Author: Turbocharged Chubby

A few days ago, Jidu Auto’s first car robot, ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition, was officially released. In the era where “defining car products as a required course for automakers” prevails, Jidu Auto CEO Xia Yiping went against the tide in his opening remarks at the press conference, stating:

“There will be no product releases like the best intelligent electric car within 5 million or 500,000 yuan.“

Although the tone seems sarcastic and light-hearted, for Xia Yiping, the burdens on his shoulders are actually quite heavy.

As an intelligent car brand born for “Baidu’s car-making”, Jidu Auto has become one of the more topical brands in the new car-making camp. The roots of these topics come from both the brand and the product.

After the press conference, I had the opportunity to interview Jidu Auto CEO Xia Yiping.

His answers may allow everyone to better understand Jidu Auto and the product, the “car robot” ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition.

Is it too late to enter the game now?

The landscape of the new car market changes rapidly, and the landscape of new car making has gone through numerous changes. Many brands have become “leaders” in today’s new car market.

However, in the past, electric cars were very homogeneous, and the real intelligent battle has just begun.

For Jietu, intelligence is a core competitiveness they are good at.

Relying on Jietu’s ability in automotive intelligence, Xia Yiping believes that Jietu should find its positioning and make the most of its strengths. Therefore, Jietu should reflect its competitive product strength in “how to provide users with more intelligent products”.

Jietu has made many bold breakthroughs and innovations in the ROBO-01 moon exploration limited edition; however, these breakthroughs and innovations have high requirements for software. “If Jietu makes an electric vehicle that is exactly the same as other brands, there is no competitiveness. Therefore, Jietu must have its own characteristics”.

Jietu’s expertise is in software and intelligence breakthroughs, but they also hope to have breakthroughs in design and overall performance.

Therefore, faced with the current intelligent automotive market, Jietu’s product power should reach at least “what you have, I must have, but what you don’t have, I will still have”.

Making good products, winning good reputations, and achieving good sales volumes are principles we all understand. Is Jietu’s product launch in the “second half of the new car-making battle” already too late?

“At least it is relatively late,” said Xia Yiping.# Translation

Nowadays, the entire intelligent electric vehicle market is still a growing market with plenty of room for growth. On the other hand, fuel-powered vehicles compete in a market of fixed size. Therefore, it is crucial for JIDU to catch up with this wave of growth.

Why “Automotive Robot”?

“Don’t assume that only humanoid robots can be called robots,” said Xia Yiping. “Why is JIDU defined as an automotive robot? As opposed to a robot car? Actually, there is a difference. Our goal is to create a robot in the form of a car.”

From the very beginning, JIDU did not define its product as a “smart car” but instead used the somewhat gimmicky name of “Automotive Robot” and gave it a tagline: “New Species.”

“Automotive Robot New Species” was the slogan used during the release of JIDU’s ROBO-01 concept car. So, after the release of JIDU ROBO-01 Luna Exploration Limited Edition, how did JIDU interpret the definition of “robot”?

Firstly, Natural Communication.

“The most efficient way for humans to communicate with robots is to speak to them using natural language,” said Xia Yiping. That’s why JIDU places such a high value on voice interaction.“`markdown

The Jidu ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition has realized “offline millisecond-level intelligent voice” and has full-endside recognition capability with millisecond-level response.

The supported scenarios cover almost all commonly used interaction scenarios, such as intelligent driving, map navigation, vehicle control, system settings, multimedia, Bluetooth phone, etc. and it supports seamless switching between in-car and out-of-car voice.

Xiayanping mentioned: “The significance and complexity of voice interaction is no less than that of automatic driving, so everyone should not underestimate voice interaction.”

Secondly, free mobility.

A robot that exists in any form in the traffic scene must recognize the rules and obstacles, and this is automatic driving.

Regarding autonomous driving, Xiayanping said:

Whether it is through visual perception, lidar and various technologies, the core purpose behind it is the same. Any robot that is in a traffic scene must be able to coexist with humans, recognize the surrounding environment, and know what to do in this situation. Therefore, free movement and perception are long-term problems that need to be solved.

Thirdly, self-growth.

Any robot needs to continuously self-learn and improve in the environment so that it can make self-iteration in the future.
“`

Therefore, only when the “auto robots” meet the three aspects of “natural communication, free movement, and self-growth” at the same time can they be defined as a degree.

Is it innovation? or just a gimmick?

Summer Yiping mentioned in an interview:

I think that the automotive industry is currently lagging behind in many functions compared to electronic products. For example, automatic doors have been around in people’s lives for a long time. Our automatic floor sweeping robot at home is more advanced than many cars.

Actually, the entire car intelligence has been completely behind the consumer electronics intelligence for a long time, and educating users is not such a big challenge.

So, from concept to mass production, which aspects should be daring? Which aspects should be conservative? And how does degree balance them?

For example, the ROBO-01 degree retained a U-shaped steering wheel similar to a “Yoke” steering wheel. Summer Yiping also shared a little story about this:

I changed the steering wheel of my car into a U-shape, and it felt very comfortable to drive. Initially, my family was very against it and even said that we should change the steering wheel back to a circular one. But after driving for a while, my family said that the experience of the U-shaped steering wheel was very good.

Therefore, a good product remains the same, and the user’s learning cost is very low. With such well-developed technology, using a circular steering wheel would be inappropriate.

When designing the steering wheel, Jidu had very high requirements for the user experience. Jidu changed the buttons on the steering wheel several times before finalizing it.

The basis for Jidu’s decision-making between innovation and conservatism lies in whether all innovations bring real value to users, including improvements in user experience and solving user pain points. In the words of Xia Yiping, “Jidu won’t do gimmicks, Jidu’s products are not created just for the sake of innovation, Jidu wants to do things that can greatly change the user experience.”

Just Getting Started

As a new car company that has been around for less than two years, Jidu needs to quickly establish a desired brand image in addition to releasing products to capture market share as soon as possible.

That’s why Jidu released the ROBO-01 moon exploration limited edition first, rather than the mass production version.

Currently, Jidu is focused on establishing its brand image in its early stages of development. The first release is the highest-end limited edition, and Jidu hopes to compete in the middle to high-end market segment in the future.Compared with more and more brands planning affordable car models, Xia Yiping said, “I also want to do it, but I can’t do it now.” The cost requirements for pure electric vehicle models below 200,000 yuan are high, and Jidu currently does not have enough ability to make low-cost models. Instead, Jidu is more competitive in car models above 250,000 yuan.

Regarding the complementary power system that new energy brands have been focusing on in recent years, I also obtained some information during the interview.

Jidu has started to layout its charging network, but has not announced it publicly. Many things are still under preparation. However, with more and more brands deploying self-operated complementary power networks and more and more charging brands entering the new energy complementary power market, there are fewer and fewer suitable places for installation.

Therefore, Jidu will build self-operated charging piles on a large scale around sales outlets and delivery centers. On the other hand, Jidu will also cooperate with third-party charging brands to gradually improve the complementary power network.

So, how does Jidu view the recently popular 800V high-voltage platform?

The ROBO-01 and Polestar as well as Zeekr, all use the same SEA Haohan platform, and the cost of the entire charging system is greatly increased by the 800V, because the fast charging of a car not only depends on the charging pile, but also on the power grid. Anything that relies on large-scale infrastructure cannot be replicated on a large scale, let alone profitable.

In the long run, this may be possible for some high-end brands to provide targeted and specific services in their own service centers, but it may be a challenge for large-scale applications. Therefore, from the perspective of product positioning of Jidu, the 800V high-voltage platform is at least not particularly important at this stage.

Finally

Although Jidu, as a new member of the new car camp, appears to be like a new force in terms of its strategy of “bold innovation, facing the future” to enhance its product strength and competitiveness, it also has some shadows of traditional car companies in terms of its development plan of “amplifying advantages and steadily advancing”.

For a nascent car brand, the first priority for development is self-awareness.

Now, after more than 600 days of hard work, Jidu has finally launched its first car model, the ROBO-01 Lunar Exploration Limited Edition, but Jidu still has a lot to do.

As the CEO of Jidu Auto, Xia Yiping has obviously not solely focused on building products. Xia Yiping has clear goals, directions, and development pace for Jidu’s current situation, future plans and prospects.

As Xia Yiping said in an interview: “Building the car is just the tip of the iceberg.”

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.