Xiamen, 4th July 2018 – “Create2018” Baidu AI Developer Conference was opened grandly at National Convention Center and the autonomous driving bus King Long Apolong once again became the focus of the conference. A good part was played at the opening of the conference. Under the witness of all attending distinguished guests and the media both home and abroad, Robin Li fulfilled his promise made at the Baidu World Conference in 2017 and during the channel interview of representatives of the two conferences, the mass production of King Long Apolong in 2018.
At 10 a.m., Robin Li at the speech stage contacted via video conferencing at the King Long Apolong production line site in Xiamen in south of China. He communicated to Chairman of King Long Bus Xie Siyu standing in the assembling line to hold the offline ceremony of the world’s first level L4 mass-produced autonomous driving bus King Long Apolong from both south and north of China.
Following the slow driving of the completely finished King Long Apolong from the production line, the Chairman of King Long Bus Xie Siyu solemnly declared the official offline of the 100th King Long Apolong bus. So far, it created a new record in the history of autonomous driving vehicle. At this exciting historic moment, the conference site was full of thunderous applause for a long time.
After the ceremony, these mass-produced King Long Apolong buses will be shipped to enclosed zones in Beijing, Xiong’an, Pingtan, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen for demonstration operations and will be exported to Japan to realize the first export of China’s autonomous driving electric vehicles. The autonomous driving vehicle will start to serve the people’s transportation as a new force. Humankind is continuously freeing themselves by creations and inventions in the course of development. Once again humankind embraces a reform of transforming the people’s traveling mode and also enters into an all-new milestone in the auto age.
Autonomous driving serves public transportation to make dream fulfilled
King Long Apolong is the China’s first commercial autonomous driving vehicle jointly developed by King Long and Baidu and is presently the China’s autonomous driving vehicle of highest automation level. Without steering wheel, brake pedal, or accelerator pedal, this autonomous driving vehicle is a new vehicle product built with electromotion, electronization, and intelligence completely as per the characteristics of L4 autonomous driving level. King Long Apolong is installed with Baidu’s latest Apollo system that incorporates the high-precision positioning, intelligent sensing, and intelligent control. Based on the high-precision map and intelligent sensing, the smart “Auto brain” of King Long Apolong can real-time sense the environmental information with high-precision map data. The King Long Apolong then realize the optimal route planning by forecasting the behavior and intention of vehicles and pedestrians. Not only that the traveling decision is adapted to the road conditions thus controlling the normal driving of autonomous driving vehicle. Before the mass production, King Long Apolong has passed the stringent tests, including the road test in Pingtan Autonomous Driving Vehicle Test Base, the test on 3rd-phase enclosed roads of Xiamen Software Park, and the test in Chongqing Autonomous Driving Enclosed Ground.
King Long Apolong achieves first export order of China’s autonomous driving vehicle with leading strength
After the realization of mass production, King Long Apolong will not only hold autonomous driving vehicle commercial demonstration operations in multiple places nationwide, but also create the history of first export order of the China’s autonomous driving vehicles. On July 3, the eve of the offline of the 100th mass-produced King Long Apolong vehicle, King Long and Baidu signed strategic cooperation agreement with SB Drive, the autonomous driving vehicle division under the Softbank Corporation. According to this agreement, three parties will jointly develop the Japanese version of King Long Apolong and then hold the commercial operations in Tokyo and other places. Initiating the autonomous driving vehicle commercial operation worldwide also represented the recognition of China’s autonomous driving technology and vehicle manufacturing by developed countries.
Baidu boasts leading advantages in terms of autonomous driving algorithm, open data volume, and high-precision map. Aiming at the intelligent traveling service commercialization with utilization of autonomous driving technologies, SB Drive is a pioneer exploring the autonomous driving vehicle commercial operation. King Long boasts 30 years of abundant product R&D and vehicle manufacturing strength and stringent quality inspection standard as well as really mature international trading and operation experiences. It’s noteworthy that King Long owns systematic leading technologies in terms of vehicle electromotion, intelligence, and networking in recent years. The cooperation among three powerful parties will vigorously promote the operations of King Long Apolong in Japan and initiate the globalized cooperation and operation of autonomous driving technologies.
Adhering to the dream, King Long comprehensively drives public transportation into intelligent age
These days under the grand trend of artificial intelligence, autonomous driving has become the focus of global auto industry. The auto electromotion and intelligence is the general trend and also the new opportunity for China’s automotive industry to realize “corner overtaking”. The mass production of King Long Apolong is an important achievement towards electric-driven and intelligent transformation. The strong support from Fujian Party Committee and Government’s for optimization and upgrade of auto industry is together under the guidance of the innovation-driven strategy of Fujian Motor Industry Group.
In 2017, King Long partnered with Baidu to develop autonomous driving technologies in the commercial vehicle field. For more than 1 year, both parties worked together to sufficiently play the respective advantages of high-tech internet enterprise. King Long and Baidu completed the vehicle manufacturing and achieved multiple breakthroughs in autonomous driving field and rapidly boosted the development of China’s autonomous driving industry. Together they took the lead to realize the true commercialization of autonomous driving vehicle and successfully overpassed the high admittance threshold of autonomous driving vehicles imported from developed countries. This demonstrated the leading strengths of China’s autonomous driving technologies and R&D and manufacturing of autonomous driving vehicles, and showed the “Chinese speed” of autonomous driving development.
Freeing your hands, the mankind can also look up to the stars during driving. Freeing your time, everyone’s journey will become more comfortable, more relieved, and safer. The mass production and operation of King Long Apolong initiated the history of serving public transportation with autonomous driving vehicle. In the future, King Long will continue to work with partners and upstream the industry chains to focus not only on the R&D but the application of independent core technologies and drive the public transportation comprehensively into the intelligent age with scientific and technological innovations.
