You’d be forgiven for not knowing much, if anything, about Lotus Robotics or CaoCao Mobility. But as the self-driving division of Lotus, Robotics looks set to become more and more important in the coming years. Proof of which can be found in a new partnership with CaoCao Mobility, a Chinese ride hailing company that operates in 57 Chinese cities with seven million users. Lotus Robotics will help CaoCao (also invested in by Geely) to ‘accelerate the deployment of its autonomous driving solutions globally.’
Already the first unmanned, entirely autonomous trial has taken place using CaoCao’s vehicles and Lotus Robotics’ tech, with more than 8,000 miles – 13,545km – across Hanzhou and Suzhou covered ‘without human intervention’. Lots Of Travel, Usually Solo perhaps (feel free to nominate your own, better alternative.) Today’s release says that testing will continue in those cities to refine the integration between car, road and the cloud so that autonomous vehicles can deal better with the unexpected stuff on the road like crossings and obstacles.
Certainly it seems like significant progress is being made by Lotus Robotics, with global rollout of a lot of the stuff being offered in China due by the end of this year. They include a junction U-turn function and ‘intelligent lane selection’, which is undoubtedly one area that a whole host of human driven cars could benefit from. The important terms to know, seemingly, are Robo Soul, Robo Galaxy and Robo Matrix; Galaxy is the range of cloud-based tools that underpins the Soul software stack, while Matrix is real-time monitoring (with some AI help) to further help safety. As far as Lotuses you might buy in the UK are concerned, the Eletre and Emeya are already using some of the Robo Soul components. It’s said to be capable of level 4 autonomy, so don’t be surprised if those cars can boast greater self driving capability in time.
Today’s news follows a deal struck with Aramco Digital in Saudi Arabia, with the aim to use Lotus Robotics’ expertise for autonomous taxis in the Middle East. Lotus says the CaoCao deal ‘marks a major milestone’ in the growth of Robotics. Long may it continue.