Chinese Automaker Chery to Use NVIDIA-Powered ZF ProAI for Level 3 Autonomous Cars

author: Eric Walz   

DETROIT — Chery, one of China's leading automakers, announced today at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) that it is adopting the new ZF ProAI system, powered by NVIDIA's DRIVE AI self-driving technology, to bring level 3 autonomous driving to the world's biggest auto market.

Chery will be the first Chinese carmaker to adopt the new ZF ProAI system, which was developed by NVIDIA, Baidu and ZF. The news was announced by Konstantin Sauer, CEO of ZF, one of the world's largest auto parts suppliers.

Chery has been making vehicles for the Chinese market and for more than 80 countries globally for the past two decades. The company has earned a reputation for bringing advanced technologies to its affordable, entry-level models.

"This collaboration will democratize autonomous driving functions in one of the most important automotive markets of the world and bring autonomous driving for everyone," said Sauer.

At CES 2018 last week in Las Vegas, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the company's partnership with Baidu and ZF to move autonomous vehicles from development into production. Working together, the companies are pioneering advances in deep learning and AI to create the first AI autonomous vehicle computing platform for China.

ZF ProAI

Powering the ZF ProAI is the NVIDIA DRIVE Xavier AI processor. Xavier is the world's most complex and advanced system on chip (SoC), capable of performing 30 deep learning TOPS (trillions of operations per second), while using only 30 watts of power.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang Annouces the Xavier SoC at CES

ZF ProAI will be able to process inputs from multiple cameras, plus lidar, radar and ultrasonic sensors, in a process known as sensor fusion. This will enable the vehicle to paint a 360-degree view around it, locate itself on an HD map, and find a safe path through traffic.

The DRIVE PX 2-based platform will also enable so-called vehicle to everything (V2X) applications — which enable vehicles to communicate with each other and their surroundings.

ZF ProAI can make an entire fleet more capable by implementing swarm intelligence, which allows vehicles to share information with other vehicles, so they can learn faster than any one vehicle on their own.

Eric Walz

Originally hailing from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry here in Silicon Valley. He has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology.