Munich Auto Show 2025: ZYT(Zhuoyu)’s European Expansion and the Reality of Autonomous Driving
At the 2025 Munich Auto Show, ZYT appointed Nils Oledemeyer as head of its European operations.
This gentleman previously held the same position at a Chinese autonomous driving Tier 1 supplier, where he helped the company achieve significant “European breakthrough success.” ZYT’s establishment of its German subsidiary can be seen as a “land reclamation and expansion” strategy in response to the competitive landscape.
In fact, compared to the “wolf-pack” environment of the Shanghai Auto Show, ZYT seems to have “come alive” after going international.
Global media veterans from renowned European and American publications caught wind of the story on day one, circling the exhibition booth. The successive visits from the Munich Consulate’s commercial attaché and consul general represent honors historically reserved for major Chinese tech companies overseas.
This can be considered the unique prestige that DJI has bestowed upon ZYT.
Compared to other domestic suppliers, ZYT has an advantage that isn’t prominent domestically but remains effective in Europe, where electrification and autonomous driving progress slowly:
It is the only autonomous driving Tier 1 supplier that has achieved mass production of driver assistance systems on pure combustion engine vehicles.
Although the entire auto show was basically dominated by electric vehicles, if you walk just 10 kilometers outside the exhibition hall and stand on any street corner in the city center, you can glimpse the most authentic state of the current European market:
Electric vehicle share: less than 1/20 (and that’s being conservative).
While you occasionally spot a Tesla, they’re truly few and far between. Even taxis are mostly diesel-powered Mercedes E-Class vehicles.
The “European diesel ban” that domestic media has been promoting for seven or eight years—why is this still a diesel vehicle paradise?
Frankly speaking, contrary to China, in Europe, government and automaker promotion alone contributes only a drop in the bucket to electric vehicle sales.
The biggest issue here is the lack of 365-degree internet penetration to consumers—it’s entirely based on people’s genuine daily needs.
Therefore, in Europe, the market Chinese autonomous driving suppliers should prioritize is “active safety” including AEB and “parking assistance.”
01 Aggressive German Companies, Conservative Regulations
The connection between Volkswagen Group and ZYT dates back to 2019.
After defeating Huawei in the same year, ZYT became Volkswagen Group’s first global pre-installed autonomous driving supplier at headquarters level.
This startup company, born standing on the shoulders of giants, used its TDA4 proprietary technology to secure driver assistance projects for more than ten vehicle models on Volkswagen’s MQB combustion engine platform—including the “Tiguan L,” “Magotan,” and “Tayron” traditional combustion vehicles that officially announced mass production in 2024.
Therefore, to this day, despite continuous pressure from external suppliers, among all ongoing projects globally at Volkswagen, there are only two Chinese suppliers:
ZYT and Coolray.
While the latter is the “favored child,” it consistently ranks last in various internal performance comparisons. Well, it’s time to change the technical approach.
Additionally, it must be said that from the scene, ZYT’s reputation overseas, backed by DJI, far exceeds that of other domestic autonomous driving suppliers.
Besides Qualcomm’s booth only listing “ZYT” among its Chinese partners, the visits from embassy and Volkswagen executives also highlight a harsh reality essential for “going global”:
For Chinese brands to win trust overseas, the first step inevitably requires the “support of local power brokers.”
In fact, surveying the entire Munich Auto Show, I must regretfully state a truth:
Ordinary citizens are still in a wait-and-see period regarding “electric vehicles,” an expensive product, let alone “advanced autonomous driving” capabilities.
Currently, European consumers’ awareness of “autonomous driving” is virtually zero.
So I seriously doubt that those second-tier foreign Tier 1 suppliers copied their Munich Auto Show PPTs from China—otherwise, how could they be identical to those empty promises from 2021-2023?
From a micro perspective, even the TDA4VH and 7V camera solutions that are commonplace in China represent “high-end” technology in Europe.
Or perhaps German automotive executives have run out of ways to escape their “financial crisis” and decided to implement “high-tech solutions” first.
Of course, while “autonomous driving” remains distant in Europe, there are some positive developments from top-down EU and government promotion:
First, automakers have begun pushing their autonomous driving capabilities to European consumer segments:
For instance, not just Mercedes-Benz has started emphasizing its Semi-driving System in electric vehicle advertisements targeting local populations this year (this is an ADAS function Mercedes has been continuously promoting since participating in European NCAP ratings in 2020).
Second, EU L2+ regulations officially took effect recently:
On September 22, 2024, EU Regulation No. 171—”Uniform Provisions Concerning the Approval of Vehicles with regard to Driver Control Assistance Systems (DCAS)”—officially came into effect.
After two years of deliberation and collecting various opinions, the EU finally pushed “the progress of assisted driving implementation in Europe” forward significantly at the legal level.
The R171 regulation is specifically designed for “L2+.”
Simply put, this assisted driving system definition roughly aligns with China’s “highway NOA” capability scope, covering both M-class vehicles (passenger cars) and N-class vehicles (trucks).
As a longitudinal and lateral system, OEM-related functions must meet R171 testing and production standards before entering mass production.
This is one important reason why the demo cars various autonomous driving Tier 1 suppliers brought to Munich were limited to “highways.” Another hidden reason is:
“Germany’s free local maps and navigation aren’t that ‘reliable.'”
Therefore, besides the immature market, “data” represents the highest barrier everyone faces.
Indeed, including ZYT, all autonomous driving suppliers wanting a piece of the European market have begun paying German data compliance suppliers.
02 Eliminating External Threats, Resolving Internal Concerns
2024 was when ZYT completely separated from DJI.
This year, this startup company’s biggest external threat, without protection, was “money.”
Specifically, ZYT’s rumored largest single financing round for 2025—essentially money from various OEMs—quietly began in 2025.
During the Shanghai Auto Show period, I received internal confirmation: billions in “reserve funds” needed to be delivered, sufficient to keep the entire team operational for at least two years.
Meanwhile, ZYT experienced its longest “strategic wavering period” since establishment in terms of products. This led to the real “internal concern”:
Multiple project management and technical roadmaps.
So at the auto show, I asked ZYT’s Vice President of R&D a question:
What exactly was ZYT doing in 2024?
What caused this DJI-affiliated company, whose R&D capabilities clearly make first-tier companies continuously wary, to delay entering “advanced status”?
The answer received was as follows:
First, the R&D team invested in “end-to-end” development from September 2024, spending nearly half a year “getting the entire data closed loop running.” Everything only got on track after the 2025 Spring Festival.
But there’s a time gap between “setting up” and “doing well.”
While some data can be reused, low-level and high-level code alignment is difficult. Currently, ZYT’s strategy is transplanting the same floating-point model to different chips, which requires more time.
Second, ZYT took on so many projects in 2024 that everyone struggled to balance new technology development.
This is the first time ZYT has publicly disclosed all vehicle models it’s developing
From 2023-2024, in just one year, ZYT grew from over 1,000 to over 2,500 people.
Many newcomers unfamiliar with DJI, besides adapting to the unique corporate culture of “self-driven everything,” spent most of their time focused on delivery.
In fact, many vehicle models officially announced for 2025—such as Great Wall, Chery Jetour, FAW Hongqi, and BYD’s remaining miscellaneous models—have delivery cycles of 6-9 months.
This means these projects were basically confirmed in early 2024.
“There were too many projects in hand in 2024. Volkswagen alone took 5 years, and other OEMs’ scattered projects are countless.”
At this point, reshaping delivery processes became “necessary,” conflicting with ZYT’s flexible and innovative R&D attitude.
Third, as I’ve written before, ZYT has a crucial component that other autonomous driving startups lack—manufacturing.
This part is rarely visible to others.
Therefore, few can understand the organizational operational costs involved in production line flow efficiency, power management, network management, offline calibration, associated components, and many other “dirty and difficult tasks.”
Most autonomous driving companies have domain controller suppliers that “work alongside them,” such as Desay SV.
Therefore, adjusting ZYT’s projects from “handling three at once” to “handling ten at once” is far more difficult than for other software Tier 1 suppliers. ZYT’s previously flexible and flat R&D culture then encountered the management impact of “multi-project, multi-department coordination.”
Finally, ZYT’s one-stage end-to-end solution was successfully developed on NVIDIA Thor. They also believe “one-stage end-to-end” indeed has step-change effects.
According to ZYT’s projections, the OTA upgrade system version based on Qualcomm 8650 will have a major innovation around October this year.
This is their only current advanced mass production achievement, and something Qualcomm-based competitors are eyeing.
In fact, the current Tiangong 05 autonomous driving mass production system on the market is still the 2024 old version.
“The results this time will definitely be good. We never blame the chips. Qualcomm 8650 can benchmark against a single OrinX.”
03 Final Thoughts
From a financial perspective, the “Di Da Hua Mo” (地大华魔) that was mentioned most in 2023 really hit the mark.
There aren’t many left with real money to do real end-to-end and the capability to do it.
In the future, at least 6 more Volkswagen Group vehicle models equipped with ZYT’s driver assistance systems will launch. We hope this becomes the stepping stone sending ZYT into the European market.
Regarding “the time consumed departing from TDA4,” when other companies say “we’re idealistic, thinking most ordinary people only buy cars around 100,000 yuan and don’t really need such advanced configurations,” I don’t believe a word of it.
But when ZYT says this, I believe 70%.
It’s just that in China, the “autonomous driving” market, originally pushed up by capital, doesn’t want to wait too long for advanced features.
But Europe is truly different.
ZYT might be more suited for a new world dominated by ordinary consumers and pragmatism.