Chinese tech giant Baidu has recently unveiled the design of its "ROBO-01" - a robot car by the company's EV (electric vehicle) firm JIDU, that boasts cutting-edge AI functionalities and a high-performance NVIDIA DRIVE Orin compute platform.
According to Baidu's CEO Robin Li's statement on Monday, this robot car will edge out Elon Musk's Tesla in the EV race claiming that Jidu is one generation ahead of Tesla, as reported first by Reuters on Aug. 8.
800,000 Robot Cars
Jidu's chief executive Joe Xia Yiping also said in a statement that the company hopes to be able to produce 800,000 of its robot cars by the year 2028. Meanwhile, Tesla has recently revealed that they have produced their 3 millionth car since its inception in 2004.
By 2024, Xia revealed that Jidu would be releasing its second model for mass production.
Jidu unveiled its first "robot" concept automobile in June, which has no door handles and is entirely voice-activated. Additionally, the EV's mass production is expected to roll out in 2023.
Jidu's robot EVs will be outfitted with two lidars and 12 cameras in addition to autonomous driving software provided by Baidu. Lidars are radar-like detecting devices, but instead of using radio waves, they employ pulsed laser light.
Baidu's EV plans come at a time when automakers and several tech companies around the world are joining the race to produce smart vehicles after Tesla demonstrated success in bringing EVs to market, and the demand for eco-friendly cars continues to surge as well.
A Plethora of Design Innovations
The Robo-01, according to NVIDIA, features a plethora of design innovations, such as a retractable steering wheel that tucks behind the dashboard while the vehicle is in autonomous driving mode and lidar sensors that expand and retract from the hood.
The robot car has in-cabin AI that can communicate with passengers in a human-like way using voice recognition and perception.
The central processing unit (CPU) of the Robo-01 is made up of two NVIDIA DRIVE Orin systems-on-a-chip (SoC), which have enough processing power to support AI and autonomous driving features while still leaving room for future upgrades, according to NVIDIA.
With a $400 million collaboration venture, mainland automaker Geely and Baidu created Jidu Auto back in January.
NVIDIA claims that the DRIVE Orin is a sophisticated autonomous card processor. It is a supercomputer on a chip that can deliver up to 254 trillion operations per second (TOPS) to manage the many applications and deep neural networks that operate concurrently in autonomous vehicles and robots.
The production version of the Robo-01 will be available for purchase starting in 2023, with deliveries beginning in 2024. Jidu will also be revealing the design of its second production model in November at the Guangzhou Auto Show.
Related Article: Baidu's New Robotaxi With Detachable Steering Wheel Will be 48% Cheaper than the Previous Model
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Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
