CATL and Baidu announce battery swapping and autonomous driving cooperation
The companies signed the strategic cooperation agreement at CATL’s headquarters in Ningde, Fujian Province, China, in the presence of Baidu CEO Robin Li and CATL boss Robin Zeng. CATL and Baidu have committed to working together in the areas of unmanned driving, digitalisation and artificial intelligence to promote the development of driverless mobility services and the application of AI in manufacturing. The companies will focus on the use of CATL’s batteries, battery swap products and services, and CATL’s skateboard chassis in driverless vehicles.
Baidu already has a business unit for autonomous driving called Apollo in China. The company ventured into self-driving technology in 2013 and has already launched six generations of robotaxis in China. At the same time, Apollo also sells its technology to other car manufacturers.
Under the name Apollo Go, Baidu offers a robotaxi service in more than ten cities in mainland China. In November last year, Apollo Go received permission to test the service in Hong Kong, expanding its operations beyond the mainland. Baidu’s current robotaxi, called Yichi 06, has five lidars and no steering wheel. By the end of January, the service had already completed more than nine million commercial journeys. Apollo Go operates a fleet of 400 fully autonomous taxis in Wuhan, representing the largest deployment of its kind in China.
The agreement comes at a time when the Chinese automotive market is seeing increasing competition in the field of intelligent driving, for example through Geely’s G-Pilot autonomous system, or BYD’s offensive with the God’s Eye assistance system, which is now also available in small cars. Tesla also began activating the first FSD functions in China at the end of February.
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