Jidu grows smarter by pushing access to NEVs

Smart electric vehicle company Jidu Auto is ratcheting up efforts to open experience centers and stores in China as part of its broader push to offer consumers easier access to its smart vehicles.

As the company expects to deliver its cars this year, Jidu — a joint venture by carmaker Geely Holding Group and tech giant Baidu Inc — plans to open about 100 stores across China in 2023.

The moves are part of Jidu's broader push to offer a better smart car experience to consumers by tapping into Geely's manufacturing expertise and Baidu's digital technology capabilities.

Xia Yiping, CEO of Jidu, said the company will integrate Baidu's ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence services in its cars to provide better human-machine interaction.

Jidu will integrate Ernie Bot, an AI chatbot project developed by Baidu, into its cars to develop the world's first large-language model-powered AI interactive experience for smart vehicles, Xia said.

Baidu's Ernie Bot is a ChatGPT-like AI service, which will complete its internal testing in March before launching to the public.

At the launch event, Jidu also signed an agreement with the Three-Body Universe (Shanghai) Cultural Development Co Ltd. Under the deal, Jidu plans to launch the "Three-Body Version" vehicle this year.

On Tuesday, its experience centers in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, Guangdong province, were officially launched.

Recently, new energy vehicle makers such as Tesla have been lowering prices for their models to attract consumers.

Xia said the price drop, in essence, mirrors the intensified competition in the NEV sector.

Retail sales of passenger NEVs stood at about 360,000 units in January, up 1.8 percent year-on-year but down 43.8 percent from December, according to the China Passenger Car Association, based on surveys of carmakers and dealers.

Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that January-February NEV sales might fall a bit compared with the same period last year because of the withdrawal of subsidies that were first introduced in 2009.

But for the entire year, sales will maintain rapid growth, said Chen, as both the macroeconomy and consumer confidence continue to recover.

Last year, China sold about 6.89 million NEVs, up more than 93 percent year-on-year. NEV production also soared nearly 97 percent to about 7.06 million units, data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed.

Thanks to the NEV boom, the market share of NEVs in the nation's auto market reached nearly 26 percent in 2022, an increase of 12 percent year-on-year.