Finance

Tesla’s China rival Zeekr to roll out free advanced driver assistance

Published

8 hours ago

March 18, 2025

The view from inside a Zeekr Mix electric vehicle at one of the company’s showrooms in Shanghai, China, on March 16, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

BEIJING — Chinese electric car company Zeekr is releasing advanced driver-assistance capabilities to its local customers for free as competition heats up, Zeekr CEO Andy An told CNBC ahead of a launch event Tuesday.

The tech enables the car to drive nearly autonomously from one pre-set destination to another, as long as drivers keep their hands on the steering wheel and there is regulatory approval — which is increasingly the case in most major Chinese cities.

It’s the latest Chinese electric vehicle brand to upgrade its driver-assistance products as Tesla tries to attract more buyers of its own version, called Full Self Driving, in China.

After initial criticism that the 64,000 yuan ($8,850) software was too expensive, some Chinese social media users said Monday that Tesla was offering some users the driver-assistance system for free through April 16. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zeekr’s version will be free, rolled out to a pilot group initially and then released to the public in April, according to the company.

“Right now, in this period of development, I think subscriptions aren’t that meaningful,” CEO An said in an interview Friday, according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.

Given intense competition, he said, Zeekr needs to close the gap on driver assistance with market leaders and become a top player. “So we need to bear some cost,” An said, noting Zeekr previously only offered more basic driver-assistance capabilities, such as for parking.

Following Tesla CEO Elon Musk's money in China

Zeekr, which is listed in the U.S., is scheduled to release quarterly earnings on Thursday ahead of the U.S. market open. Shares are up about 6% year-to-date.

Nvidia chips

CEO An said that Zeekr’s driver-assistance system uses two Nvidia Orin X chipsets and one lidar, or a light detection and ranging unit that allows a vehicle to navigate roads without relying too much on sunlight conditions.

He said a forthcoming version of the system will use Nvidia’s more advanced Thor automotive chip, one long-range lidar and four shorter-range lidar units.

“Using lidar may increase cost, but this reflects how much we value safety,” An said. He said the driver-assistance system for Zeekr cars sold overseas will not use the Nvidia chips for now, given different regulations and local market demand.

Zeekr’s driver-assistance system will also be used for fellow EV brand Lynk & Co.’s cars, An said, and potentially vehicles from parent company Geely. Zeekr officially acquired Lynk & Co. this year.

From price war to driver-assistance competition

Sales of Nvidia’s “self-driving platforms” helped drive the chipmaker’s revenue from automotive and robotics to a record $570 million in the fourth quarter of the 2025 fiscal year.

Also reflecting market demand, major lidar producer Hesai said this month that its lidar shipments have more than doubled annually for four straight years as of 2024.

Hesai’s CFO Andrew Fan told CNBC last week that the company expects significant growth in advanced driver-assistance systems this year from last year, and noted an industry joke that China’s electric car market has shifted from a price war to a war over driver assistance.

Over the last two years, the technology has increasingly become a selling point for new energy vehicles in China, which include battery-only and hybrid-powered cars.

NEV giant BYD in February announced it was rolling out driver-assist capabilities to more than 20 of its car models. While current features mostly focus on parking and highway navigation, the company said an upgrade with point-to-point driver assistance would likely be issued by the end of 2025.

The most basic version of BYD’s driver-assistance system uses Horizon Robotics’ chipset along with Nvidia‘s Orin, while more advanced versions only use other Nvidia chips, according to Nomura’s research.

Chinese EV startup Xpeng, another Nvidia customer which made advanced driver assistance an early selling point, has delivered more than 30,000 cars a month since November, thanks in part to its new P7+ car that also did away with requiring additional subscriptions for driver assistance.

Nio has advertised subscriptions for its driver-assistance features but has yet to charge users for them, according to the company.

Finance

Retail investors ditch buy-the-dip mentality during the market correction

Published

2 hours ago

March 18, 2025

Business Finance News

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Individual investors, whose assets are more tied to the stock market than ever, have abandoned their tried-and-true dip-buying mentality as the S&P 500 recently fell into a painful, 10% correction.

Retail outflows from U.S. equities rose to about $4 billion over the past two weeks as tariff chaos and mounting economic concerns caused a three-week pullback in the S&P 500, according to data from Barclays. During March’s sell-off, 401(k) holders have been aggressively trading their investments, to the tune of four times the average level, according to Alight Solutions’ data going back to the late 1990s.

“If people were trying to buy the dip and get their stocks on sale, maybe you would see people actually buying large-cap equities. But instead we see people selling from large cap-equities,” said Rob Austin, director of research at Alight Solutions. “So this does appear to be a bit of a reactionary trading activity.”

The increased selling came as American households are more sensitive than ever to the turbulence in the stock market. U.S. household ownership of equities has reached a record level, amounting to nearly half of their financial assets, according to Federal Reserve data.

Dip-buying had served investors well over the past two years as Main Street rode the artificial intelligence-inspired bull market to record highs. At one point, the S&P 500 went more than 370 days without even a 2.1% sell-off, the longest such stretch since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Nut lately, markets began to sour as President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs and sudden changes in policy stirred up volatility, stoking fears of dampened consumer spending, slower economic growth, weaker profits and maybe even a recession. The S&P 500 officially entered a correction late last week, and is now sitting some 8.7% below its February all-time high.

S&P 500

Still, retail traders are far from throwing in the towel. For example, the net debit of margin accounts, a “popular proxy for retail investors’ sentiment,” continues to stay elevated, according to Barclays data.

“There is plenty of room for retail investors to further disengage from the equity market,” analysts led by Venu Krishna, Barclays head of U.S. equity strategy, said in a note Tuesday to clients. “We are of the view that retail investors have in no way capitulated.”

Barclays’ proprietary euphoria indicator shows sentiment has been brought down to levels similar to where it was around the time of the U.S. presidential election in November, but is still high by historic standards.

“It’s not like everybody is going out there saying the sky is falling. Most people, it looks like, are not making any sort of reactions,” Austin said.