On July 4th, “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
connection the King Long Apolong production line site in Xiamen in south of
China and talked online 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.
Baidu Chairman Robin Li online with Xiamen King
Long Apolong production line
Chairman of King Long Bus Xie Siyu presides offline
ceremony
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.
Offline of mass-produced King Long Apolong
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. The
mankind is continuously freeing themselves by creations and inventions in the
course of development. Nowadays, the mankind once again 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 and high-precision map data, realize the
optimal route planning, forecast the behaviors and intensions of vehicles and
pedestrians, and make the traveling decision adapting to the road conditions to
thus control 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.
Test in Chongqing
Autonomous Driving Enclosed Ground
The autonomous driving vehicle once dreamed of
has become true and has started to truly serve the public transportation life. Soon after, in Haidian Park,
Beijing, King Long Apolong of high futuristic characteristic will become a dazzling
scene of new age in ancient garden. In Xiong’an New District, King Long Apolong will become the
traveling benchmarking in smart city. In scenic Pingtan, Fujian, King Long Apolong will enable the
tourists to enjoy the beautiful coastal scenery. In Country Garden residential
communities, King Long Apolong will intimately serve your shopping and child commuting.
Following the advancement of King Long Apolong commercial operation, the autonomous driving vehicle
will enter into more traveling fields of the public transportation.
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.
King Long and Baidu sign strategic cooperation
agreement with SB Drive under the Softbank Corporation
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
Nowadays, 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 and upgrade
under the background of Fujian Party Committee and Government’s strong support
for optimization and upgrade of auto industry and 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 and finished vehicle
manufacturer and achieved multiple breakthroughs in autonomous driving field,
rapidly boosted the development of China’s autonomous driving industry, took
the lead to realize the true commercialization of autonomous driving vehicle,
successfully overpassed the high admittance threshold of autonomous driving
vehicles imported from developed countries, 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 and downstream industry chains to focus on the R&D and application
of independent core technologies and drive the public transportation
comprehensively into the intelligent age with scientific and technologic
innovations.