Facing Lawsuit, Self-Driving Car Firm Moves From U.S. to China

Self-driving-car startup Jingchi Corp. has moved its headquarters from California to the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou amid an intellectual property dispute with search engine giant Baidu Inc.

Jingchi, which was founded by former Baidu Senior Vice President Wang Jin earlier this year, will establish its new headquarters in the city’s Huangpu district, where it says it will “build up China’s first self-driving-car company that is poised to enter massive market production next year.”

The company will also contribute to a fund worth 10 billion yuan ($1.53 billion), along with the city government and two other local companies, which will aim to “ramp up developments” in the autonomous driving sector, according to the company.

Jingchi's move comes as Wang, the company’s CEO, has become embroiled in a legal dispute with Baidu, which has accused him of stealing proprietary autonomous-driving technology to power the startup.

The 50-million-yuan lawsuit was filed this week in Beijing’s intellectual property rights court, which has accepted the case. But at a media event on Thursday, Wang said that he has not received any notice from the court and insisted Baidu’s case is baseless.

Jingchi has grown rapidly in the nine months since it was founded by the former head of Baidu’s self-driving car division.

In September, Jingchi announced that it had completed a $52 million “pre-A” round of funding, led by Qiming Venture Capital. Jingchi completed a public road test in Sunnyvale, California, on Aug. 15, and reached an agreement with Anqing, Anhui province, to place 40 driverless test cars in the area by the end of the year.

Jingchi’s decision to move its headquarters to China also comes as regulators in the country are relaxing rules that govern the use of self-driving cars. This month, Beijing became the first Chinese city to allow road tests of autonomous vehicles.

Now that the Beijing municipal authorities have given a green light to testing, a national plan could soon emerge.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in September that it is working on regulations to permit driverless-car companies to conduct tests on public roads.

A source close to the ministry told Caixin that an outline for such rules has been completed, but there was not yet a clear timetable for its completion.

Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com)