On 12 August, SiEngine announced that its self-developed 7-nanometre automotive-grade AI accelerator, the Tiangong 100 (NNA100), has entered full mass production and begun batch supply to OEMs and Tier-1 partners. The chip is a standalone, plug-in accelerator for on-device agent AI, built to give local large models a complete domestic compute base and fix the … Read more
When Gasgoo reported NIO’s latest charging and swap progress, a reader summed up the scepticism: “That is no moat, it could be a trap.” For long-time watchers that reads as fair. NIO has poured more than 20 billion yuan into charging and swap infrastructure, a classic heavy-asset drag. It posted its first quarterly profit in … Read more
On 11 August in Shenzhen, China Changan Automobile Group and Huawei Technologies signed a strategic framework agreement, the centrepiece of a 12 August wave of OEM and supply-chain news. The two sides will explore cooperation in AI products and scenarios, general and automotive vertical large models, digital infrastructure, compute, software and hardware, and will deepen … Read more
On 23 July, Apollo Go received Hong Kong’s first driverless test licence, and on 27 July it began public-road testing on the airport island with no safety driver inside, the world’s first fully driverless project in a right-hand-traffic system. One day later its sixth-generation RT6 appeared on the streets of London, where on 28 July … Read more
On 28 July, BYD confirmed to media that its humanoid robot product will officially debut and “go on duty” in August, signalling a move from a pure carmaker toward an ecosystem technology group. The same day, the 2026 Fortune Global 500 listed 35 vehicle and parts firms; BYD replaced Tesla as the electric-vehicle sales champion … Read more
Shenzhen News reported on 12 August that Ruqi’s Robotaxi fleet capacity has been connected to Tencent’s Travel Service WeChat mini-program. In zones including Guangzhou’s Nansha and Science City, users can now hail a Ruqi Robotaxi through the Tencent entry point. Ruqi Robotaxi is now bookable inside Tencent’s Travel Service mini-program (Source: Shenzhen News) Inside a … Read more
Hong Kong’s Transport Department has granted an autonomous-vehicle pilot licence for a trial linking the West Kowloon HSR station and the Airport Express, its ninth such licence covering 69 vehicles.
Cui Dixiao joined autonomous-truck startup PlusAI in 2017, straight from a lectureship at Xi’an Jiaotong University, where he earned a doctorate under autonomous-driving pioneer Zheng Nanning. Seven years later, in 2025, he left as chief scientist. What he learned reshaped how he sees the industry. ‘I underestimated the complexity of autonomous driving,’ he says now. … Read more
On 1 August, fourteen carmakers published July sales. The picture splits cleanly between camps. Among new-energy startups, three more than doubled year on year: Leapmotor at 101,300 (up 102 per cent), Zeekr at 35,800 (up 111 per cent) and Arcfox at 23,500 (up 150 per cent). Leapmotor, the sales leader among startups, set a record … Read more
China’s long-awaited mandatory national standard for L3 and L4 autonomous driving has finally got a launch date. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has opened the draft compulsory safety standard for autonomous driving systems to public comment. The standard replaces a voluntary guideline and, for the first time, sets a legally binding floor for … Read more