Shanghai (ZXZC)- It is rumored recently that Chinese EV startup NIO was looking to split off its autonomous driving business and combine it with DiDi's self-driving unit, which was claimed to be a separate company earlier this month.

However, DiDi replied to the rumor that it doesn't have any plans about the merger of two companies' autonomous driving arms, but it will continue the in-depth collaboration with automobile industry.

NIO recently denied the rumor saying the startup was ready to pull out of the New York Stock Exchange and was planning to close its Silicon Valley office.

“The plan about going public on the science and technology innovation board and closing the office in Silicon Valley mentioned in recent reports were untrue,” said NIO, “as a crucial base for our global strategy, Silicon Valley office has been operating in a normal status. The employee optimization has been promoting in an orderly manner as a systematic efficiency is what we are highlighting now. Besides, NIO don’t have the plan to enter the STAR market in the near future.”

NIO is downsizing its workforce at Silicon Valley office to cut costs but has retained staff in its autonomous driving arm, Tencent’s online news portal QQ.com reported on August 20.

In March, Li Bin, NIO's founder, chairman and CEO, revealed in an interview that NIO was developing its second-generation auto platform, which would skip the Level 3 and dive into the L4 autonomous driving R&D. It is noteworthy that the Level 4 R&D is in the charge of NIO’s Silicon Valley team.

DiDi on August 5 announced that its autonomous driving arm has been upgraded into an independent company to focus on R&D, production application and other business development related to autonomous driving.

The newly-built company would integrate DiDi platform's resources and technical advantages, keep strengthening investment in R&D of core technologies and deepen the collaboration with upstream and downstream automobile industrial partners, DiDi said.