Jidu is a Chinese electric car brand that was born as a result of the merger between the search engine giant Baidu -the Asian Google- and the Geely automobile company, owner of Volvo, Polestar and Lotus. Despite the fact that it has not yet launched any car on the market -this year it will market its first two models, the Robo-01 and the Robo-02-, expectations around Jidu are very high because the company has announced that both models will integrate functions monitored by means of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Both the Robo-01 and the Robo-02 were presented to society in 2022. These are two electric cars prepared for autonomous driving that promise a range of more than 600 kilometers. When the two models go on the market this year, Jidu will join the list of Chinese manufacturers that for a few years have been fighting to lead the world ranking of electric sales in competition with Tesla and other European and Japanese brands with more tradition.
The main novelty that the two Jidu models bring is an AI that, baptized with the name of Ernie, will serve to improve the interaction between the car and the driver and the rest of the occupants.
Ernie is a service similar to ChatGPT, an AI developed by the OpenIA company that has been trained to hold conversations with anyone. Jidu's tool is basically a huge language model powered by an artificial intelligence that has the ability to recognize the user's emotions and interact with the outside world.
The robotic design of the front of the Robo-01 and Robo-02 integrates interactive AI pixel headlights and a voice interaction system that allows commands to be given from outside the car. For example, if Ernie is asked to open the doors, it will not be necessary to pull the levers to get into the car. The AI will do it for us.
Once inside the cabin, occupants can continue to interact with the AI in a natural way thanks to a software platform called Apollo that has been developed by Baidu and that controls all of the car's interface systems, including voice control.
The Robo-01 and Robo-02 are prepared for autonomous driving. They are equipped with a 3D screen, two LiDAR sensors, five millimeter wave radars, twelve ultrasonic radars and twelve high-definition cameras. Jidu highlights that the foldable LiDAR, designed exclusively by the company itself, improves the safety and stability of the intelligent driving system. It also strengthens the ability to detect obstacles during advanced autonomous driving, Jidu says.
“The era of smart cars 3.0 is the era of robots,” says Jidu CEO Xia Yiping. “The transition to this new era is marked by the shift in power from humans to AI. The ultimate goal is to achieve a much safer driverless transport experience than now”, adds the leader of the Chinese company.
Apart from collaborating with Jidu, Baidu has a robotaxi service, Appolo Go, running in some Chinese provinces, which uses a fleet of Apollo RT6 autonomous electric vehicles. The company claims that last summer it reached the figure of one million autonomous units.
Although Jidu is the first manufacturer that will incorporate Artificial Intelligence similar to ChatGPT into its vehicles, there are already on the market a series of models that integrate a voice assistant to interact with the driver as if it were the well-known Siri of the iPhone. . Most manufacturers have partnered with Amazon or Google to integrate a smart voice assistant into their latest models. Other brands, such as Mercedes or BMW, have chosen to develop their own system.
These voice assistants are capable of performing simple, everyday tasks such as controlling the navigation system and music, receiving information or checking the weather forecast. Likewise, if it is told that we are cold, it will activate the car's heating system to achieve a comfortable temperature inside the passenger compartment.
