Chinese electric car manufacturer Nio Inc. (NYSE:NIO) has made a strong comeback amid the pandemic and seems not to leave any stone unturned as it keeps the momentum. The company has embarked on in-house R&D for self-driving chips.
Nio developing in-house self-drive chips
According to its CEO and Founder, William Li Bin, developing the computing chips is still in the early stages. Bin, who is supervising the project, has been working on a final structure for the program. According to Chinese news outlet 36Kr, Bin is looking for a technical leader with a chip background. Already the company has internally set up a different hardware team called Smart HW.
The investment required for the chips’ development is between $140 million and $1 billion, depending on the extent of research. Since the beginning of the year, the company has raised around $3 billion from convertible bonds and increased issued stocks.
A company spokesperson indicated that the company has been investing in self-driving. He said that regarding the specific technological path and details of software and hardware research, that will be communicated at the right time. The spokesperson stated that the company was not ready to respond to every rumor.
Nio follows the footsteps of Tesla with in-house chips
The move to develop chips in-house follows the path of Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), which developed its in-house chips last year. Internally developed in-house chips are part of Nio’s full self-driving computer. Each chip has the ability to perform around 72 trillion operations in a second. The company wants to follow the steps of Tesla with a vertically integrated division for manufacturing electric vehicles. The development of chips for autonomous vehicles will enhance the core competitiveness of Nio.
Nio is one of the leading manufacturers of electric vehicles in China, and in September, it delivered 4,708 units, which is a YoY increase of 133.2% in seven months running. In Q3, the company delivered 12,206 units, which are a 154.3% YoY increase. Year to date, the company has delivered around 26,375 electric car units.
