plan Chinese Internet giant Tencent To sell its technology to help foreign automakers who want to sell their production in the huge Chinese market.
For his part, Vice President of Tencent Intelligent Mobility, Liu Shuqua, which is part of Tencent’s cloud business, which the company recently launched, said that BMW and some American automakers are already working with Tencent, but he refused to specify which American car manufacturers it works with. .
The company claimed that the all-in-one cloud product – also available to domestic automakers – might cover all technological aspects of an electric vehicle. These features range from data storage optimized for training self-driving systems, to giving drivers access to Tencent’s social media apps and maps.
And the user interface may be a selling point for drivers in China, given how Tencent controls some of the country’s best online entertainment apps, according to CNBC and Al Arabiya.net.
And the company played Facebook in China with its comprehensive WeChat app for messaging, payments and social media — something that tech rivals such as Baidu and Alibaba haven’t come close to.
In the field of entertainment, Tencent has other apps as well: QQ Music, one of the two major Spotify-like apps in China; Tencent Video, which provides streaming content on demand including reality shows and animated series; In addition to popular mobile games such as Honor of Kings.
Tencent Maps is also the third most popular navigation app on the Apple App Store in China – the first two belong to its main competitors Alibaba and Baidu.
All cars that allow passengers or drivers to access Tencent apps from vehicle platforms need an agreement with Tencent, Liu said.
Those application-level partnerships began in 2018, around the same time cloud computing Tencent began working with automakers for self-driving services, the company said.
Adding more self-driving technologies
Players in China’s auto industry are increasingly betting that domestic drivers will want more self-driving features, which are primarily assistive driving functions, due to regulation of current technology.
Already in the first quarter, 23 percent of new cars sold in China came with a limited level of driver assistance services, referred to as “level 2” in a rating system for autonomous driving, according to Tencent.
With the announcement of the new cloud computing product last week, Liu said foreign auto companies might develop vehicles with navigation and assistive driving features for China’s roads and terrain.
Liu said Tencent is already involved with nearly 40 auto brands, including BMW, SAIC and Nio, covering 120 vehicle models. He also mentioned partnership talks with German and Japanese companies.
