Finance

Deeproute claims ‘deep cooperation’ with Nvidia on driver assist

Published

6 months ago

November 5, 2024

A car with autonomous driving system by Alibaba-backed DeepRoute.ai, drives on a street in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China July 27, 2022.

David Kirton | Reuters

BEIJING — Deeproute.ai, a Chinese startup developing autonomous driving systems, announced a $100 million funding round Tuesday from an undisclosed automaker, while emphasizing close ties with chipmaker Nvidia.

Pitchbook data showed Chinese company Great Wall Motor led the investment.

It’s been difficult to obtain financing, especially from a non-government source, Maxwell Zhou, CEO of DeepRoute.ai, told reporters Tuesday in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.

The startup is also in “deep cooperation” with Nvidia, Zhou said, noting “in-depth discussions” with the chipmaker’s CEO Jensen Huang.

Zhou spoke on “Commercializing mass-produced autonomous driving solutions” at Nvidia’s closely watched GTC AI conference in March.

Waymo will lead autonomous driving, not Tesla: Harvest's Paul Meeks

Shenzhen-based Deeproute said it uses Nvidia’s Orin chip for its current driver-assist system.

The startup added it is part of the first batch of companies in China to obtain Nvidia’s newer Thor chip for cars and will release a new system using it next year that can use more visual cues to manage more complex driving scenarios.

“Lots of companies in China are competing on autonomous driving. It is actually a competition over AI,” Zhou said.

In terms of AI computing power, Deeproute said it has its own capacity, and can tap Alibaba‘s if needed. The e-commerce and cloud computing company led a $300 million investment round in Deeproute in 2021, giving it a valuation of more than $1 billion just two years after it was founded in 2019, according to the startup.

The U.S. in October 2022 imposed sweeping restrictions on China’s ability to access the most advanced semiconductors from Nvidia and other American companies. Automotive chips don’t currently fall in that category.

Nvidia is scheduled to release earnings for the quarter ended Oct. 27 on Nov. 20. For the quarter ended July 28, the chipmaker said its automotive segment saw revenue rise by 37% year-on-year to $345 million.

Eyes on Japan

Deeproute currently works with Chinese automakers selling in China. The company expects at least three car models using its driver-assist system will hit the road this year.

Already, Deeproute’s systems are running in more than 20,000 cars on the road, Zhou said. He expects that number to increase, potentially by ten-fold, next year.

The startup, which has an office in California, said it is looking to work with foreign automakers and plans to participate in Japan’s auto show next year.

Tesla competition

Deeproute has focused on using artificial intelligence to automatically drive cars, without relying on “high-definition maps.” That allows a vehicle to use driver assist tech on roads where those technical parameters haven’t been created.

It’s a trend car tech companies such as Xpeng and Huawei are pursuing — and Tesla‘s strategy for developing autonomous driving. Elon Musk’s car company has focused on using cameras and artificial intelligence to steer the vehicle, without heavy reliance on HD maps.

Those maps, used by autonomous driving companies such as Alphabet‘s Waymo, give a car a detailed picture of city streets. But they need to be created before a car runs on the road, a process that can drive up costs.

Zhou said the company is very eager for Tesla’s driver-assist product — called “Full Self-Driving” — to enter China. His reasoning is that Tesla’s product will encourage more consumers to become more interested in driver-assist features — and boost Deeproute’s prominence in the sector.

When asked about IPO plans, Zhou said the startup would keep to its own development pace, but it welcomed the latest public offerings of other industry players.

Chinese autonomous driving software developer WeRide went public on the Nasdaq last month, while robotaxi operator Pony.ai has filed for a U.S. IPO.

Industry focus on driver-assist

Companies in China’s autos industry are increasingly looking at driver-assist tech as a way to stay competitive in the market.

Pony.ai announced Saturday an agreement to cooperate on mass-development of fully autonomous robotaxis with state-owned Beijing Automotive Group’s new energy vehicle subsidiary.

Tencent on Monday announced it extended its strategic cooperation with German autos supplier Bosch to work on autonomous driving and tech-enabled cockpits. The two companies first agreed to strategic cooperation in 2020.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that Deeproute was part of the first batch of companies in China to obtain Nvidia’s new Thor chip for cars.

Finance

More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

Published

24 minutes ago

April 26, 2025

Business Finance News

People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.