users do not need or cannot use. This is not practical.
Argo AI’s bankruptcy may not be a technical problem or due to the fact that autonomous driving development cannot continue. Each user has their own needs. In our future work, we will provide users with different levels of autonomous driving capabilities flexibly and on-demand. We also support users’ free choice in this aspect in the future. This will be determined according to users’ actual needs.
Conclusion:After 605 days of waiting, the ROBO-01 that made its debut not only boasts “hard” hardware, but also has its own advantages in interior design, cockpit, and the car’s infotainment system. Relying on Baidu’s years of research on autonomous driving big data, JiDu will enter the L4-level autonomous driving race with a “more elegant” attitude than other new energy companies. With subsequent formal production, there may be another strong competitor in the new energy race priced at less than 400,000 yuan.
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.