Although the car to be unveiled in 2022 will be a concept car, the similarity between the concept and the production model will be 90%, according to the CEO of the joint venture between Geely and Baidu.
The car will be equipped with Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving technology and Geely's SEA intelligent architecture. Due to the high cost, the car will be set at a price – above CNY 200,000.
The Jidu Auto joint venture between Baidu and Geely, headed by Xia Yiping, plans to release a new model every one or one-and-a-half years after its first launch, without giving a sales target. It plans to hire 2,500 to 3,000 people over two to three years, including 400 to 500 software engineers.
The CEO also revealed that Jidu Auto will invest CNY 50 billion in the next five years for overall research and development and the continuous construction of a series of models.
In recent years, a number of Internet technology giants have announced that they have begun to play a part in the ever-growing Chinese auto/EV industry. In addition to Baidu's Jidu Auto, Alibaba and SAIC have also jointly established Zhiji Auto, while Xiaomi has also recently announced its car-making ambitions. However, we believe that the market capacity is limited, and only a few will survive in the end.