Ford invests in Argo AI, GM releases road test video, Toyota joins hands with Suzuki, the field of autonomous driving is very lively | New Intelligent Driving Weekly

Leifeng.com: After the Lunar New Year, the New Intelligent Driving Weekly arrived as scheduled. This week, traditional car companies appeared unusually frequently in the field of autonomous driving .

1. Ford invests $1 billion in Argo AI to enhance its autonomous driving capabilities

On Friday, Ford invested $1 billion to acquire a majority stake in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence startup. This is the largest investment by a traditional automaker in self-driving technology. According to Ford CEO Mark Field, the most important reason Ford did not fully acquire Argo AI is that startups can attract top talent through equity.

Argo AI was founded by two top engineers from Google and Uber who both worked at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. Argo plans to use its expertise in AI to develop software for self-driving vehicles. After the investment, Argo AI will continue to be headquartered in Pittsburgh and maintain a degree of independence.

Some industry insiders believe that Ford's acquisition of Argo AI should be seen as an organizational structure transfer rather than just an investment behavior.

2. GM's self-driving car releases two road test videos

In January, Cruise Automation, a startup that has been merged into GM's autonomous driving division, released a video of its self-driving car testing on the streets of San Francisco ; on February 8, the second part of the video was also released.

The prototype of the self-driving car participating in the test is General Motors' electric car Chevrolet Bolt, which is equipped with the Cruise RP-1 self-driving system independently developed by Cruise Automation.

The test site was selected on real roads in San Francisco, with various traffic conditions. During the entire test, the car handled traffic conditions such as turning at intersections, changing traffic lights, pedestrians crossing the road, and also completed lane change and overtaking operations.

Overall, GM's progress in autonomous driving is rapid and very solid.

3. Toyota and Suzuki cooperate in multiple fields including autonomous driving

On February 6, according to foreign media reports, Toyota Motor Group and Suzuki Motor Group jointly announced that they had signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. The two companies will cooperate in environmentally friendly technologies, safety systems, information technology, and product and parts supply. What is more worth mentioning is that the two companies will become technical partners in the field of autonomous driving.

Through the cooperation, Suzuki can obtain advanced technologies from Toyota, such as electric powertrains, while Toyota can benefit from Suzuki's deep cultivation in the Indian market, because Suzuki has been ranked first in the Indian market for many years and has built an excellent supply chain network, while Toyota's insight into this market is obviously not as good as Suzuki's.

In addition, through resource integration, the investment costs of the two companies in the greening of powertrain systems, the research and development of more advanced safety technologies, and autonomous driving will also be reduced accordingly.

4. Subaru obtains California road test license and will launch semi-autonomous driving vehicles in 2020

Fuji Heavy Industries, the manufacturer of the Subaru car brand, announced on the 9th of this month that it has obtained an autonomous driving test permit from the state of California, USA, and will soon test driverless vehicles on public roads in California.

This is the 22nd testing license issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Other companies that have obtained licenses include: Tesla, Nvidia, Ford, Google Waymo , Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Faraday Future, etc.

Currently, Subaru's 'EyeSight' driver assistance system has integrated some intelligent driving technologies, and is planning to add more intelligent traffic jam autonomous driving functions to its products. Fuji Heavy Industries' official roadmap is to launch products with semi-autonomous driving functions in 2020.

5. BMW and Google invest $45 million in metal 3D printing company

On February 6th local time, Desktop Metal, an American metal 3D printing company, announced the completion of a US$45 million Series C financing round, with investors including BMW and GV (Google Ventures).

Desktop Metal is a metal 3D printing startup based in Massachusetts, USA. The company is committed to optimizing the manufacturing process of complex parts using metal 3D printing, and its efficient manufacturing technology has been widely used in the automotive industry.

Regarding this investment, Uwe Higgen, managing partner of BMW iVentures, the venture capital arm of BMW, pointed out in a statement, "From rapid prototyping and printing of special specification parts required for vehicle production to independent design and mass customization, Desktop Metal is changing the way cars are designed and manufactured today."

6. Tesla Model 3 will start trial production this month and is expected to enter China next year

According to foreign media reports, Tesla has informed its suppliers that it will start trial production of Model 3 on the 20th of this month. At the same time, the production of Model S/X at Tesla's Fremont plant in California will be suspended for a week to install related equipment for Model 3 production.

In addition, according to Leifeng.com, in December last year, Tesla's Fremont factory confirmed that it would expand its production area, which is expected to be about twice the current size, in preparation for the large-scale production of Model 3 in July this year.

People familiar with the matter revealed that the scale of this trial production is not large, and the focus is on testing the quality of the assembly system and spare parts.

7. The electric supercar that was once faster than Tesla will deliver only 8 "mass production cars" worldwide

Last year, Rimac Automobili, an electric vehicle development company headquartered in Croatia, exhibited the high-performance electric supercar Concept_One at the Nevada Auto Show. At that time, the Concept_One's acceleration performance to 62 miles per hour had reached 2.6 seconds, surpassing the Tesla P90D (60 miles per hour acceleration in 2.9 seconds) at the time. Because of this, Concept_One once became one of the dark horses in the industry that competed with Tesla.

According to Leifeng.com, the company has recently announced that it has completed the performance upgrade of Concept_One and officially put it into production.

8. Uber invites a legendary aircraft designer to join and has a strong desire to build flying cars

NASA's legendary aircraft designer Mark D. Moore has officially resigned and joined Uber's flying car project. Mark Moore has worked at NASA for more than 30 years and has extensive research experience.

As for why he joined Uber, Mark said, "Uber is undoubtedly the leader of the new transportation/aviation ecosystem and has the ability to build the electric vertical take-off and landing market in cities. In the past five years, the underlying technology has made great progress. In the next five to ten years, this achievement will be very exciting."

Last October, Uber released a 99-page white paper for the first time. In the white paper, Uber will build an on-demand aviation service network called "Elevate". Under this network, aircraft can take off or land vertically.