Chinese tech giant Baidu and state-owned BAIC Group's ARCFOX Brand have teamed to build 1000 autonomous electric vehicles (EVs) for use as taxis over the next three years -- and claim they've cut manufacturing costs to just $75,000 apiece. The announcement claims the reasonable price is due to maturation in technology and mass production capabilities and makes the vehicle, called the Apollo Moon, only one third of the cost of average L4 autonomous vehicles. Apollo Moon has a projected operating cycle of over five years and is built on the fully electric midsize crossover SUV, Arcfox α-T. As for the tech, it uses the ANP-Robotaxi navigation platform, which is currently in pilot. Baidu claims the architecture can "reduce the weight of autonomous vehicle kits while sharing intelligent driving vehicle data to create a closed-loop information ecosystem."

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- China's state-owned BAIC Group will strive to realize the volume production of Level 4 autonomous driving products and ripen the development of Level 5 technologies, Jiang Deyi, chairman of BAIC Group, said at the 2020 World Intelligent Connnected Vehicle Conference (WICV). According to Jiang, the group will take continuous steps to develop intelligent technologies, products, transport system and ecosystem, and aims to launch platforms for ICV (intelligent-connected vehicle)-related core technologies, including autonomous driving domain controller, Ethernet safety gateway, IoV (Internet of Vehicles)-related big data, 5G technology and intelligent driving algorithm, by 2025. The BEIJING-X7 mid-sized SUV, a vital member of the new "BEIJING" brand series, and its PHEV models incorporate the research achievements of Beijing brand in intelligent networking, new energy product development, vehicle platform and vehicle safety, etc., according to the 2020 interim report released by BAIC Motor, the group's HK-listed subsidiary. BAIC Motor also said it will continue to carry out in-depth strategic cooperation with intelligent tech companies, such as Beidou Zhilian, Microsoft, Huawei and ByteDance, so as to push ahead with the R&D of new energy products like 48V hybrid electric vehicle. At the 2020 WICV, a new-generation Level 4 autonomous car jointly developed by BAIC Group and DiDi's autonomous driving subsidiary made its debut and provide test ride for viewers.

Tencent is making progress on its own autonomous driving system, according to Bloomberg. The report says that Tencent, one of China's largest tech firms and the maker of WeChat, already has a prototype and is testing the system internally. If Tencent's autonomous driving tests goes well, that would help it catch up with fellow Chinese tech giant and rival Baidu, which recently launched a $1.5 billion investment fund as part of Apollo, its autonomous vehicle initiative, and plans to mass produce Level 4 self-driving cars by 2021 with BAIC Group. Tencent has signaled its interest in autonomous driving technology for a while now. About three months ago, it announced an alliance to work on artificial intelligence technology for autonomous cars, with members including Sebastian Thrun, the Stanford computer scientist who played a key role in the development of Google's self-driving car; Xu Heyi, the chairman of Chinese state-owned auto maker BAIC Group; and electric car startup Nio founder Li Bin.