HOZON Auto Launches Research Center in Silicon Valley to Pioneer the Third Way to Explore Autonomous Driving

As a global hub of science and technology innovation, the Silicon Valley is the epicenter of autonomous driving, bringing together the world's top R&D institutions focusing on autonomous driving technology, such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Baidu.

As the 13th car company to be granted a license for manufacturing new energy vehicles in China, HOZON Auto has been always focused on R&D for intelligent internet-connected new energy vehicles since its establishment in 2014. With a mature R&D system, HOZON Auto has developed a L4 level test vehicle with autonomous driving functionality.

At the beginning of 2018, HOZON Auto established a global R&D strategy that focuses on building R&D centers worldwide in five cities across four countries, including Autonomous Vehicle Research Center (Silicon Valley), Italy Torino Design Center (underway), German Engineering and Technology Center (underway), and Shanghai and Jiaxing R&D Centers.

The HOZON Auto Autonomous Vehicle Research Center (Silicon Valley) marks a crucial step in building global strategic R&D layout. In the future, the center will focus on the research of autonomous driving and AI, and lead the development and industrial application of autonomous driving technology worldwide through the core algorithms aimed at improving autonomous driving and open source architecture system platforms by in-depth study of big data and deep learning technology.

To open up a new path for global autonomous driving technology

With the development of information technology, smart cars have become the industry's top investment and development trend. The U.S. HIS report predicts that by 2035, the global sales of smart (driverless) vehicles will approach 12 million.

The huge market attracts investment from many companies, both traditional carmakers and innovative technology firms. However, there are different paths for the development of autonomous driving technology. Traditional automakers such as Ford and Mercedes-Benz, considering market conditions, have leveraged their engineering expertise and that will allow it to achieve L4 autonomous driving through industrial upgrade. Tech-first firms such as Google and Baidu, focus on technology research and development of open source platforms to achieve industrialized L4 autonomous driving through technological innovation directly.

Imbued with the strong foundation of a traditional car company and the DNA of a tech innovator, HOZON Auto has opened up a third path for R&D of autonomous driving, which is to combine the advantages of these two types. By taking an open source platform as the purpose and the industrialization as the means, it can realize the large-scale application of autonomous driving technology, thus not only to guarantee technology stability, but also meet the needs of the market.

Just as Peng Qingfeng, vice president of HOZON Auto, said: "The autonomous driving market in the future is massive and extremely alluring, but the competition is also very fierce, which is both a challenge and an opportunity. After all, everyone is on the same starting line, and time will tell who reaches the end first."

SOURCE HOZON Auto