A Chinese Private Automaker Is Building A Satellite Network, Too

Chinese automaker giant Geely has spread far and wide in the field of trucking, high-speed trains, passenger drones, and so on over the last few decades. However, to connect all of its available services, Geely declared that it was going to establish its own satellite network to make the dream of the “smart three-dimensional mobility ecosystem” come true.  

On Monday, Geely said that a satellite production facility and testing center would be built in the port city of Zhejiang province. That facility will have the ability to build plenty of different satellite models including some for non-Geely entities. 

With the help of these low-orbit satellites, Geely’s products will be served with high-speed data transmission, exact navigation, cloud computing, up-to-the-minute updates, and content delivery to the company’s owner. Geely seemingly desires to launch its satellite constellations that are being built by SpaceX and OneWeb, and there is no sign that these products will be used for standard internet connections. 

According to Geely, the navigating function of the equation is especially helpful since the current GPS satellites are only precise to several meters because of their high orbits. Low-orbit satellites are claimed to be reliable to within a centimeter. This precision is not only of top importance for cars but also for unmanned flight, as stated by the company representative.  

Until the world is filled with auto-driven cars, the needs for in-car connectivity could rise dramatically compared to the current number. At that time, it will be essential to have your own satellite network to compete with other opponents. Wall Street analysts have asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk uncountable times about this issue because his other company, SpaceX, launched its Starlink satellite network. In response to them, Musk said that he didn’t notice any advantage in enabling Teslas to work with Starlink satellites due to the overloaded required hardware on each vehicle.

He explained the high-bandwidth and low latency would need the antenna which had the size of a medium pizza to be put on a car. But in fact, the vehicle will need more than that. By any means, Musk admitted it would be of high possibility in the upcoming future.