A new a-share player joins unmanned delivery

The low-speed unmanned vehicle track has just welcomed a "veteran new player."

The reason it is referred to as "old" is that the parent company of this new brand, Desay SV, has been deeply involved in the automotive sector for nearly forty years as an A-share player. It has established extensive collaborations with companies like NVIDIA and Qualcomm, and its clients include NIO, Xpeng, Li Auto, BYD, Geely, among others, covering most of the major car manufacturers in China.

It is called "new" because this company is always trying and on the path of entrepreneurship, constantly bringing fresh perspectives. Now, this company is standing at the starting point of its third venture, entering an entirely new track.

Through a new autonomous vehicle brand, address the congestion and inefficiency of the current urban "capillaries," and compete with startups for the "last mile" of unmanned delivery.

The new brand, named "Chuanxing Zhiyuan," focuses on fully automotive-grade low-speed unmanned vehicles, targeting scenarios such as campuses, buildings, and commercial areas to address the "last mile" delivery challenge.

According to Gao Dapeng, Chairman and President of Desay SV, the four characters "========" each represent a specific meaning.

"Chuan Xing Zhi Yuan" together represents the brand's original intention: to provide stable, reliable, adaptable, and highly efficient intelligent low-speed autonomous vehicle solutions.

Chuanxing Zhiyuan has launched its first unmanned vehicle product, the industry's first fully automotive-grade low-speed unmanned vehicle—the S6 series.

The S6 has a body height of 2 meters and a width of 1.4 meters, allowing it to easily navigate urban height restrictions, underground garages, narrow alleys, and lanes. The interior space has also been optimized, including an ultra-thin front design, ensuring a volume of 6 cubic meters.

According to Desay SV Vice President and General Manager of CHUANXINGZH IYUAN, Chen Junfeng, the existing models of the S6 include the winged version, side-sliding door version, refrigerated version, fence version, and general version, each corresponding to different scenarios.

The pre-set coverage scenarios include industrial parks, logistics parks, agricultural trade distribution, express delivery, supermarket distribution, store replenishment, fresh produce distribution, and pharmaceutical distribution, almost covering all the needs of urban last-mile logistics.

In terms of design philosophy, Chuanxing Zhiyuan has extracted two key words: safe and reliable, rugged and durable.

This is actually aimed at the most direct and fundamental need in the field of delivery:

Capable of running on the road for extended periods, adapting to various weather conditions and road situations, consistently executing delivery tasks within a designated area, while ensuring hardware quality, durability, and functional safety, among other things.

In the field of unmanned delivery, several brands have already begun to stand out, and the emergence of Chuanxing Zhiyuan is not considered early.

However, it cannot be overlooked that Chuánxíng Zhìyuǎn is growing rapidly and has a solid foundation.

According to Chen Junfeng, among the seven core highlights of the S6 series products, six innovations are industry-firsts in the low-speed unmanned vehicle sector, including:

Chen Junfeng candidly stated that some of the technologies are already very mature in the automotive industry, but introducing them to low-speed autonomous vehicles is the first time in the industry. The innovation lies not in the technology itself, but in the awareness of its introduction.

Chuanxing Zhiyuan's ability to have such awareness and be the first to achieve full automotive-grade standards can be traced back to the "Tier 1 DNA" of its parent company, Desay SV.

Desay SV is an automotive electronics company founded in 1986 and a company that has undergone three entrepreneurial ventures.

The first venture can be traced back to the company's predecessor—a joint venture established by Dutch Philips, Hong Kong Jinshan, and Huizhou Industrial Development Corporation (the predecessor of Desay Group), focusing on automotive audio systems.

Despite being "born with a silver spoon in its mouth," Desay SV did not rest on its laurels. Instead, in 1992, it decided to establish its own R&D department, absorbing foreign technologies for local adaptation. This was a very advanced approach for growing domestic enterprises at the time.

During this period, the brand underwent several iterations, with its shareholders successively changing to Germany's Mannesmann VDO, Siemens, and Continental AG. During this time, it absorbed Siemens' management, manufacturing, and operational systems, establishing a rigorous systematic foundation.

In this context, Desay SV's business gradually expanded from car audio to automotive cockpits.

By 2010, Desay Group repurchased all foreign shares and achieved complete independence as a Chinese-owned entity, officially renaming the company "Desay SV." This marked the second entrepreneurial journey of Desay SV.

Subsequently, Desay SV Automotive began to venture into the intelligent assisted driving business, providing complete vehicle solutions, and successfully went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2017.

In 2018, Desay SV underwent significant strategic upgrades and structural adjustments, establishing three major divisions: Smart Cockpit, Intelligent Driving Assistance, and Connected Services, and began to make great strides in automotive intelligence.

In the same year, Desay SV and NVIDIA collaborated and signed a tripartite strategic agreement with XPeng to jointly develop L3-level assisted driving technology based on NVIDIA Xavier.

In 2020, Desay SV's first domain controller, IPU03, was mass-produced and equipped on the Xiaopeng P7. The following year, the high-computing-power domain controller IPU04, based on NVIDIA's Orin chip, was launched and adopted by many mainstream car manufacturers such as Li Auto and Xiaopeng. The cockpit-driving integrated domain control product based on NVIDIA's next-generation Thor chip is also under development.

In recent years, in the field of intelligent cockpits, Desay SV has achieved large-scale mass production of its third-generation intelligent cockpit domain controller based on Qualcomm 8155. Its latest fourth generation, based on Qualcomm's 4th generation Snapdragon cockpit platform, has also received numerous orders.

By 2025, Desay SV will have been established for nearly 40 years, with clients including major mainstream automobile companies both domestically and internationally. These include Japanese companies like Toyota and Nissan, German company Volkswagen, and domestic companies such as BYD, Great Wall, Geely, NIO, XPeng, Li Auto, and Xiaomi Auto, among others.

In the advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) controller market, Desay SV's market share is approximately 33%, occupying one-third of the industry. Excluding the self-developed and self-produced parts by Huawei and Tesla, Desay SV's market share can exceed 50%, making it an absolute industry leader.

The new autonomous vehicle brand launched this year marks Desay SV's third entrepreneurial venture and represents the company's second major growth curve outside the passenger vehicle sector.

Why did Desay SV choose to develop low-speed unmanned delivery vehicles?

In the view of Desay SV, the breakthrough point in the smart mobility sector over the next decade will occur in the "capillaries" of the city—namely, the last few kilometers of logistics, sanitation, and delivery services, which are facing significant efficiency improvements and intelligent transformation.

Leveraging the foundation built by Desay SV, Chuanxing Zhiyuan inherently possesses a unique advantage:

From the beginning, it inherited automotive-grade standards and adopted automotive-grade development processes, making it more durable and reliable.

Secondly, the ability for large-scale mass production and cost control is another advantage. Chuanxing Zhiyuan, backed by a large group, inherently possesses a mature supply chain and manufacturing advantages, making costs more controllable.

Desay SV currently has a full-stack self-developed supply chain that covers core components such as sensors, controllers, 5G communication, and batteries. A large part of the technology can be reused in low-speed unmanned vehicles, with the main differences being in scenario and demand customization.

Perhaps this is also the confidence that Chuanxing Zhiyuan has in directly entering the field of unmanned delivery.

As for why they chose to enter the market at this particular time, Desay SV has several considerations.

Gao Dapeng candidly stated that the company had been discussing this topic for several years. After extensive internal discussions and external research, the perfect timing has finally arrived.

On one hand, computing power and algorithm platforms have undergone very rapid iterations in the past. The current maturity of computing power is already able to meet the operational needs of unmanned vehicles, eliminating the need to take detours in solution selection.

On the other hand, the country's laws and regulations are maturing through continuous adjustments, gradually opening up more rights of way, and the policy environment is becoming clearer. More mature products and technologies are also promoting the industry's scale development, serving as a better basis for regulatory measures. It can be said that the two complement each other.

Moreover, the maturation of the industrial chain and the decreasing costs of core components such as lidar and computing chips year by year have also made large-scale commercialization possible.

Across the industry, at this current juncture, unmanned delivery is transitioning from the technology verification phase and early pilot phase to the eve of large-scale commercial deployment.

With a truly scalable product, the focus of competition among companies has shifted from comparing individual vehicle technologies to comparing comprehensive capabilities. This includes mass production costs, fleet operation efficiency, the ability to achieve a commercial closed loop, and the ability to integrate with existing logistics systems.

Desay SV's entry into the market coincides with the unmanned delivery industry transitioning from its "adolescence" phase to a "maturity" phase, where it deeply integrates with traditional industries and relies on comprehensive strength.

At the same time, Desay SV's entry may also indicate that "giant crossovers" are becoming the norm: not only Desay SV, but also platform giants like JD.com, Meituan, Alibaba, as well as automakers like BYD and Great Wall, may all begin to make overt or covert arrangements.

The field of unmanned delivery is likely to harbor the next massive demand.

According to Tang Xuxia, the chief analyst for the automotive industry at Guosen Securities Economic Research Institute, it is estimated that if measured by hardware, there will be a stock market of over ten million units in the future. If we simply calculate based on a cost of 50,000 to 100,000 per vehicle, it is approximately a trillion-level stock market space.

This model will not exist in isolation in the future; it will be a combination of "driverless cars + drones + stations + couriers" working together to create an efficient collaborative network.

In the next 3 to 5 years, we might see that unmanned delivery not only handles express and food delivery but also becomes a city-level infrastructure like water, electricity, and gas.

The future landscape of unmanned delivery is even more exciting.