Autonomous Driving Firms Accelerate Expansion into Robotaxis, Robotics, and Commercial Vehicles

During the recent Beijing Auto Show, multiple autonomous driving companies demonstrated a clear strategic shift—moving beyond traditional intelligent driving to expand into new areas such as Robotaxi, robotics, and commercial vehicles. At a media briefing, Easymile Intelligence (Yihang Intelligent) unveiled its Robotaxi and robotics businesses for the first time, revealing it has developed its first robot prototype, “KunXing,” and secured a demonstration project. Over the past decade, Yihang Intelligent primarily focused on mass-produced advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Now, the company is gradually broadening its business scope. Founder Chen Yuxing stated that if the company still defines itself solely as an ADAS provider, it might already be operating in a sunset industry. This view reflects a growing industry consensus: L2+ assisted driving alone can no longer sustain compelling growth narratives. On the technology front, end-to-end models, large models, and world models are increasingly becoming mainstream, with the industry converging toward a shared understanding of the ultimate technical solution. Meanwhile, the mass-market segment is becoming increasingly saturated, as feature stacking and price erosion shrink opportunities for differentiation. Against this backdrop, companies are exploring broader AI application scenarios. Regarding the path to high-level autonomy, Chen Yuxing explicitly expressed a preference for skipping Level 3 (L3), citing its ambiguous liability boundaries, high costs, and limited user-perceived value. In contrast, responsibility delineation is clearer between L2 and L4. However, some industry voices argue that L3 still holds practical short-term value and that L3 and L4 may coexist for an extended period. Robotaxi is seen as a key expansion direction. With the rollout of urban NOA (Navigate on Autopilot) in production vehicles validating perception, planning, control, and training capabilities—and coupled with declining costs of LiDAR and computing platforms—Robotaxi is inching closer to a commercially viable closed loop. Yihang Intelligent emphasized that Robotaxi benefits from relatively confined operational domains and controllable geographic zones, making technological deployment and operational execution more feasible. Robotics has also emerged as a new growth vector for autonomous driving firms. Rather than pursuing general-purpose humanoid robots, Yihang Intelligent is focusing on specific use cases like transportation and logistics to accelerate real-world deployment and order conversion. Given the high degree of overlap between autonomous driving and robotics in perception, planning, control, and data training, this pivot is viewed as a natural extension of existing capabilities rather than a cross-industry leap. Additionally, the commercial vehicle ADAS market is heating up due to regulatory tailwinds. Starting this year, active safety features such as Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) and Lane Departure Warning (LDW) have become mandatory for commercial vehicles, spurring demand. However, commercial vehicle operations involve complex driving conditions and high cost sensitivity, demanding greater product reliability. Leveraging its experience with passenger vehicle AEB systems and its foundation of Euro NCAP five-star certification, Yihang Intelligent is now transferring its capabilities to the commercial vehicle segment. Overall, the autonomous driving industry has entered a new phase. Leading players are transitioning from being single-technology providers to building multi-scenario application ecosystems, seeking sustainable commercialization pathways through Robotaxi, robotics, and commercial vehicles.