By Kate Yuan

Robin Li, CEO of China’s tech giant Baidu said in terms of autonomous driving technologies, Baidu’s JIDU will be one generation ahead of Tesla. JIDU is Baidu’s EV brand and he made the remark at JIDU’s first automobile robot ecosystem partner conference held in its newly opened headquarter Shanghai on August 8 called “JIDU Robo Base.”

“Intelligence is JIDU’s key advantage. It integrates Baidu's AI technologies and the core capabilities of Apollo, which is Baidu’s autonomous driving system. For smart cars, we believe that being electric is the semi-final, and being intelligent is the endgame,” Li added.

Joe Xia, CEO of JIDU, announced the "2880 plan" at the conference, implying the startup company will have the ability to deliver 800,000 vehicles in 2028.

JIDU was initiated by Baidu with strategical investment from by carmaker Geely in 2021. The company is committed to developing the world's top autonomous driving and human-computer interaction technologies, creating revolutionary automotive robots with emotion and intelligence, and more space and comfort.

The startup released its first robot concept car in June, which has no door handles, and can be fully controlled by voice recognition. The car is planned for mass production in 2023.

Joe Xia revealed that JIDU is about to launch a limited edition of the first mass-produced model in the second half of 2023. The second model is expected to be delivered in 2024.

"Our first user experience center will open in Shanghai within this year, and the first batch of stores are planned to enter 46 cities in 2023," said Xia.