Ambassador of Germany to China Dr. Patricia FLOR and her delegation visited WeRide

Guangzhou, November 27th, 2023 -- The Ambassador of Germany to China Dr. Patricia FLOR and her delegation visited the Guangzhou office of WeRide, a globally leading L4 autonomous driving company. The ambassador's entourage comprised Mr. Jan RUDOLPH, the Consul General of Germany in Guangzhou; Dr. Thomas WEITHÖNER, Head of the Economic Department, German Embassy Beijing; Ms. Lil OGGESEN from Political Department, German Embassy Beijing; and Ms. Ling Wang from Economic Department, German Consulate General in Guangzhou, etc. WeRide's Founder and CEO Tony Han, SVP of Engineering Hua Zhong, VP Lin Luo and other representatives warmly received the delegation. The two sides held in-depth exchanges on WeRide's technology accumulation, commercial experience and global expansion.

( Ambassador FLOR and her delegation took a group photo with WeRide Robobus. Among them, the fourth from the left is Dr. Patricia FLOR, the German Ambassador to China; the third from the left is Mr. Jan RUDOLPH, Consul General of Germany in Guangzhou; the first from the left is Dr. Thomas WEITHÖNER, Head of the Economic Department, German Embassy Beijing; the fifth from the left is Hua Zhong, WeRide's SVP of Engineering; and the second from left is Luo Lin, VP of WeRide)

Ambassador FLOR and her delegation first visited WeRide's Robotaxi and two models of Robosweepers, and then took a ride on WeRide's Robobus to experience the smooth performance of L4 fully autonomous driving on public roads.

( Ambassador FLOR and her delegation on WeRide's Robobus)

During the discussion and exchange session, Ambassador FLOR mentioned that Germany is currently facing the problems of aging labor force and labor shortage in areas such as public transportation, environment sanitation, and intra-city delivery. She acknowledged that WeRide's autonomous driving technology and products are conducive to alleviating and solving these problems. Meanwhile, She noted that Germany is actively promoting the application of green energy, and the autonomous driving vechicles that are powered by electricity are also an important component of this green strategy.

(Ambassador FLOR shared Germany's development strategy)

Tony Han, the founder and CEO of WeRide, highly agreed with this and shared his views. He pointed out that in the automotive technology field, autonomous driving companies like WeRide has strong software and algorithm capabilities, while German OEMs and Tier 1 companies have a solid manufacturing foundation and strong supply chain management capabilities. These two kinds of companies can complement each other's strengths and work together to tackle the global challenges such as aging population, frequent traffic accidents, global climate change, etc.

WeRide has been actively expanding into overseas markets. Among them, Germany is an important stop on the WeRide's global business blueprint. The company announced in May 2022 on getting strategic investment from the German company Bosch, the world's leading Tier 1 in automotive industry. The two sides signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly promote the R&D and commercialization of advanced driving assistance solution, aiming to achieve large-scale production and market-oriented application of SAE L2-3 level autonomous driving for passenger cars. ( Display of full stack ADAS solution jointly developed by WeRide and Bosch)

In April 2023, the full stack advanced driving assistance solution jointly developed by WeRide and Bosch was unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show, fully demonstrating the technical advantages of both parties. It can provide advanced driving functions, integrated driving and parking functions, and basic auxiliary driving functions such as driving safety, comfort, and lighting. In addition, the computing platform with high computing power supports "shadow mode" closed-loop data iteration, continuously improving product performance.

WeRide established a branch in Stuttgart, Germany at the beginning of 2023, and formed a local team to actively promote cooperation with local governments and enterprises. The visit of Ambassador FLOR and her delegation has demonstrated WeRide's international brand awareness, effectively promoting the company's further commercial expansion and landing in Germany, thereby bringing more new smart and autonomous travel options to local citizens.