Acer and Yulon Group unveil Taiwan's first self-driving car

宏碁和裕隆集團聯手推出台灣首款自主智慧駕駛電動車

A concept model was unveiled at the 2018 Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit Friday


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – On Sept. 28 at the Taiwan Automotive Technology Innovation Summit 2018, the computer company Acer in collaboration with the Yulon Group introduced the country’s first self-driving automobile.

The vehicle combines Acer’s autonomous driving system with Luxgen’s S3 electric vehicle platform and HAITEC’s expertise in program engineering. Both Luxgen and HAITEC are subsidiaries of the Yulon Group.

The companies boast the self-driving vehicle as a symbol of their shared vision for a future of AI and autonomous driving.

The vehicle is reportedly a “level 4-ready” self-driving vehicle. Acer’s autonomous driving system is designed to sense the environment and conditions of the vehicle systems, and is capable of split second decision making based on “real-time kinematic (RTK) positions, lidars, mmWave radar an inertial measurement unit (IMU), and ultrasonic sensors” according to the press release.

The vehicle also features a deep-learning system which allows the system recognize objects in its environment and commit them to memory.

The Vice President of the Product Engineering Group II at HAITEC, Jung-Kuei Chen was quoted as saying:


“With Acer, we’ve jointly unveiled Taiwan’s first self-driving concept car with Advanced Driver Assistance Systems, Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and autonomous driving technology. Integrating Acer’s expertise in AI and the cloud with HAITEC’s self-developed open vehicle platform, we’ve achieved so much through our cross-industry collaboration.”


Edward Lin, Associate Vice President of Value Lab at Acer, Inc stated in the press release that Acer has been developing smart technology for automobiles for many years now, including technology for electronic ticketing, smart parking, connected cars, and traffic prediction applications.

The new car also has a cloud management system, which keeps the vehicle linked to a larger network. This not only reduces risk during travel, but also means in the event of an emergency, assistance can be dispatched in a moment’s notice. The vehicle is also capable of keeping accurate schedules and calculating optimum driving routes based on weather and traffic conditions using the cloud link.

Lin says that Acer has a vision which declares and envisions “Mobility-as-a-Service” (MaaS) for society’s future. He believes Acer is well-positioned to apply its research and programs in AI to make that vision a reality.

Some footage of the vehicle in motion may be viewed below.