Former Aptiv’s expert joins DiDi’s autonomous driving subsidiary as CTO

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Wei Junqing, former Vice President Engineering of Aptiv Mobility Group, has joined DiDi Autonomous Driving Company as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), and will directly report to Zhang Bo, CTO of Didi Chuxing and head of its autonomous driving subsidiary, according to a local media outlet who got confirmation from the Chinese ride-hailing giant.

In December 2017, auto parts supplier Delphi Automotive PLC completed the spin-off of its powertrain segment into Delphi Technologies and the remaining entity engaged in developing more connected electronics and safety solutions was renamed as Aptiv.

Joining Aptiv in 2015, Mr. Wei had been in charge of the technology R&D and product development for Aptiv's autonomous driving strategy, focusing on putting the emerging technologies into commercial application. Besides, he was also devoted himself to the establishment and development of Aptiv's technology hub in Pittsburgh and the customer experience and self-driving fleet operation centers in Las Vegas, according to Didi's introduction.

On August 5, Didi Chuxing announced that it had upgraded its autonomous driving unit into an independent company to focus on R&D, product application, and business development related to autonomous driving technologies.

DiDi's CTO, Zhang Bo, heads the new autonomous driving company as its CEO. Meng Xing, former Executive Director at Shunwei China Internet Fund, serves as COO of the new company.

The ride-hailing giant is pushing ahead with the deployment of autonomous driving service. In late August, Didi said passengers would be able to hail self-driving vehicles from its app in a pilot robo-taxi service in Shanghai. However, given the complex local traffic and road conditions, it would continue to dispatch vehicles with human drivers for the duration of the pilot robo-taxi project.

On August 28, Shanghai government gave DiDi permits to test its self-driving fleet. Zhang revealed that DiDi would deploy 30 vehicles with Level 4 autonomous driving capability to provide pilot robo-taxi services in Jiading District of Shanghai.

Then, at the 2019 World Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem Conference kicking off on September 16, DiDi was awarded the license plate to conduct ICV (intelligent-connected vehicle) pilot application in Shanghai. The other two companies receiving this kind of plate are SAIC Motor and BMW (photo source: DiDi Chuxing).