Autonomous driving and artificial intelligence are the buzzwords at this week’s Guangzhou auto show — the last major gathering of Chinese carmakers for the year.
With Elon Musk’s Tesla aiming to bring what it markets as full self-driving vehicles to China in the first quarter of next year, pending regulatory approval, domestic electric car manufacturers are telling customers that their advanced driving-assistance services — which can navigate highways or busy city streets — are coming very soon, if they’re not already here.
Last week, Xiaomi Corp. Chariman Lei Jun conducted a livestream test drive of the SU7 EV going from „parking spot to parking spot.” The feature, to be trialed with a select group of owners and media, is inspired by Tesla’s FSD end-to-end technology, which uses cameras and large AI models to make real-time driving decisions, rather than relying on engineers to code rules to simulate driving, Lei said. „Parking spot to parking spot means starting from a parking spot to the one at the destination, using smart driving the whole way,’’ Lei said during the livestream. „This technology is magical. It’s also the most advanced technology in assisted-driving today. It was first released by Tesla in the U.S. in January. Our peers in China all have started to try to catch up in this new frontier. Xiaomi is in a relatively leading position in this field,” he said.