Lin Wenqin, 31, the founder of Chinese restaurant brand Meiyihao, died in a traffic accident while driving an NIO ES8, the brand said in an obituary posted on its WeChat account Saturday.
The accident occurred at 2 p.m. on August 12, 2021, when the ES8 had the autopilot function NOP (Navigation On Pilot) turned on, the obituary said.
Lin was the founder of several companies and owned several restaurant chains with more than 500 franchises in China, the obituary said.
The obituary provided no further information about the crash.
Shares of Chinese electric-vehicle maker NIO were weak Monday after a fatal accident involving a NIO car with self-driving features.
NIO stock was down 5.5% in afternoon trading. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were flat.
The fatal crash of a NIO ES8 sport-utility vehicle took place last week in China. The SUV is equipped with several driver assistance functions, including features enabled by Intel division Mobileye, that enable some forms of autonomous driving. NIO’s driver assistance functions are called NIO Pilot and employ cameras as the so-called eyes of the car.
NIO has other autonomous-driving technology, referred to as NAD, such as radar, lidar—a laser-based radar—and camera vision, as well as computing power provided partly by Nvidia (NVDA) to process all the data points coming at the car.
The NAD features don’t appear to be available on all NIO vehicles, including the ES8. All autonomous driving systems require the driver to pay attention to the road at all times.
NIO responded to a request for comment with a Weibo post in Chinese. The post indicates the company is cooperating with police regarding the investigation.
