China Tesla rival Nio and Tencent accomplice to work on self-driving tech

Chinese language electrical car maker Nio and tech large Tencent agreed to work collectively on areas together with autonomous driving and high-definition mapping.

Tencent — a gaming, social media and cloud computing titan — has signed a cooperation settlement with Nio, certainly one of Tesla’s rivals in China, because the companies look to money in on Beijing’s deal with so-called new power vehicles.

The partnership might permit Tencent to do that, whereas additionally giving Nio the know-how backing of certainly one of China’s largest companies. Tencent is already a significant investor in Nio, which is striving to distinguish itself from a sea of electrical automobile start-ups.

It comes after e-commerce agency Alibaba and Nio rival Xpeng in August opened a computing heart to coach software program for driverless vehicles.

Nio and Tencent stated on Monday they are going to work collectively on high-precision mapping methods for drivers. Nio will even be utilizing Tencent’s cloud computing infrastructure for information storage and coaching for autonomous driving. Driverless vehicles require large quantities of real-time information to be processed to be able to practice algorithms.

Tencent’s partnership with Nio offers the corporate one other alternative to push into new enterprise areas as its core video gaming enterprise, which has been battered by strict home regulation, continues to face headwinds.

Nio in the meantime is dealing with its personal challenges, together with widening losses and stress on margins from larger materials prices and provide chain points.

Nonetheless, the corporate delivered 31,607 automobiles within the third quarter, marking a quarterly supply report for the start-up.

Nonetheless, China’s as soon as high-flying EV start-ups have seen their share costs hammered this yr as buyers turned away from progress shares and China’s economic system confronted a slew of issues.