Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
Author | Juice
Edited by | Xiaohan
How can business monetization be achieved through autonomous driving technology? This is a difficult problem for all self-driving companies.
At present, most autonomous driving companies are actively landing products, and various products such as robotaxi, unmanned delivery vehicles, unmanned sweepers, unmanned shuttle cars and other autonomous driving products have begun to enter the public's life, so that ordinary people also feel the charm of automatic driving.
On the other hand, for autonomous driving companies, although the landing of technology has been realized, they are still unable to rely on these products to support themselves, and they still need external financing to support the development of enterprises, which has also become a "headache" problem for many autonomous driving companies.
Still, there's no need to be too pessimistic about the commercialization of autonomous driving. In many segments, autonomous driving still has opportunities for commercial realization, and whether it can seize this opportunity is also a test for autonomous driving companies.
Looking back at the report cards handed over by autonomous driving companies last year, it is not difficult to find that some companies have broken the dilemma. For example, some companies will take into account the various scenarios of automatic driving in the layout, but at the same time, they will make choices according to market feedback, accelerate the commercialization of individual scenarios, and achieve development while making money.
Yishi Technology is the best example, with a full understanding of the industry and the market, it believes that airports, factories, parks and other scenarios can achieve large-scale commercialization earlier. Therefore, at this stage, it has taken the lead in this field and has run to the forefront of the commercialization of autonomous driving.
First, automatic driving set off a tide of landing Commercialization is still difficult
Throughout the year last year, the automatic driving industry has shown a good development trend, and first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have continuously expanded the scale of autonomous driving, and some new first-tier cities have also begun to have a large number of autonomous driving products landing.
In terms of subdivision scenarios, many places in the country have landed robotaxi, and even in the Beijing area, fee trial operation has been opened; in the closed park, unmanned logistics vehicles, unmanned delivery vehicles, and even unmanned vending vehicles have begun to work; and on ordinary roads, unmanned sweepers have also begun to gradually go online.
Overall, the current autonomous driving industry has entered the stage of scale landing, and the entire industry has shown a thriving trend.
But behind this prosperity there are actually many hidden problems. The most intuitive thing is that although the automatic driving industry has become a star track, the vast majority of autonomous driving companies are still unable to achieve commercialization.
Public data shows that the financing scale of the autonomous driving industry in 2021 is billions of dollars, which also verifies from the side that autonomous driving companies still cannot obtain the ability to make their own blood, and they also need to rely on financing blood transfusions.
But there are also some companies that are breaking the dilemma of commercialization of autonomous driving, such as the aforementioned Yishi Technology.
Similar to other autonomous driving companies, the ultimate goal of Yishi Technology is also to fully integrate autonomous driving into the daily life of the public, so it is deploying autonomous driving products in all scenarios.
However, Yishi Technology has more thinking about the entire industry, found the direction that is easier to achieve commercialization, tightened the problem of openness and borderlessness, landed unmanned driving technology in parks, airports, factories and other scenarios, and at the same time landed unmanned delivery vehicles and RoboTaxi fleet trial operation on urban open roads, with the strategy of carrying goods to people, closed, semi-closed to open roads to gradually achieve commercialization.
Second, break the commercialization of automatic driving, and land hundreds of vehicles in multiple projects in batches
In order to achieve large-scale commercialization, Yishi Technology has carried out a lot of exploration in technology and independently developed the universal autonomous driving technology stack U-Drive.
The advantage of this set of technologies is that it is "all-scenario, really unmanned, all-weather", which can quickly adapt to different scenarios, and at the same time can do different tests and verifications for the differentiation of the project during specific deployment, and optimize the algorithm.
In this way, It is easier for Yishi Technology to put its own solutions into a new park. It is understood that the fastest product delivery record of Yishi Technology is only 1.5 days.
On the other hand, The Technology has also made unmanned attempts relatively early. In 2019, Yishi Technology took away the security officer for unmanned commercial operation. By December 2021, the unmanned commercial operating mileage of Yishi Technology has exceeded 1.2 million kilometers, and it is the first autonomous driving company to achieve this achievement.
More importantly, this data is not test data, but operational data that runs out in real scenarios, and there have been no accidents during this period.
Out of the judgment of the development of the industry, Yishi Technology currently focuses on autonomous driving scenarios such as parks, factories, airports, etc., and has made great achievements in commercialization, and has obtained a number of enterprise projects in 2021 alone.
In January 2021, YISHI Technology and BASF announced a project cooperation, and the in-plant unmanned logistics vehicle independently developed by YISHI Technology will start operation at BASF's Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Innovation Park (BASF Pudong Base) for the transfer of chemical raw materials in the plant area.
▲The unmanned logistics vehicle of Yishi Technology transports goods at BASF's Pudong base
In July, the unmanned vehicle of Yishi Technology officially began to transfer raw materials at BASF's Pudong base.
In addition to this project, Yishi Technology has also landed a number of projects in 2021. In June, the driverless logistics vehicle developed by Yishi Technology began to be put into normal operation at Xu Fuji's Dongguan production base in Guangdong Province, responsible for the transfer of food raw materials in the factory area.
In September last year, the unmanned transportation project of the park of Yishi Technology also entered the Great Wall Ant Logistics, and a batch of modified Great Wall Gun EV driverless logistics vehicles were transported in the Xushui plant area of Great Wall Motor. Che Dongxi also visited the scene to visit the working process of unmanned logistics vehicles, and the vehicles can drive freely throughout the park, and the whole process is very smooth.
▲The unmanned vehicle of Yishi Technology transports goods in the Great Wall Park
While developing the logistics and transportation of the park, Yishi Technology still insists on making efforts in airport unmanned driving, and has also completed a number of airport projects.
On November 28, 2021, the Hong Kong International Airport Authority announced that it has officially introduced the Unmanned Patrol Vehicle of Yishi Technology in September, with an operating mileage of more than 10,000 kilometers (November data), which adopts the Baojun KiWi EV model, which is based on the General Autonomous Driving Technology Stack U-Drive of Yishi Technology, which achieves all-weather unmanned operation, which can strengthen the frequency of patrols and improve the level of security.
It is also the world's first unmanned vehicle to be used for patrolling in airport restricted areas.
In addition, the airport unmanned bus jointly developed by the two parties is also undergoing R&D and testing, and it is planned to be put into operation in 2023. As early as 2019, Hong Kong International Airport has joined hands with Yushi Technology to land the first airport unmanned logistics project in the world.
At the end of 2021, the driverless luggage traction fleet built by Yishi Technology also officially put into operation at Urumqi International Airport, which is the first time in the world that an unmanned vehicle has entered the apron to provide operational services.
The vehicle is equipped with a variety of sensors such as lidar, DGPS and cameras, which do not require human operation at all, can accurately perceive the surrounding environment during driving, intelligently detect the position of the aircraft on the apron and automatically stop and avoid, and at the same time realize multi-vehicle coordination, accurate parking and other functions to ensure the safety and reliability of the transportation process.
In addition, airport staff can also carry out effective management scheduling and remote monitoring based on the unmanned vehicle cloud intelligent management platform. It can be said that the unmanned baggage traction fleet of Yishi Technology has effectively improved the cargo efficiency of Urumqi International Airport.
▲Driving luggage tractor of Yishi Technology
In addition, Yishi Technology has also been participating in the civil aviation unmanned driving projects of domestic airports such as Ezhou Huahu Airport, and is fully promoting the process of unmanned airports. Based on the experience of unmanned operation in airport scenarios, the "Roadmap for the Application of Unmanned Equipment at Airports" drafted by Yishi Technology was deliberated and approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
Looking at these projects, it is not difficult to find that Yishi Technology has been deployed in various industries such as airports, chemicals, automobile manufacturing, food, and tobacco, involving a very wide range.
And these solid landing records also prove the advantages of Yishi Technology in commercialization. It can be said that Yishi Technology has been at the forefront of the commercialization of automatic driving.
Third, AI drivers aim at the whole scene and flexibly cut into other fields
The goal of Yishi Technology has always been to drive autonomous driving in all scenarios, sending AI drivers to all walks of life.
Through the eye-catching achievements of Yushi Technology last year, it is not difficult to see that it has gone a long way at its own pace: first using unmanned vehicles to earn money to obtain income and data, constantly expanding and polishing technology, and then further expanding into robotaxi and more fields when the technology is further improved.
It is worth mentioning that at present, Yishi Technology has begun to enter more fields.
In February 2021, the Dongfeng Fengshen E70 self-driving taxi developed by Yishi Technology and Dongfeng Motor was officially launched in Wuhan and opened the Robotaxi test ride service for Wuhan citizens.
▲ RoboTaxi jointly created by Yushi Technology and Dongfeng
In September last year, Yishi Technology also launched the L4 autonomous driving solution UiBox for urban services and the first landing product, UiBox unmanned delivery vehicle.
UiBox unmanned delivery vehicles and partners such as YTO Express and SF Express are also carrying out pilots and applications. It is worth noting that UiBox has now gone out of China, opened up the market in the Middle East, and started express delivery in Saudi Arabia.
At present, this path of Yishi Technology has been recognized by customers and investors, on the one hand, the products continue to land, on the other hand, it has also obtained a financing of 1 billion yuan in 2021, which can be described as a double harvest.
With the continuous landing of products, Yishi Technology has become one of the few autonomous driving companies in the world that has a large number of commercial projects and can bring revenue. In the future competition of autonomous driving, Yishi Technology has taken the lead on the road of commercialization.