Li Auto reported that City NOA’s real-time HDMapNet-based road framework awareness algorithm could detect and make real-time decisions based on its surroundings, just like a human.
Later this year, Li Auto will begin enabling some customers to participate in beta testing of its Tesla FSD-like developed assisted driving feature, becoming one of the first local car companies to offer the part.
The extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) maker announced the plan on Wednesday at the launch of its new SUV, the Li L7, saying it will begin user testing of City NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) in the fourth quarter.
AD Max assisted driving system
The test will be conducted on automobiles with AD Max, Li Auto’s intelligent driving system that employs in-house sensing, decision-making, planning, and control software.
Notably, the AD Max assisted driving system, which includes two NVIDIA Orin X smart driving chips and a LiDAR, is found in the Max versions of Li Auto vehicles.
The Li L7 and Li L8 are currently available in Air, Pro, and Max versions, with the Air version, first revealed at yesterday’s launch and the company’s flagship SUV, the Li L9, currently available only in Max.
Meanwhile, the company’s Pro version includes the AD Pro assisted driving system, the first automated driving system to have Horizon Robotics’ Journey 5 chip.
Interestingly, the company claims that Li Auto’s City NOA is based on HDMapNet’s real-time road structure awareness algorithm, which can sense and make real-time decisions based on the surrounding environment, just like a human.
Furthermore, Li Auto stated that the methodology liberates assisted driving systems from an over-reliance on high-precision maps, which is the valid technological path that will lead to the rapid expansion of City NOA and, in the future, fully autonomous driving.
Supercomputing cluster with 1,000 PFLOPS
Li Auto vehicles have driven over 510 million kilometers of intelligent driving, including 87.89 million kilometers of highway NOA navigation-assisted driving.
According to the company, the Li L8 and Li L9 have gathered 160 million kilometers of active learning after delivery, totaling 7.2 million hours of active learning.
Furthermore, Li Auto stated that it had built a supercomputing cluster with 1,000 PFLOPS of computing power and an automated labeling capacity of up to 35,000 clips per day to accelerate the development of autonomous driving technology.
The company’s automated annotation effectiveness has increased 2,635 times over manual annotation efficiency, according to a 200-person annotation team.
The supercomputing cluster outperforms XPeng’s self-driving computing center “Fuyao” and Haomo’s MANA OASIS by 600 PFLOPS.
Li Auto to become top AI company in 2030
Li Auto is the latest company to show ambition in building a developed assisted driving technology, intending to become the world’s top artificial intelligence company by 2030.
City NOA, based on BEV sensing and Transformer models in EV storage, can be skilled end-to-end without relying on high-precision maps. The technology will be accessible by the end of 2023, according to Li Auto founder, chairman, and CEO Li Xiang in a January 28 all-staff letter.
Li Auto claimed that this would be a crucial starting point for the transition of the physical world by software 2.0.
XPeng’s automated driving system
XPeng is the Chinese electric vehicle company making the most progress in autonomous driving.
On September 17, 2022, XPeng announced that its City Navigation Guided Pilot (City NGP) feature would be available on a trial basis in Guangzhou, the company’s headquarters. It became the first Chinese carmaker to introduce advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) features to the mass market for complex urban traffic conditions.
At the time, some XPeng P5 buyers in Guangzhou could access City NGP via an OTA update.
On October 21, XPeng made City NGP accessible to all qualified P5 sedans in Guangzhou, including those with LiDARs and XPilot 3.5 software.
NIO announced NAD (NIO Autonomous Driving), its Tesla FSD-like software package, at the ET7 sedan launch on January 9, 2021, at the NIO Day 2020 event.
Although the software is not yet available, the complete feature package of NAD will be available via subscription for RMB 680 per month.
