Photo/Shetuwang

Jan. 15 (NBD) -- The self-driving domain is approaching commercialization, as enterprises from various industries have participated in the competition.

Global players tend to be rational and began emphasizing on applications of level 2 and level 3 automated-driving technologies, moving away from higher level technology use.

Nvidia has launched Drive AutoPilot, a L2+ automated driving platform and teamed up with two multinational auto parts manufacturers ZF Friedrichshafen AG and Continental AG to bring the new system to production in 2020.

The focus of Mobileye, Intel Corp's Israel-based autonomous driving unit, remains on the advanced driver-assistance system and the responsibility-sensitive safety model for self-driving vehicles.

Different from those international firms, Chinese tech giant Baidu stressed on the technology designed for certain scenarios.

Last week, it released the latest version of its autonomous driving platform Apollo 3.5, which supports driverless driving on complex urban roads and it will share testing tools for environment perception, path planning, vehicle control, in-car operating system and other functions.

The company is heading on the path of commercialization of self-driving technology. The introduction of Apollo Enterprise, an intelligent driving solution for automakers and automobile parts manufacturers, could bring the company closer to its goal.

In the self-driving market, car makers, auto parts firms and Internet technology enterprises are likely to forge collaboration with each other so as to make further expansion in the niche sector.

E-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group aims to make foray into the smart vehicle field via virtual assistant product Tmall Genie.

On January 7, BMW and Tmall Genie jointly announced that the new BMW model that can be connected to the smart speaker at home will be unveiled in October 2019. Besides, all the mainstream models of BMW, including BMW 3 series and BMW 5 series, will also have access to Tmall Genie.

With such interconnection, car owners at home can remotely turn on the air conditioner of the car or start car functions, such as music player and car navigation.

In addition to BMW, Tmall Genie partnered with parts giant Bosch, and the latter's first high-end smart speaker with Tmall Genie voisystem will be published in Chinese market.

Alibaba's rival Tencent, automotive electronics supplier Visteon and Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) R&D Center reached strategic cooperation on January 8.

According to the agreement, the three parties will jointly develop, and share research results for, intelligent technologies for an integrated cockpit project targeted for commercialization on GAC pure electric vehicles starting in 2020.

It is reported that Visteon's industry-first SmartCore cockpit domain control platform will incorporate Tencent Automotive intelligence solutions to enable user interaction and control based on facial expression and voice and gesture recognition.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn