Shanghai (ZXZC)- The W6, a full-electric SUV model jointly developed by WM Motor and Baidu, rolled off the assembly line on Jan. 19 at the startups' Hubei manufacturing base and is expected for delivery at the Auto China 2021, according to a press release.

WM W6; photo credit: WM Motor

The new vehicle is reportedly capable of performing some self-driving functions under specific scenarios by virtue of Baidu Apollo's cloud with a whopping computing power of over 1 million TOPS. A redundancy design of dual-operating system backup mechanism is introduced into the gateway of the W6's infotainment system, according to Freeman Shen, founder, chairman and CEO of WM Motor. When the OTA update is running in the background, a vehicle can still be driven without any disturbance.

Mr. Shen also disclosed WM Motor has already initiated the project of its next-generation intelligent complete vehicle platform and will begin carrying out the strategy for sedan products in the second half of 2021.

WM Motor unveils third SUV model at the 2020 Apollo Ecosystem Conference

The W6 is WM Motor's third smart all-electric SUV unveiled at the 2020 Apollo Ecosystem Conference in December 2020. It adopts fire-new Electrical/Electronic Architecture and will be armed with the Baidu's Cloud AVP (automated valet parking) system. In terms of hardware, the SUV is mounted with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155 chips using 7nm process technology, 5G base band, the autonomous driving domain controller the automaker develops in-house as well as 5 77GHz millimeter-wave radars, 7 cameras and 12 ultrasonic radars. 

Earlier this month, Baidu announced its plan to establish a company to produce intelligent EVs, and that it has entered into a strategic partnership Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. The latter will contribute its expertise in automobile design and manufacturing.