Baidu Vice President Wu Xuebin resigned, traditional car companies are not willing to adapt to the environment of Internet companies

On September 28, 2016, Wu Xuebin joined Baidu as vice president, responsible for vehicle products and related teams of the autonomous driving division. Prior to this, he was executive vice president of BAIC and dean of BAIC Research Institute.

On January 23, 2018, nearly a year and a half after he moved from a traditional car company to an Internet giant, Wu Xuebin was confirmed to have resigned from Baidu. Not long ago, Baidu's Apollo project has evolved to version 2.0, forming a larger autonomous driving ecosystem. At the Baidu World Conference held in Las Vegas, Wu Xuebin, as a member of the Apollo project management team, was interviewed by many media outlets including Leifeng.com New Intelligent Driving.

* During CES 2018, Wu Xuebin at the Baidu World Conference in Las Vegas

Baidu responded that Wu Xuebin has already submitted his resignation application. It is reported that at an internal meeting this morning (January 23), Lu Qi mentioned, "Thank you for Xuebin's work at Baidu and for making important contributions to Apollo. I wish Xuebin all the best in the future." In addition, Lu Qi also invited Wu Xuebin to continue to participate in Apollo's work as a communication ambassador.

Wu Xuebin said that he witnessed the birth and rapid development of the Apollo platform at Baidu, and that his experience at Baidu was the most rewarding and valuable moment in his life. He also revealed that leaving Baidu was the most difficult decision in his career, and he hopes to realize his car dream with Baidu Apollo in the future.

On one side are the R&D powerhouses from traditional car companies; on the other side are Internet giants that are ambitious about the future of autonomous driving. The combination of the two was seen as in line with the trend of the times at the time, but ultimately they could not escape the fate of parting ways.

At present, the specific reason for Wu Xuebin's resignation is still unknown, but an insider close to the matter told Leifeng.com New Intelligent Driving that "(Wu Xuebin) still does not match the working style of Internet companies. The working atmosphere and rhythm of the Internet and the original car companies are quite different." Another saying is that Internet companies and traditional car companies have different concepts, and Wu Xuebin, who came from a car company, failed to find the best fit with Baidu.

In fact, judging from Wu Xuebin’s external statements after joining Baidu, he indeed failed to find enough passion.

In the past, Wu Xuebin appeared on stage at various automotive-related forums and roundtables, such as the China Automotive Forum, China Automotive Startup Summit, Automotive Intelligence and Autonomous Driving Forum, and China Automotive Industry Development (TEDA) International Forum. In addition, Lu Qi has the absolute leadership over the Apollo project, which means that Wu does not have much say and often acts as a "promoter" of the Apollo project.

This will not be a long-term solution for a company that was once a strong R&D company.

Moreover, Baidu Apollo plans to build an open platform for autonomous driving, and at least for now, it is not very interested in building cars. This is obviously contrary to Wu Xuebin's "dream of building cars".

In such a situation, changing one's mind and making a fresh start may be a better way out.

Wu Xuebin is a Chinese American. In his early years, he worked as a senior vehicle performance engineer at Ford Motor Company in the United States. In April 2003, he returned to China and served as the director of the vehicle model development department and the trial production and testing department of Chery Automobile Engineering Research Institute. After working at Chery for less than a year, he moved to Foton Motor that year and served as Foton Motor's deputy general manager and director of the research institute. He left Foton in April 2013, and then Wu Xuebin moved to BAIC Group headed by Xu Heiyi. In September of the same year, he was appointed vice president of BAIC Group and director of BAIC Group Automotive Research Institute.

After leaving Baidu, Wu Xuebin's next destination has also attracted attention. The latest news shows that his final answer is Baoneng. On January 9 this year, Baoneng acquired 51% of Qoros Auto's shares for 6.63 billion yuan and officially became its controlling shareholder. By taking over Qoros, Baoneng has taken the first step in entering the automotive field, and Qoros also wants to use this opportunity to find new development opportunities.

Promoting the rebirth of Qoros Auto may be Wu Xuebin’s next most important task.