U Power, Bosch Collaborate on Super Board technology

U Power, a Chinese Smart EV technology startup, has recently entered into a strategic agreement with German multinational engineering and technology company Bosch, whereby the two companies will collaborate on intelligent vehicle board technology to support the development of U Power's UP Super Board.

At the same time, the startup has announced the completion of a Pre-A+ round of funding, led by Bosch's market-oriented investment platform Boyuan Capital.

This investment was the third round of financing received by U Power since its inception five months ago and Boyuan Capital's first investment since being established.

Bosch (China) Investment Ltd. EVP Xu Daquan said: "Intelligent electric vehicle development has entered a critical period with platform-level technology guidance and innovation on track to become a new focus for development. 

As the lead investor in U Power's Pre-A+ funding round, Boyuan Capital managing partner and CEO Zhu Lin said the value of traditional automotive supply chains has been changed with the arrival of intelligent automotive manufacturing. While many new players have entered the field, U Power has the right technology in place and therefore looks to be among the most promising.

U Power, with its vast experience in manufacturing vehicles under multiple real-life scenarios, will reinvent the entire vehicle development process by moving to a modularization approach whereby the chassis is divided from the body.

By redefining the fundamental approach, technical norms and supply chain, U Power's proprietary UP Super Board can be customized to meet different hardware standards and software platforms, increasing R&D and manufacturing productivity.

The existence of the UP Super Board is expected to shorten R&D time to one year and reduce production costs by up to 60%.