NIO Capital Updates

▌NIO Capital Managing Partner Ian Zhu Named Among TOP100 Best Venture Investors and TOP20 Best Carbon Neutral Industrial Investors

NIO Capital Managing Partner Ian Zhu has been honored as one of the TOP100 best venture investors for two consecutive years. The accolades are part of the series of the China Venture Awards by China Venture, a Chinese media platform providing intelligence and insight for both start-ups and investors. The China Venture Awards serve as a barometer for China’s equity investment industry and play an important role in the investment decisions of large institutional LPs.

 

Leading ESG Initiatives

▌NIO Capital's “Mission Blue” ESG Initiative: Sowing Green Hope at Butterfly Spring

NIO Capital’s Mission Blue ESG initiative recently embarked on a new journey. Team members transformed into “green messengers,” planting trees and nurturing hope at Butterfly Spring in Dali, Yunnan Province. Mission Blue aims to promote sustainable development awareness and inspire action. The name reflects NIO’s commitment to a cleaner environment while encouraging employees to embrace ESG principles for a sustainable future. Read more here. 

 

 

Portfolio Updates

Mobility and Logistics

▌Yunchuang Zhixing Launches Three Flagship Products

The developer of autonomous driving sanitation vehicles Yunchuang Zhixing released three flagship products, namely, YC-200 and YC-800 unmanned street sweepers and the YC-1000 autonomous driving street sweeper, at its 2023 product launch conference. In addition, Yunchuang Zhixing debuted its self-developed Optimus system, which is tailor-made for the L4 autonomous driving sanitation vehicles

 

▌Eacon Completes RMB 450 Million Equity Financing and Attends IMARC 2023 and China Hi-Tech Fair

● Autonomous haulage solutions provider Eacon secured RMB 450 million financing, the second round of financing that raised more than RMB 100 million recently. The company will use the funds to improve the R&D of autonomous transportation solutions and products for open-pit mines, promote the mass application of autonomous mining vehicles, and pursue large-scale commercialization of such products in the global market.

● Zhushan, Eacon’s autonomous driving solutions for open-pit mines, was widely appraised at the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) 2023 in Australia and the 25th China Hi-Tech Fair in Guangdong province.

 

▌Inceptio Technology Delivers the Largest Single-batch of Intelligent Driving Heavy-duty Trucks

Inceptio Technology, China’s leading developer of autonomous driving technologies for heavy-duty trucks, partnered with Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle to deliver the first batch of 63 autonomous heavy-duty trucks to Yunyi Transport, an international express logistics company. It was the largest single-batch delivery of intelligent driving heavy-duty trucks in the industry by far. Yunyi Transport ordered 300 heavy-duty trucks equipped with Inceptio Technology’s intelligent driving system from Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle. 

 

▌Pony.ai Tests L4 Autonomous Driving Truck Fleet and New Generation of Robotaxi in Guangzhou and Unveils Concept Autonomous Driving Taxi at China Int’l Import Expo

● Obtaining the first road test permit for self-driving truck fleet in Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong province, autonomous driving technology company Pony.ai got the green light to conduct L4 autonomous driving test on the open road.

● Permitted to test driving with remote monitoring, Toyota’s Sienna Autono-Maas (S-AM), featuring Pony.ai’s sixth generation of its L4 autonomous driving software and hardware kit, started to offer robotaxi rides for passengers in Nansha District in Guangzhou.

● Pony.ai teamed up with Toyota to launch the first battery electric robotaxi concept at the sixth China International Import Expo. The concept vehicle is equipped with Pony.ai’s seventh generation L4 hardware and software system for L4 autonomous driving solutions.

 

New Energy

▌PCG Power Starts Solar Power Project for Geely Auto

PCG Power launched the 21MW distributed photovoltaic power generation project for Geely Auto in Guiyang, Southwest China’s Guizhou Province. The project is expected to generate 427.74 million kWh of green electricity within 25 years after completion. Compared with a coal-fired power plant of the same generation capacity, the project will save 171,097 tons of standard coal and cut the CO2 emission by 426,458 tons, equivalent to planting 23.31 million trees in total.

 

▌Sunman Energy Shines at Dubai Solar Show

Solar panel manufacturer Sunman presented its star products, including the eArc series of lightweight solar modules and balcony solar modules, at the Dubai Solar Show in the United Arab Emirates. The event hosted 24 international pavilions from 16 countries.

 

▌HyperStrong Signs Strategic Cooperation Agreement with Schneider Electric

Giving full play to their respective advantages, HyperStrong and Schneider Electric will jointly explore the markets in the fields of smart zero-carbon, carbon footprint, industrial design, and intelligent manufacturing. The two sides will also innovatively pursue industrial synergy pertaining to technology research and development, business cooperation, high-quality delivery, and after-sales service.

 

▌Multi-use Energy Station of Aulton New Energy Wins 2023 Green Design Award

Battery swap solution provider Aulton New Energy saw INFRADianba, its joint venture in Germany, receive the 2023 Green Design Award for the “Swapping-Charging-Storage” multi-use energy stations. The World Green Design Organization, which is based in Brussels, Belgium, was jointly initiated by social organizations and industry promoters from Belgium, the UK, Italy, Germany, France, Norway, China and other countries, marking the first non-profit international organization to promote the development of green design throughout the world.

 

Frontier Technology

▌Innovusion Delivers 200,000 LiDAR Units

Innovusion, a leading provider of LiDAR sensors and solutions, has delivered 200,000 high-performance LiDAR units for vehicles as of November 2023. Beating the 2021 forecast on global market share, Innovusion led both sales volume and revenue in the LiDAR market for passenger and commercial vehicles in 2022, according to the Global Automotive LiDAR Market and Technology Report 2023 released by Yole Intelligence, a consulting firm specializing in the strategic analysis of markets, the supply chain, and technological developments related to the semiconductor industry and associated sectors.

 

▌Black Sesame Technologies Enables Mass Production of Ecarx Skyland Pro Computing Platform and Partners with HK Science and Technology Parks Corporation and Hasco Automotive

● Semiconductor company Black Sesame Technologies provided its Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip to empower the Skyland Pro intelligent driving computing platform, which was recently delivered by automotive technology provider Ecarx. 

● Black Sesame Technologies signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation to establish the Black Sesame Hong Kong Technology Innovation R&D Center at the Hong Kong Science Park. This collaboration seeks to jointly develop an automotive-grade, high-end and intelligent vehicle chip platform in the park. Black Sesame Technologies and Hasco Automotive agreed to conduct in-depth cooperation based on the former’s Huashan No. 2 A1000 chip, including design, research and development, and product OEM.

 

▌CIX Technology Teams Up with Lenovo, Joins Green Computing Consortium and Contributes to White Paper

● Arm-based CPU developer CIX Technology reached a strategic agreement with Lenovo Group to deepen strategic cooperation in technology research and development, co-development of ecology, market expansion and other fields through the “Star Plan”. The cooperation seeks for mutual empowerment and new opportunities in the intelligent era.

● CIX Technology officially joined the Green Computing Consortium (GCC). It contributed to the content related to Arm PC and expounded the ecological development and industry trends of Arm PC in the 2023 edition of the White Paper on Development of Green Computing Industry, which, on the basis of the Arm servers, introduced the Arm PC for the first time. 

 

▌SINPRO Intelligent Technology Completes Milestone Production Line

 

Auto-grade environmental perception solutions provider SINPRO Intelligent Technology completed the industry's first fully automated production line for 4D imaging radar and delivered a small batch of products. With fully independent intellectual property rights, this highly automated production line is expected to have an annual production capacity of 800,000 units per year after it is put into operation. 

 

▌Ambilight Adds Luster to AVATR 12 Electric Car

The Chongqing-based smart electric car maker AVATR Technology launched its latest AVATR 12, the world’s first electric car equipped with adaptive light sensing front bumper and sunroof, provided by smart glass provider Ambilight.

 

▌Jaguar Microsystems Pitches in to White Paper on DPU Financial Industry

The White Paper on DPU Financial Industry was published recently. Initiated by the ICBC FinTech Research Institute , the white paper was compiled by the institute together with Jaguar Microsystems, the developer of a new generation of data processing units (DPUs) and advanced silicon solutions for modern data centers, and Volcano Engine Technology, ByteDance’s intelligent technology platform for corporate clients. 

 

The white paper analyzed the development trends and industry challenges faced by the financial industry in cloud deployment, and systematically elaborated on the significance and applications of DPU technology in promoting the green and low-carbon development of financial clouds.