Contacting Mercedes-Benz Executives or Securing Audi's Designation, Zhuoyu Technology Expands Its Intelligent Driving "Onboard" Applications

As the "battle" for "intelligent driving equality" intensifies, automakers are becoming increasingly stringent in controlling the costs of intelligent driving.

According to insiders who spoke to Cailian Press, Audi is expected to collaborate with Zhuoyu Technology on two new car models, and senior executives from Mercedes-Benz recently visited Zhuoyu Technology—the former is seeking a "Plan B" for intelligent driving solutions after partnering with Momenta in the intelligent driving field.

"In addition to our current clients, we have been in deep discussions with some global customers, and there will certainly be more collaborations in the future," said Chen Xiaozhi, Chief Technology Officer of AI at Zhuoyu Technology, during the China EV100 Forum held at the end of March this year. "As for the specifics, it may take some time, and everyone can wait for official announcements. We have been actively expanding our overseas clients, including their localized and overseas car models."

While frequently engaging with German luxury brands, Zhuoyu Technology is also continuously expanding its partnerships with domestic brands. The aforementioned insider also revealed that the intelligent driving solution for the second-generation Great Wall Xiaolong MAX, which is set to debut at the Shanghai Auto Show, will be provided by Zhuoyu Technology. The BAIC Arcfox brand will also adopt Zhuoyu's intelligent driving solution.

On February 28 this year, Shen Shaojie, head of Zhuoyu Technology, disclosed the latest progress of the company's intelligent driving system, the "Chengxing Platform": it has already partnered with nine renowned automakers, including China FAW, Volkswagen (FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen), and SAIC-GM-Wuling, and has been implemented in 17 car models, with over 30 new models currently in development.

From Zhuoyu Technology's official website, it can be seen that its publicly announced partners also include Chery Automobile and Dongfeng Motor, with models such as the SAIC Volkswagen Tiguan L Pro, FAW-Volkswagen's new Tayron L, SAIC-GM-Wuling KiWi EV, Baojun Yunduo, Chery iCAR 03, and Hongqi Tiangong 08.

At the end of last year, Zhuoyu Technology underwent a business registration change, adding Shenzhen BYD Chuangxin Materials Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of BYD, and two equity investment funds managed by Hengxu Capital—Suzhou Shenqilina Green Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Jiaxing Junyu Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership)—as shareholders. At the same time, the registered capital increased from approximately 67.99 million to 73.12 million. Among them, Hengxu Capital is a private equity investment institution under SAIC Financial, the financial platform of SAIC Group, focusing on investments in the upstream and downstream of the automotive industry chain.

BYD's investment in Zhuoyu Technology is also seen by the industry as "bringing orders with investment." Although neither party has publicly disclosed the collaboration, industry analysts believe that the front-facing triple-camera hardware configuration used in BYD's Tian Shen Zhi Yan C is based on Zhuoyu's inertial navigation triple-camera 10V vision system.

Zhuoyu Technology's predecessor was DJI's automotive division, established in 2016, initially as an internal project team focused on the R&D of intelligent driving technology. In 2023, Zhuoyu was spun off from DJI and officially adopted the "Zhuoyu" brand in June 2024.

In the intelligent driving industry, Zhuoyu Technology has chosen a "downward route," aiming to achieve high-level functions with low computing power. It is reported that mainstream end-to-end intelligent driving solutions in the industry are mostly based on NVIDIA's Orin-X chip platform, requiring at least 254 TOPS of computing power, while the solution launched by Zhuoyu Technology at the end of 2024 requires only 32 TOPS and 100 TOPS.

"End-to-end does not necessarily mean a 'large intelligent driving model' with over 1 billion parameters. End-to-end can also be medium or small models, and there are no strict computing power requirements on the vehicle side," Shen Shaojie believes. By using efficient medium models and extreme computing power optimization techniques, end-to-end architectures can also be deployed on medium computing power chips with tens of TOPS.

The industry generally believes that L3 autonomous driving may become a watershed for luxury cars, which is why many multinational luxury brands, including BBA, are actively seeking local suppliers. "Zhuoyu Technology will accelerate the layout of L3 and L4 autonomous driving. In 2025, the company will focus on pre-installing related hardware, including visual cameras, LiDAR, and primary and backup controllers, to meet redundancy architecture requirements," Chen Xiaozhi revealed. Software functions will be gradually applied in specific scenarios after algorithm optimization and safety takeover rates improve, and it is expected to take another two to three years to fully implement.