jidu is considering using the baidudesigned kunlun chip in its upcoming car modelsbeijing jidu auto the electric vehicle venture between chinas tech giant baidu and chinese automaker geely aims to pour 50 billion yuan 770 billion into making smart cars over the next five years jidus chief executive told reuters on friday xia yiping said jidu would aim to launch its first electric vehicle ev in three years as is standard for the industry but would make efforts to speed up that process its first model would look like a robot and would target young customers xia said adding that jidu would analyse big market data before deciding on a final model advt it will make you feel like its a robot that can communicate with you with emotions said xia who joined jidu from chinese bikesharing firm mobike a company he cofounded the launch of the new auto company in january comes as many tech companies around the world are racing to develop smart cars after tesla incs success in commercialising evs jidu plans to release a new model every year or every oneandahalf years after the first one is launched xia said without offering a sales target it plans to hire 2500 to 3000 people over the next two to three years including 400 to 500 software engineers the company which is based in shanghai and beijing also plans to roll out its branding in the third quarter of 2021 xia said xia said jidu which will use geelys opensource electric vehicle platform to develop cars hopes to make cars in hangzhou bay in chinas eastern city of ningbo where geely has several car plants it plans to sell its car directly to customers to begin with without using dealerships chinese search engine company baidu in january announced it would set up the company with zhejiang geely holding group to leverage its intelligent driving expertise and geelys car manufacturing capabilities baidu owns 55 of jidu and geely has a 45 stake in the company advt baidu has over the years developed a swathe of smart car technologies including autonomous driving technologies highdefinition map as well as cloud it first established its autonomous driving unit apollo in 2017 smartphone maker xiaomi corp and telecom firm huawei technologies are among other chinese tech giants harbouring auto ambitions jidu is considering using the baidudesigned kunlun chip in its upcoming car models reuters published on apr 23 2021 at 0116 pm ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etauto app get realtime updates save your favourite articles