In the future, the same chassis can be attached to the bus cabin at the morning rush hour, replaced with a logistics cabin at lunchtime, and equipped with a clean cabin at night. A city’s transportation needs are as flexible as a container switching in a port.
The business of wire-controlled chassis is finally understood by car companies.
At the end of 2023, Guangzhou Automobile incubated a technology company, Qizhi Automobile, led by Xiao Ning, former vice president of Guangzhou Automotive Group Research Institute, to develop and manufacture a wire-controlled chassis for unmanned vehicles.
The business of wire-controlled chassis is finally understood by car companies.
At the 2025 World Smart Automotive Conference, Qizhi Automobile Founder,Chairman Xiaoning told JSC: In 1 1⁄2 years, Qi Jie Automobile has had three line-controlled chassis products, the L60 for the small bus market, the T45 for the unmanned logistics vehicle market, and the X60 for the VAN market, all of which have been sold or custom-made by customers.
Qizhi Automobile’s ambition is to build infrastructure for driverless driving, allowing the same chassis, the same system, and the same supply chain to be combined in different scenarios, thereby reshaping the glory of Guangzhou Automobile Commercial Vehicle in the era of driverless vehicles.
After 10 years of exploration, commercial applications of driverless cars are waiting to take off in various scenarios, and the advancement of technology, operational polishing, access to road rights, and cost compression – nothing can be achieved overnight.
Qi Jie was trying to cross the threshold.
One chassis , three businesses
In Qizhi’s R & D system, the chassis can be considered as a “mother plate” – whether it is for buses, logistics, or custom cars exported to Europe, the logic is the same.
Xiaoning said that the core of the company is to do the research and development and sales of chassis hardware and software, building individual products around three areas: passenger transportation, logistics and urban servicers.
The logic is simple. First, the “life gates” of drive, steering, braking, power management are made into completely safe redundant structures, and the body, cabin, algorithms, and so on are all made into plug-in modules.
Therefore, the same chassis, connected to the bus cabin, can become L4 Robobus; Connected to the closed cargo compartment, that is, the unmanned logistics vehicle with 24m3 cargo compartment volume; If you put on the European crash standard driving cabin, you can become a L2 + light logistics vehicle running on the German highway.
This mode helps the Tickler quickly penetrate multiple scenes.
For example, in the bus scene, a bus model built according to its chassis will be the first to remove security guards and charge fees in Guangdong this year, becoming the first commercial closed-loop pilot area in the industry.
Logistics scenario, a logistics vehicle with a payload of 2.4 tons and a volume of 15-24 cubic meters has been launched, and has been delivered to domestic Internet and logistics giants to run economic accounts in a closed campus;
Overseas, its custom-made logistics vehicles for Europe have completed winter marking, are touring Germany, and are about to receive the first orders.
The ambition of this chassis is not just to make a perfect car, but to define the size, interface, Safety standards, then make autonomous vehicles like container trucks, allowing various partners to “install” their own “content compartments” on a standard chassis, whether to carry people, cargo, or future mobile service compartments.
Crossing the double fence of rights and cost
Of course, behind the notion that a chassis grows three types of cars, more important is the business case.
In Mr. Shonin’s view, the most costly segment of the full life cycle of commercial vehicles is not the money to buy the vehicles, but the labor, energy consumption and maintenance operations.
So the itinerary for lowering the cost of a bicycle appeared on paper.
Significantly reduce energy costs through electrification; Significantly reduce driver costs through intelligence; Through a modular chassis, key components are highly standardized and interchangeable, reducing procurement and adaptation costs; Finally, through the cabin-drive separation mode, users can pay the dispatch fee on demand, without having to buy a car at once, reducing the threshold of use.
But it wasn’t enough economically to run in more cities. To get started in more places, the trail had to cross another fence – the right to the road.
In a driverless world, road rights are not only administrative approval, but the government’s comprehensive judgment on safety and traffic efficiency.
Mr. Shoning bluntly said the biggest voice behind road rights came from management, who were concerned about safety, reliability and how many autonomous vehicles in a city would affect traffic efficiency.
To put it more bluntly, the real difficulty with autonomous driving is convincing regulators that it is safe and secure under all circumstances.
Therefore, the chassis framework is “insured” – fully redundant design covers drive, steering, braking, power management, reducing the probability of system failure; The entire vehicle production follows the vehicle specification system, which forms a closed loop from design and verification standards to the supply chain and quality control. At the same time, even supply chain partners are mature manufacturers that can stabilize supply, reducing the risks posed by component quality.
These hidden investments also yielded a string of policy passes.
The public transport model with fully redundant drive-by-wire chassis has been announced, and the Robobus, which is customized in cooperation with well-known intelligent driving companies, can not rely on human drivers after meeting the requirements on a fixed route; A new responsive bus is also about to hit the road in Suzhou.
Clifford’s plan is clear, using safety and security to help customers take road rights, and using service and cost reduction to gain scale.
Target to break even next year
After crossing the fence of rights and costs, Qiao didn’t stop at “selling more cars” but began to think about what is a long-term moat when the marginal profits of hardware are getting lower.
In the driverless ecosystem, Shoning likens the algorithm to a “brain,” while Qi Ji is a “mini brain” and a “body,” and “I help him build the infrastructure, and it builds the content on top of it.”
In other words, the core of Qi Jihua is to build an autonomous vehicle body that can be driven by different scenario parties and algorithmic companies.
In the specific cooperation, as an infrastructure party for car manufacturing, Qijian will open the chassis interface to connect the “brains” of different algorithms, different transportation companies, and the scheduling systems of different logistics platforms.
“What we do is more about vehicle platforms… It is not a manufacturing platform, a logistics platform, nor a city service.”In his remarks, Mr. Shoning could emphasize several times that Qiwei is a supplier of intelligent driving infrastructure as a chassis solution.
This positioning makes its business model very clear, selling chassis and entire vehicles, establishing a stable shipping and supply chain system, and providing continuous revenue through software services such as algorithm subscriptions, data labeling, and OTA upgrades.
Qizhi’s goals are also very clear, and by 2026, the combined sales volume of both chassis and whole cars will reach economies of scale and break even.
This layout also laid the foundation for the future “crew separation” model.
“I’ll give you a full redundant and fast interface… Eventually, cabin crew separation can be achieved and the chassis can be operated.””In addition to delivering these vehicles, we also deliver some experience design and service design,” said Xiaoning. “There are even customers who want it to be used for pop-ups, retail, mobile stores. We also do scene planning for them, including medical scenes, high-end mobility and accessible vehicles or welfare vehicles.”
Imagine a future in which the same chassis could be attached to a bus cabin at the morning rush hour, replaced with a logistics cabin at lunchtime, and equipped with a clean cabin at night… A city’s transportation needs are as flexible as a container switching in a port.
Under this operation, drivers will not disappear, but will turn to higher-value positions such as emergency handling, equipment maintenance, and regulatory scheduling. Such a natural transition in the human structure would also be more acceptable to society and regulation than a one-size-fits-all “total unmanning.”
A decade ago, autonomous driving stood at “the car runs on its own,” whereas 10 years later, it has become “making every kilometre of operation count.”
Qijian has chosen an industrial route that has been repeatedly honed by road rights, costs and standards, turning chassis into a movable driverless infrastructure, opening interfaces and data to the entire ecosystem, and turning transportation and transportation into a convenient, multi-faceted system like a container.
From the Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute to start a business, Xiaoning’s underlying logic is: “The essence of commercial vehicles is to reduce costs and increase efficiency, so behind every change must be a cost revolution.” And his vision is, “We want to follow the changes in the industry to drive it, lead it, and explore the cutting-edge base all the time.”
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