(Yicai) Sept. 25 -- Mercedes-Benz has signed a deal to deepen its partnership with ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, with the German auto giant hoping to tap into growing demand for intelligent cars.

The memorandum of cooperation inked by Mercedes-Benz China Investment and ByteDance on Sept. 23 will cover multiple areas including smart assisted driving, while the carmaker’s new electric CLA vehicle equipped with ByteDance's artificial intelligence model will be launched this autumn, Yicai has learned.

The two companies started working together in 2023, when Mercedes partnered with the Beijing-based tech giant’s Volcano Engine cloud service unit. The cars were installed with an app that aggregated ByteDance-owned services such as video-sharing platform Xigua, news portal Jinri Toutiao, and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The two parties have since moved on to further cooperation, including intelligent cockpit AI exploration in 2024, said Oliver Thöne, a member of the board at Mercedes who is responsible for China operations. 

Now the pair will embark on full business chain collaboration, Thöne said, as part of efforts to respond to the growing demand for intelligent vehicles in the Chinese market.

The new Mercedes CLA model will be equipped with ByteDance’s Doubao AI, a virtual assistant capable of recognizing dialects and detecting emotions. The car will also have a driving range of 866 kilometers, and will be fitted with 11 airbags as part of a focus on safety.

According to data from the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum, 90 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for advanced intelligent driving features, with 30 percent willing to spend an extra CNY10,000 (USD1,403).

The partnership with ByteDance also marks a further step in Mercedes’ localization strategy. The company has established a comprehensive research and development network in China, which is now its largest R&D hub outside of Germany.

Editor: Tom Litting