In early October four Chinese ministries, led by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, published a draft for public comment on strengthening the management of automotive product innovation design and R&D test validation. The comment period closes on 10 November. The draft adds 51 main technical parameters to the vehicle filing process. Forty-one of … Read more
On 26 October Audi signed separate strategic agreements with China FAW and SAIC Group, redrawing how its brands operate in China. The four-rings brand goes to FAW to run in full. SAIC takes the lettered AUDI brand. The agreements took effect the same day. A transition arrangement was published alongside them: SAIC Audi may continue … Read more
Stellantis published third-quarter results on 28 October showing a net loss of EUR 453 million under IFRS, against a net loss of EUR 4.722 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. The improvement is roughly 90 per cent. The prior-year loss was driven by major exceptional items, so the comparison flatters the current quarter … Read more
Mercedes-Benz Group reported third-quarter revenue of EUR 30.7 billion, down 4.4 per cent year on year, alongside a sharp rise in earnings that owes almost everything to a weak comparative base. EBIT for the quarter was EUR 1.77 billion, up 136 per cent. Net profit was EUR 1.52 billion, up 27.7 per cent. Mercedes-Benz Group … Read more
Volkswagen Group China has obtained a Level 3 autonomous driving road test licence in Hefei, the company said on 26 October. The permit was granted under China’s current L3 regulatory framework, which the company describes as the most demanding in the country, and it states that the approval fully meets the latest mandatory safety design … Read more
Baidu put a car in front of Londoners this week. An RT6, the sixth generation of its Apollo Go robotaxi, parked on a London street on 22 October next to Freenow, the European ride-hailing arm of Lyft. The two companies want paying passengers in driverless cars in London by 2027. Baidu Apollo Go’s RT6 robotaxi, … Read more
Beijing Zhongke Huiling Robotics, which sells under the CASBOT brand, has completed an A++ round worth several hundred million yuan. The round was joined by Zhilai Investment, Yonghua Investment, Maotian Investment, Yuanhe Chenkun, Guoke Kezhi and Luning Investment. Proceeds go to volume delivery, embodied brain research for key scenarios, and market expansion. It is the … Read more
On 22 October, the 2026 World Physical AI Conference and Unitree’s partner ecosystem event opened in Hangzhou. Wang Xingxing, Unitree’s founder, used his keynote to make an argument that cuts against most of the industry’s current enthusiasm. Wang Xingxing, Unitree’s founder, speaking at the World Physical AI Conference in Hangzhou on 22 October. (Source: OFweek) … Read more
Anthropic filed its IPO registration on 26 October, planning a Nasdaq listing under the ticker ANT. One of the fastest-rising names in AI is now walking towards public capital markets. The filing is not a listing. The final offer price, the size of the raise and the trading date all remain undetermined. What has changed … Read more
Three stories ran through the Chinese AI press in the same week, each one circulating on its own channel. The first was a coordinated price cut by the three American frontier labs. Within nine days, OpenAI, Google and Anthropic each slashed headline pricing on their main models and arrived at the same pair of numbers: … Read more