Tesla Faces Automated Driving Rival in Geely and Baidu EV
- Jiyue 01 aims to be first Chinese EV to have pure vision tech
- SUV uses Apollo technology developed by Baidu over 10 years
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Competition is intensifying in China’s automated-driving scene with the arrival of Jiyue 01, the first electric vehicle from a joint venture between Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. and Chinese search and tech giant Baidu Inc.
Launching Friday, the sport-utility vehicle is equipped with Baidu’s Apollo platform, which has been in development for 10 years and used on driverless vehicles since 2016. While the Jiyue 01 still deploys a high-precision map for assisted driving, it is moving toward the pure-vision approach, which mostly uses cameras to assess the surrounding environment. Tesla similarly eschews more costly Lidars and ultrasonic radars.