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Jidu Auto, a joint venture of Chinese tech giant Baidu and carmaker Geely Holding Group, on Thursday revealed its first “robot” concept car.
Apart from being fully controlled with voice recognition technology, the car has futuristic designs that also include a U-shaped folding steering wheel, a 3D borderless and integrated ultra-clear screen, and 3D human-machine co-driving map, the company said.
The mass-produced version will be 90% the same and Jidu Auto has already begun casting the body mold, marking the official start of preparations for mass production, said Chief Executive Officer Xia Yiping said.
Jidu’s first model will be a family car priced around 200,000 yuan ($29,930), Baidu CEO Robin Li said last month. Jidu will start taking orders from the second half of this year, and will launch a second model by the end of 2022, with orders and deliveries to begin in 2023 and 2024, respectively, he said.