[240903] #WeRide #Einride #Mobileye

1. WeRide secures permits to test autonomous vehicles with passengers onboard in California

• WeRide, a Chinese autonomous driving company, has received approval to test driverless vehicles with passengers in California.
• The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted WeRide two permits: one for testing with a safety driver and another for fully driverless testing.
• These permits allow WeRide to carry passengers during testing but do not permit charging fees or offering services to the public.
• WeRide has been testing autonomous vehicles without passengers in California since 2021 and logged 42,391 miles in 2023.
• On July 26, WeRide submitted its IPO application to the SEC, planning to list on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “WRD.”

2. ‘World’s largest autonomous trucking network’ is under development in Dubai

• Swedish startup Einride became the first to operate a driverless electric truck on a public road in 2019, with remote human supervision.
• The autonomous trucking market is now valued at over $35 billion, projected to more than double by 2032, despite struggles for early players like TuSimple and Embark.
• Einride, in contrast, continues to thrive, securing $3.6 billion in contracts in 2022 and $500 million in financing, operating thousands of trucks in seven countries, including the US, UK, and Sweden.
• Einride has signed a deal with Dubai’s Jebel Ali port to build the world’s largest autonomous trucking network, aiming for 1,600 daily container movements by the end of the year.
• The company’s electric trucks are managed through its AI-driven Saga operating system, optimizing efficiency by selecting the best routes.
• Einride focuses on providing transport capacity rather than selling technology, outsourcing vehicle manufacturing to third-party companies.
• The company is also collaborating with the UAE’s Ministry of Energy on the Falcon Rise project, deploying 2,000 electric trucks and 200 autonomous trucks across key infrastructure areas.
• Einride’s conservative approach to autonomous vehicle deployment, focusing on low-speed routes between warehouses, has been key to its success, with plans to gradually increase the proportion of autonomous trucks in its fleet.

3. SK hynix Supplies HBM2E Exclusively to Waymo’s Self-Driving Vehicles

• SK hynix’s HBM2E memory is being utilized in Waymo’s self-driving vehicles, marking the first disclosure of such a partnership between the two companies.
• SK hynix has uniquely commercialized HBM specifically for automotive applications, adapting the high-performance memory originally designed for HPC and data centers to meet automotive standards for temperature and reliability.
• The automotive sector is experiencing rapid growth in memory demands due to advancements in in-vehicle infotainment systems, ADAS, and multi-display cockpits, with expectations for DRAM and NAND capacities to significantly increase by 2028.
• While LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 currently dominate automotive memory usage due to cost and power efficiency, SK hynix anticipates that HBM will become mainstream as autonomous driving becomes more generalized, though this shift may take more than five years.
• SSDs are projected to become central to automotive storage, with UFS currently seeing rapid growth and high-end vehicles adopting it 3-4 years ago; however, widespread SSD commercialization in vehicles is still in early stages.

4. Mobileye says modular Brain6 software opens new possibilities

• Mobileye’s new Brain6 software, combined with its EyeQ6 sensor, offers a vision-based driving assistance system that is “two orders of magnitude” better than current offerings and expands into infotainment.
• The Brain6/EyeQ6 system will debut in cars next year and scale up significantly by 2026, with Volkswagen Group confirmed as a customer.
• The system is priced at half the cost of Tesla’s FSD 12 Level 2 package, emphasizing cost-effectiveness for widespread adoption.
• Brain6 uses AI-enhanced, crowdsourced mapping data to create a more natural driving response and opens up new business models by being customizable for infotainment systems.
• Mobileye’s portfolio includes various levels of assisted driving, with VW set to use its Chauffeur system for Level 4 autonomous passenger vans.
• The company is shifting away from a “black box” approach, offering more customizable software products like the DXP operating system.
• Mobileye reported an operating loss of $94 million in Q2 2023, with revenue down 3% to $439 million, and expects lower revenue in the second half due to weaker sales in China.

5. An autonomous robot developed by Hyundai Motor Group succeeded in crossing

• Hyundai Motor Group successfully demonstrated its autonomous delivery robot, “Moon Delivery,” crossing a crosswalk in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province.
• The robot used traffic signal information linked with a real-time system from the National Police Agency to navigate the crosswalk safely.
• The demonstration marks the first time a robot has crossed a crosswalk using traffic signals since related laws were revised in South Korea.
• The robot’s control system can manage multiple robots simultaneously, ensuring safe and efficient crossings even with potential signal errors.
• Hyundai’s robot uses AI vision, LiDAR, and camera modules to navigate autonomously, avoiding obstacles and following optimal routes.
• Hyundai Motor Group plans to continue collaborating with the government to develop infrastructure for widespread use of autonomous robots.