NIO, the Chinese electric vehicle maker and a major rival of Tesla is installing Mobileye kits for driverless cars.
As part of the project, NIO will manufacture and install in each of its electric vehicles ‘kits’ for level 4 autonomous driving (driverless cars in pre-defined lanes and under restrictions) that have been developed by Mobileye.
These level 4 vehicles will ultimately be used as robo-taxis to provide mobility-as-a-service (driverless ride-hailing services) although they will also be sold to private individuals. Under the terms of the agreement, NIO will mass-produce the kits in for other projects being carried out by Mobileye.
Mobileye will also develop for NIO a system enabling driverless electric cars to navigate directly and on the shortest route to the nearest charging point, when the battery is nearly empty and implement the charging process without any human intervention.
NIO has sent its ES38 model to Israel for R&D purposes only. The car came onto the market in China in March and has two cross-over engines with more than 500 horsepower and a 100 kilowatt per hour battery that gives the car a range of 580 kilometers between charges (by the NEDC standard).
NIO is one of China’s leading electric car manufacturers. Between January 2019 and May 2020 the company sold 39,000 cars including 6,990 cars this year, up 38% in 2020 despite the coronavirus crisis.