Xiaomi EV ups bet on smart driving with new top talent

Xiaomi EV, the electric vehicle (EV) unit of Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi, is upping its bet on smart driving, bringing in an industry veteran.

Wang Naiyan, the former China CTO of autonomous driving tech firm TuSimple, will join Xiaomi EV, reporting to Xiaomi's technical committee chairman and Xiaomi EV's autonomous driving chief Ye Hangjun, local media outlet 36Kr reported.

Wang has led the R&D and management of TuSimple China, and was responsible for the development of L2 assisted driving and L4 autonomous driving solutions, the report noted.

He is the core developer of the deep learning open-source framework MXNet, and has published more than 40 papers in top computer vision and machine learning conferences and journals, according to the report.

Wang understands perception, planning and control, and has a full understanding of the entire chain of intelligent driver assistance, including mainstream end-to-end technology solutions, 36kr cited a TuSimple developer as saying.

Wang's addition to the team is a signal that Xiaomi is speeding up its research and development of smart driving technology, the report said.

Xiaomi officially launched its first EV model, the SU7, on Mar 28.

The Xiaomi SU7 has seen rare success in China's EV industry in recent years, with customers who have ordered so far having to wait at least 30 weeks for delivery, according to data monitored by CnEVPost.

As Xiaomi EVs set records in sales and manufacturing, Xiaomi founder, chairman, and CEO Lei Jun's focus has begun to shift to smart driving, the 36kr report noted.

On May 18, Lei drove a Xiaomi SU7 Pro in a live video broadcast, demonstrating the model's smart driving capabilities on highways and in urban areas.

He mentioned twice in that live video that he hoped smart driving talent would join Xiaomi.

On Mar 26, Lei took to Weibo to talk about Xiaomi's focus on smart driving capabilities, re-emphasizing that the goal is to become one of the strongest players in the space within the year.

"Smart driving, is the key battleground for smart electric vehicles," Lei wrote at the time.

Xiaomi has invested heavily in smart driving, with its R&D team now exceeding 1,000 people and expected to surpass 1,500 by the end of the year, he said.

Xiaomi's smart-driving R&D team is equipped with special test vehicles and has accumulated more than 10 million kilometres of road testing, Lei said.

It set up a self-driving Wuhan R&D center earlier this year.

For reference, Xpeng said on May 20 that it would spend RMB 3.5 billion (USD480 million) in 2024 on research and development of AI technology around smart driving and recruit 4,000 new professionals.