SHANGHAI, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Chinese autonomous driving

technology developer DeepRoute.ai has raised $100 million from

an automaker, the company said on Monday, as it looks to bolster

mass adoption of its systems on vehicles ahead of Tesla

in China.

The Shenzhen-based startup expects nearly 200,000 cars to be

equipped with its advanced assisted driving system on Chinese

roads by the end of 2025, CEO Maxwell Zhou told Reuters in an

interview, up from about 20,000 now.

The system can navigate urban traffic similar to Tesla's

Full Self-Driving (FSD), which the U.S. automaker expects to

launch in China in coming months.

DeepRoute.ai plans to launch more than 10 models with its

automaker clients in 2025, Zhou said. The first model equipped

with its system launched in August and two more models,

including one under the smart brand co-owned by Geely and

Mercedes-Benz, will be delivered to consumers this

year, he said.

The growing fleet will generate revenue for the company via

a technology licensing fee per car and collect data that is key

for its artificial intelligence technology to evolve faster to

handle more complicated traffic situations, Zhou said.

DeepRoute.ai's existing backers include e-commerce giant

Alibaba ( BABA ) and the sole investor in this fundraising

round is a Chinese automaker that the company declined to name.

It also did not disclose the valuation of the company after the

fundraising.

Automakers have been competing to provide more advanced

autonomous driving features as a selling point to lure Chinese

consumers as a brutal price war extends among hundreds of models

in the world's largest auto market.

Interest in this area was further spurred this year after

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the U.S. automaker planned to introduce

its FSD system in China, its second-largest market. Analysts

said the move would force other competitors to grow faster to

survive.

Zhou said he saw Tesla as a pioneer in bringing advanced

learning technology to autonomous driving, but added it would

need to adapt to the local market in China.

"China has more complicated traffic situations with

pedestrians walking on motorways and millions of scooters

rushing to deliver their goods," he said.

Zhou said his team was also keeping an eye on opportunities

overseas such as in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East,

anticipating demand for advanced autonomous driving technologies

could emerge in 2027 and 2028.

DeepRoute.ai, founded in 2019, started developing its

autonomous driving system without using expensive

high-definition maps in 2020, while many of its peers and

automakers were investing heavily on mapping out the streets and

highways.

This has given it a significant edge in costs that Zhou said

could help automakers to build a smart EV to be priced as low as

150,000 yuan ($21,063.27) in China.

($1 = 7.1214 yuan)