NIO said to revamp intelligent driving R&D division, focusing on end-to-end large models

Beijing (Gasgoo)- On June 19, a local media outlet revealed that NIO's intelligent driving R&D division has undergone a significant structural adjustment. Previously, the division was segmented into perception, planning and control, and integration teams. Post-adjustment, the perception and planning and control teams have merged into a "large model team," while the integration team has been restructured into the "delivery team."

Photo credit: NIO

The merged large model team will be led by Peng Chao, the former head of NIO’s perception team.

Reportedly, the restructured autonomous driving development division will continue to be overseen by Ren Shaoqing, NIO's Vice President of Intelligent Driving R&D. Ren communicated to his team that they must abandon the traditional "perception-decision-planning and control" paradigm that the industry has followed for years. This indicates that NIO will be more explicitly exploring the use of end-to-end large models to achieve advanced intelligent driving capabilities.

Ren Shaoqing holds a Ph.D. from the joint program between the University of Science and Technology of China and Microsoft Research Asia. In 2018, Ren participated in the founding of Momenta, serving as Partner and Director of R&D before joining NIO in 2020. Peng Chao, with a master’s degree from Tsinghua University, was a senior visual algorithm engineer at Momenta.

Currently, NIO’s intelligent driving team comprises around 1,500 members, which is relatively lean compared to other companies. For context, Huawei’s smart driving team exceeds 7,000 members, BYD has around 4,000, XPeng about 3,000, and Li Auto, after a recent downsizing, has approximately 800.

At the end of April, NIO rolled out the NOP+ (Navigate on Pilot Plus) to its users, featuring NOA (Navigation on Autopilot) capabilities for both expressways and urban areas. According to NIO, this system now covers national highways and urban roads in 726 cities in China, serving nearly 260,000 users.