Li Auto sets up dedicated unit for end-to-end smart driving large model R&D

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Recently, Chinese new energy vehicle maker Li Auto announced its entry into the development of end-to-end large models. Earlier this month, during its intelligent driving summer launch event, Li Auto unveiled a new autonomous driving technology architecture based on end-to-end models, VLM (Vision Language Model), and world models. The company also initiated an early bird program for this new architecture.

Photo credit: Li Auto

According to Lang Xianpeng, vice president of intelligent driving R&D at Li Auto, this architecture is the industry's first solution to deploy dual systems on the vehicle and the first to successfully implement VLM on in-car chips.

Li Auto's smart driving system demo; photo credit: Li Auto

The latest reports indicate that Li Auto has established an entity dedicated to the R&D of end-to-end autonomous driving technology with a team of approximately 200 members, with additional support from other company divisions. The primary R&D efforts are handled by the algorithm development group, led by Jia Peng, head of intelligent driving technology R&D at Li Auto.

This move follows Tesla CEO Elon Musk's advocacy for end-to-end large model development in autonomous driving last year, which sent ripples through the industry.

Chinese carmakers have been quick to follow suit. NIO has already undergone organizational changes to establish a dedicated department for end-to-end large models. Huawei's Intelligent Automotive Solutions BU, through its newly launched Qiankun brand, also announced plans to bring end-to-end technology to vehicles. XPENG is planning to apply end-to-end large model architecture, while Great Wall Motor aims to achieve mass production of end-to-end intelligent driving solution in three vehicle models this year.