Baidu Apollo's Lego-style car intelligence solution is upgraded to launch a new autonomous driving car every month in the second half of 2021

On April 19, 2021, the 19th Shanghai International Auto Show kicked off at the Shanghai National Exhibition and Convention Center. As the world's leading autonomous driving and automotive intelligence platform, Baidu Apollo held a press conference with the theme of "Driven by the Heart, Intelligent with You". At the conference, Baidu Apollo's Lego-style automotive intelligent solutions were fully unveiled, among which the two major products, Intelligent Driving and Intelligent Cloud, ushered in major upgrades. Among them, the Intelligent Cloud product can support automakers to quickly build intelligent capabilities, shortening the autonomous driving R&D cycle that originally took at least 7 years to complete to 6 months.

Li Zhenyu, senior vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of the Intelligent Driving Business Group, announced on the spot that the cumulative test mileage of Baidu's L4 autonomous driving has exceeded 10 million kilometers. The models built with L4 autonomous driving technology have started the journey of mass production of autonomous driving in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to truly experience the "City Free Travel". This year, Baidu Apollo's intelligent driving area will cover urban roads and highways in 20 cities, and will complete coverage of 100 cities by 2023. Li Zhenyu also revealed that Baidu Apollo's autonomous driving will usher in a peak of mass production in the second half of 2021, with a new car on the market every month. This also means that Baidu Apollo will reach a new level, continue to lead the automotive intelligence track, and define the new global smart car standard with top autonomous driving capabilities.

(Li Zhenyu, senior vice president of Baidu Group and general manager of the Intelligent Driving Business Group, delivered a speech on the spot)

Apollo Intelligent Driving, Building the World's Most Powerful Mass-Production Autonomous Driving Engine

After eight years of research and development and practice, Baidu Apollo has become a global leader in the field of autonomous driving and has successfully introduced cutting-edge technologies to the field of automotive intelligence. Apollo's Lego-style automotive intelligence solution includes four series of high-quality, leading, open, and assembled products: "Smart Driving, Smart Cabin, Smart Map, and Smart Cloud". It can provide customized solutions based on the intelligent mass production needs of car companies at different levels, helping car companies build smart cars for the future. At the Shanghai Auto Show, Apollo Smart Driving, one of the core products of Baidu Apollo's Lego-style automotive intelligence solution, is built based on L4 autonomous driving technology and is the world's most powerful mass-produced autonomous driving engine.

(Live demonstration of Apollo intelligent driving solution)

Specifically, Baidu Apollo's world's most powerful mass-produced autonomous driving engine has the following three advantages:

First of all, the engine has the ability to drive freely in all areas. The engine includes the world's first driving domain solution ANP based on L4 level autonomous driving capabilities and the world's first mass-produced L4 level autonomous parking domain solution AVP. The "Double A Solution" allows users to achieve driving freedom in urban road scenes and parking scenes;

Secondly, the ANP solution (full name Apollo Navigation Pilot) in the engine is the most powerful navigation assisted driving product on the market. ANP adopts a pure visual solution and comes from the same technical architecture as Baidu Apollo L4 autonomous driving. Data symbiosis and sharing can guarantee the experience of L4 technology dimensionality reduction to the greatest extent. Compared with the laser radar solutions on the market, ANP has the characteristics of low cost, mass production, and self-learning.

(Li Zhenyu announced the Apollo L4 autonomous driving road test mileage data)

At the media conference, Li Zhenyu introduced that the Apollo L4 autonomous driving road test mileage has exceeded 10 million kilometers, and Baidu has become the only Chinese company in the world to achieve tens of millions of kilometers of road test accumulation. In addition, Apollo's autonomous driving simulation test mileage has exceeded 1 billion kilometers, high-precision maps are updated in minutes, and 100 cities cover millions of kilometers... These top autonomous driving capabilities have created Apollo's strongest pilot assisted driving product. At present, Apollo has launched the ANP+AVP mass production autonomous driving real experience "City Free Travel" event in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, using the strongest autonomous driving technology to challenge China's complex urban road scenes.

(Baidu Apollo and WM Motor, GAC Aion, BAIC New Energy, and Ford executives jointly build the strongest mass production engine for autonomous driving)

Another advantage of the world's most powerful mass-produced autonomous driving engine is that Apollo insists on cooperating with car companies in an open manner. At present, Apollo's AVP product has been mass-produced and launched on the WM Motor W6 model, and has received enthusiastic responses from the industry. In the second half of 2021, Baidu Apollo's autonomous driving will usher in a peak in mass production, with a new car launched every month. In the next 3-5 years, the pre-installed mass production volume is expected to reach 1 million units. On the day of the auto show, a group of old friends of Baidu Apollo, such as WM Motor, GAC Aion, BAIC New Energy, Ford and other car companies also gave great support to Apollo's intelligent driving products.

Lego-style intelligent car products are favored by global automotive partners

In addition to intelligent driving, another major product of Baidu Apollo's Lego-style intelligent car solution, Zhiyun, has also undergone a major upgrade, opening up the "three clouds" model, including autonomous driving cloud, big data cloud, and automotive safety cloud. Through Zhiyun products, Apollo can support automakers to quickly build intelligent capabilities. For example, the autonomous driving R&D cycle, which originally took at least 7 years to complete, has been shortened to 6 months, allowing intelligence to be transformed into products and pushing autonomous driving technology into the high-speed channel of mass production.

Specifically, in the field of autonomous driving cloud, Apollo can help partners quickly build AI smart production lines and form a self-learning system, so that car companies can quickly acquire the autonomous driving technology capabilities to "build good cars"; in the field of big data cloud, Apollo will work with car companies to realize a closed loop of self-learning in smart cockpits, allowing OEMs to better understand cars and users and "sell good cars", providing users with a driving experience that is tailored to each individual; in the field of automotive safety cloud, Apollo will use its years of accumulated safety technology to help car companies have a more solid defense shield in the digital and intelligent era to "use cars well", allowing smart cars to continue to evolve while being highly secure and fearless of attacks.

(Baidu Apollo and Chery reached a new strategic cooperation)

Based on the "three clouds", Baidu Apollo and Chery Automobile jointly announced a new strategic cooperation with cloud as the core at the auto show. In the future, both parties will be committed to providing Chery Automobile users with safer smart car services.

At present, Baidu Apollo's automotive intelligence business has established the world's most active smart car product ecosystem, and Lego-style automotive intelligence solutions have become the first choice for global automakers to mass-produce intelligent technology. On the day of the auto show, Baidu Apollo also fully upgraded its cooperation with Hyundai Motor on smart car connectivity. In the future, all Hyundai Kia models sold in China and imported models will be equipped with Xiaodu's in-car OS capabilities. So far, Baidu Apollo has established cooperative relationships with more than 70 global auto brands, and more than 600 models are equipped with Apollo's automotive intelligence products.

(Li Zhenyu announced the achievements of Apollo's intelligent vehicles)

The strongest autonomous driving team in history has expanded again, with 90% of the new staff dedicated to technology research and development

April 19, the opening day of the Shanghai Auto Show, was the fourth birthday of Baidu Apollo. Four years ago, at the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show, Baidu officially announced the launch of the Apollo project to provide an open, complete and secure software platform to partners in the automotive industry and autonomous driving. This not only prevents partners from reinventing the wheel in building autonomous driving systems, but also accelerates the implementation of autonomous driving around the world. In the past four years, Baidu Apollo has grown from a pioneer in autonomous driving to a transformer in the smart car industry. In the era of automotive intelligence, Baidu Apollo has won trust with its actions and is more determined than ever before to follow its own path.

In the future, Apollo will continue to adhere to the long-termism of technology and continue to increase investment in the fields of autonomous driving and automotive intelligence. Apollo will continue to recruit top talents this year, and the team will be expanded on a large scale this year. 90% of the new employees will be committed to technology research and development, which will accelerate the large-scale deployment of Baidu's Robotaxi business Apollo GO and the large-scale mass production of Lego-style automotive intelligent technology to better meet the diverse needs of customers.

The era of smart cars with everything connected has arrived. Baidu Apollo will use its eight years of experience to help global automakers get the key to clearance faster in the tide of automotive intelligent transformation, and provide the general public with safer, more efficient and convenient future travel services.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.