On May 29, a surging news reporter learned from Didi that Didi Chuxing ’s autonomous driving company completed the first round of financing of more than 500 million US dollars to increase investment in research and development testing, deepen industrial cooperation, and promote specific domestic and foreign Carry out autonomous driving manned applications in the region to further improve travel safety and efficiency.
Didi has been investing in autonomous driving R & D testing since 2016. In August 2019, Didi upgraded its autonomous driving department to a company with a team of more than 200 people, and conducted R & D and testing in many places in China and the United States.
This financing is the first external financing after the establishment of Didi Autopilot. It is also the largest single financing received by domestic autopilot companies. This round of investment was led by SoftBank Vision Fund Phase 2.
After receiving financial support, Didi will increase investment in autonomous driving, vehicle-road coordination and related AI technologies to explore regional landings. Didi will also further deepen cooperation with the upstream and downstream industries of automobiles to speed up the process of mass production of autonomous driving. In addition to self-built test fleets, autonomous driving companies use massive real-world travel data accumulated on the Didi platform for simulation testing, improving R & D efficiency and speeding up algorithm iterations. At the same time, the company is exploring to apply Didi’s experience in the safe operation of online car-hailing and offline management capabilities to gradually apply it to future autonomous driving test operations.
Didi has obtained road test qualifications in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and California, and obtained the first batch of “Intelligent Connected Car Demonstration Application” licenses in Shanghai, which can be launched Manned test. Didi Autopilot is working with Didi’s Xiaoju Auto Service and Didi Finance to explore a total solution for future travel including smart charging pile establishment, fleet maintenance, insurance and other projects.