Ng Enda's high-ranking apprentice Wang Tao resigned and led the team in visual perception

Xiaopeng's self-driving bull Wang Tao (tāo) has resigned.

This name may sound a little unfamiliar at first glance, but he once co-founded the star company Drive.ai autonomous driving, and studied under the AI giant Andrew Ng, who has been known to everyone in the field of autonomous driving.

He is also one of the talents recruited by Wu Xinzhou, an important figure in Xpeng's autonomous driving, and was responsible for leading Xpeng's North American visual perception team when he joined the company.

But in May last year, he was transferred out of Xiaopeng and joined Pengxing Intelligence, a robotics company under Xiaopeng. Nine months later, the news of his resignation was revealed.

Another autonomous driving bull is back in the rivers and lakes.

Wang Tao resigned

The news was first exposed by the Phoenix Network Vehicle Research Institute, and it was reported that Wang Tao, the former head of visual perception in North America of Xiaopeng Motors, had recently resigned, and there was no such person in the company's system.

At present, Xpeng has not officially responded to this news.

However, according to Wang's LinkedIn page, his work at Xpeng Motors ends in January 2024.

This can prove that this news is true, Wang Tao did leave from Xiaopeng Motors.

Wang Tao joined Xpeng in August 2019 and was introduced for the first time as the "North American Visual Perception Team Leader" at the Xpeng Technology Sharing Day that year, and was a core member of Xpeng's North American algorithm team for autonomous driving at that time.

He leads the Big Perception team and reports to Parixit Ahera from Qualcomm CR&D.

But in May last year, Wang Tao was transferred internally, and from the Xiaopeng algorithm team, he was transferred to Pengxing Intelligence, a robotics company under Xiaopeng, as the director of innovation strategy.

There is indeed an interoperability between the robot and the underlying algorithm of autonomous driving, and the internal transfer is not a very big change.

But less than a year after the transfer, the news of Wang Tao's resignation came out.

Who is Wang Tao and why is his departure in the spotlight?

Who is Wang Tao

The reason why Wang Tao is called an autonomous driving expert is because Wang Tao has rich experience in both theory and practice, and is one of the pioneers in the field of applying deep learning to the field of autonomous driving.

Wang Tao received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Stanford University, his master's degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the National University of Singapore, and his doctoral degree returned to Stanford to study computer science under the tutelage of AI expert Andrew Ng.

At that time, the first wave of autonomous driving in Silicon Valley was in full swing, and Wang Tao took a break from school to start a business with several other Andrew Ng students, and founded the autonomous driving company Drive.ai with several other Ng students.

In addition to being the company's co-founder, Wang Tao is also the director of R&D and engineering.

Drive.ai was founded with a clear goal: to promote the implementation of autonomous driving technology, and quickly become one of the star autonomous driving companies in Silicon Valley.

Middle: Wang Tao, right: Wu Enda

On the one hand, it has the endorsement of Ng Enda, and on the other hand, the company's excellent technical strength: two years after its establishment, it became the world's first self-driving company to demonstrate rainy night driving, and also provided Robotaxi services in Texas.

Moreover, Drive.ai is also favored by capital. In the more than two years since its establishment, it has completed 5 financings, with a total amount of more than 77 million US dollars (about 554 million yuan), and the valuation once reached 200 million US dollars (about 1.439 billion yuan).

Wang Tao, as a leader and core R&D personnel, has made great contributions to this.

However, in 2019, the situation changed dramatically, Drive.ai sold himself for $200 million, the founding team left one after another, and the company was later acquired by Apple.

In the same year, Wang Tao jumped to Xpeng Motors and served as the head of visual perception of autonomous driving in North America.

At this time, the autonomous driving stage of Xpeng Motors happened to attract the "Wu Xinzhou era", and Wang Tao was one of the talents poached by Wu Xinzhou at this time.

At that time, Wu Xinzhou drastically changed the team structure and research direction of Xpeng autonomous driving, the team is divided into three parts: perception, control, and map, and the core algorithm team is in the United States, in addition to being responsible for the research and development of core algorithms, but also to cooperate with the needs of the domestic team and the results of road tests to solve the corresponding problems.

Wang Tao is a core member of the North American perception algorithm team.

Under the leadership of Wu Xinzhou, Xpeng has continuously implemented important functions of intelligent driving and completed the binding with the label of "technical school".

Among them, there are various landmark events: there is no lidar to achieve high-speed NGP, memory parking function is on the car, high-speed NGP completes the actual measurement from Guangzhou to Beijing, and the urban NGP of "heavy perception and light map" is released...... The role of the perception team is growing and important.

Wang Tao's importance to Xpeng's autonomous driving technology can also be seen.

However, the change happened in 2023.

In August, it was revealed that Wu Xinzhou left Xiaopeng and joined NVIDIA, and later announced that he was responsible for managing NVIDIA's autonomous driving team in China.

Coincidentally, whether it is Wang Tao or Wu Xinzhou, the work locations are mainly in North America.

Previously, it was rumored that Xpeng Motors wanted to gradually reduce the North American team, probably related to controlling the personnel budget.

It is worth noting that Liu Lan Gechuan, who is also one of the talents poached by Wu Xinzhou, will also be revealed to have resigned from Xiaopeng in 2023, serving as the director of algorithm research and development before leaving, and also has the title of "head of Xiaopeng autonomous driving AI".

At this point, it can be clear that Wu Xinzhou's core team members are gradually leaving Xiaopeng with Wu Xinzhou's departure.

At present, Wang Tao has not exposed the next move, and an autonomous driving bull who understands management and technology has returned to the rivers and lakes.

-ENDS-

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