Image source @ Visual China
Text | Car smart driving
On the eve of New Year's Day, in the last few days of December, the first domestic vehicle-level driverless logistics vehicle officially opened a one-month internal test in the simulated park scene located at the headquarters of Zhongtong Express.
According to relevant media reports, the design speed of the model exceeds 70km/h, the total mileage is about 240km, and the theoretical daily delivery package is more than 3,000 pieces. From these parameters, it can be seen that its original design intention is to provide driverless solutions for the long transportation line between the delivery and delivery places.
Once tested and put into use, the unmanned unmanned vehicle named "Pioneer", developed by Matrix Data Technology and escorted by Huawei's DMC intelligent driving computing platform, will also become the first and only unmanned logistics transportation equipment that can be driven on the highway in China.
This has to be reminiscent of the major e-commerce platforms and technology companies that have entered the terminal express delivery transportation robot equipment from the actual test use link a few years ago. Not only is there a clear correlation between the two, but when combined, it will also make people more associative and confused.
Based on the relevant information, the issues to be discussed in this car intelligent driving can be roughly divided into the following three points:
1. Does the emergence of vehicle-grade express unmanned vehicles prove that the current level of unmanned technology can already promote the logistics and transportation industry to reach the stage of large-scale commercial use?
2. With the maturity of unmanned logistics distribution smart devices, will the express delivery industry be fundamentally impacted?
3. Compared with the unmanned taxi that Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing just built a "big news" not long ago, is unmanned logistics distribution more feasible for commercial operation?
The foundation has been established, and the commercial "not yet full"
In the view of car intelligent driving, the current automatic driving technology is still in the popularization period of L2+ level and the market cultivation period of L3 level.
Even if the upcoming year of 2022 is known as the "first year of L3 mass production", a large number of new models equipped with L3 level autonomous driving technology will be listed together, but in a short period of time, the L2+ level, which is mainly based on assisted driving systems, will still be the mainstream of the market. Unlike the high difficulty of achieving true driverlessness in passenger cars, L2+ level technology is sufficient for unmanned transportation equipment that acts as a "delivery robot".
Therefore, unmanned logistics transportation has generally met the hard conditions of large-scale commercial use, but it is limited to the terminal distribution scenario. The reason for this judgment is that there are two aspects of the fact supplement:
1. JD.com, Ali, SF and other enterprises have been laying out drones and unmanned vehicles several years in advance, and have achieved good market feedback.
As early as 2016, JD.com, which launched unmanned delivery vehicles and shined during the epidemic, recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Huadu District of Guangzhou City to jointly build a terminal logistics unmanned distribution demonstration zone.
Alibaba's "Little Wild Donkey" unmanned express delivery robot, which mainly focuses on major universities, also delivered more than 1 million packages during this year's Double 11 period.
SF, which pays more attention to UAV research and development, has realized the normal operation of UAV logistics and transportation at the beginning of this year, and also began to build a smart logistics park in September this year.
As such, the major technology and express delivery head enterprises have basically realized the landing application of unmanned driving in the terminal logistics scenario. Although due to security and technology limitations, there is no large-scale nationwide popularization, but as the foundation continues to consolidate, large-scale commercialization is only a matter of time.
2. The unmanned sanitation field, which has many similarities with the terminal unmanned distribution, has verified the commercial feasibility of autonomous driving technology and shown the potential of the 100 billion market.
It is also a low-speed scene in a relatively narrow scene environment, and unmanned sanitation is the same as unmanned distribution at the end, and it is not necessary to face a complex scene with a high degree of human and vehicle hybridization.
Especially in the increasing pressure of urban sanitation work, the age of sanitation workers is generally aging, and the market prospect of unmanned sanitation is also increasing year by year.
In the past three years, the sanitation service market has basically maintained a growth rate of about 5%. Referring to the scale of the national urban, county, and township sanitation service market of about 204.9 billion yuan last year, coupled with the epidemic environment, schools, communities, supermarkets and other scenes have also sought the call for unmanned sanitation empowerment, and in the next ten years, the national market demand for unmanned sanitation can probably reach about 600 billion yuan.
Moreover, the national policy also has clear support for unmanned sanitation, and more and more enterprises engaged in AI design, automatic driving, and robot research and development have joined the unmanned sanitation track. This is also enough for the terminal unmanned logistics distribution, which is enough to verify the feasibility of large-scale commercial use.
The mid-range logistics and transportation scenario represented by the "Pioneer" already belongs to the category of high-speed. Due to the more complex traffic environment of the motorized road, under the premise of maintaining safety and security, if you want to truly achieve long-distance unmanned transportation, you must at least reach the level of L4 automatic driving technology.
Although many companies have announced that they have mastered L4 autonomous driving technology and launched products for practical test applications, it is clear that the best time has not yet come for L3 autonomous vehicles to be launched on a large scale.
In addition, the policy has not yet relaxed the restrictions on L3 levels, and L4 unmanned equipment is still far from the road. Even Zhongtong Express, which is in the internal test of "Pioneer", believes that the technology can only enter the urban scene in the "next 2-3 years" to achieve effective coverage of a wider area.
Therefore, unmanned distribution in the logistics and transportation links, although it already has a technical basis for commercial landing, is only suitable for the end scenario for the time being, and there is still a long way to go from larger-scale commercialization.
Although there is still a long way to go from fully intelligent and unmanned, it is impossible to hide, behind this slow but firm rhythm, the huge impact on various industries, especially the express delivery industry.
Liberate labor costs and impact the industry in stages
The replacement of manpower by machinery is the most basic and straightforward logic in the history of human science and technology development.
The current express delivery industry is still at the level of manual operation drive, transportation channels, online store settings are important, but most of the links rely on a large number of terminal delivery couriers. For enterprises, it also means great labor costs.
For example, JD Logistics, which has surpassed SF and become the first in the industry. In the 12-year loss, in addition to the cost of channel expansion and the purchase of transportation equipment, the largest cost expenditure probably comes from the express delivery staff team that has always been known for its high quality.
The large-scale popularization of intelligent devices for unmanned distribution will inevitably liberate enterprises' dependence on manpower, and then have an impact on the industry structure. However, Che Zhi driving believes that this impact will show a certain stage and periodicity, and it will also be manifested in the following three stages:
The first stage - the large-scale popularization of intelligent unmanned distribution equipment, replacing the terminal courier.
After the baptism of the express delivery industry after a long-term price war, the price of a single ticket has dropped to a very low level, and most express delivery companies have long fallen into the trap of increasing revenue and not increasing profits. Although the current express delivery price has rebounded, it may have to rely on fundamental changes to reverse the unhealthy revenue structure of express delivery companies.
Shentong's large-scale losses, SF's predicament, and Baishi's inability to maintain being acquired by Jitu, etc., are enough to prove that at this stage, express delivery companies have fallen into the business trap of increasing revenue and not increasing profits. "Open source" is not successful, and efforts can only be made at the level of "throttling".
At present, the development of unmanned distribution in the terminal scene by major enterprises and the huge terminal courier system are likely to become the first groups to suffer the impact.
The second stage - L4 unmanned driving officially commercial landing, freight drivers suffered an impact.
As trailblazer enters beta, more similar driverless solutions may emerge next. The intelligence of the logistics mid-end transportation link does not rule out that it will also erupt in a concentrated manner in a certain period of time in the future.
Just like between L1 and L2 autonomous driving technologies, there is no particularly huge difference, and the transition time is extremely short. Between L3 and L4, there is also no "technology black box", once the threshold of L3 is crossed, the arrival of L4 driverless may come faster than imagined.
At that time, a large number of unmanned trucks that can drive on the highway, or unmanned aircraft that support larger tonnage, will continue to flood into the market. It is easy to replace the position of freight driver to further release labor costs.
The third stage - unmanned distribution replaces the traditional distribution model, forcing the "last mile" service upgrade.
After the price war subsides, the service upgrade around the "last mile" is becoming the focus of all logistics express companies.
Previously, Jitu and Baishi were punished by the relevant departments for suspected low-price dumping, which not only sounded the alarm bell for all express delivery companies, but also the brutal and rough price war competition, which is gradually becoming a thing of the past. Correspondingly, express delivery brands led by Cainiao and JD.com are occupying the market leadership with high-quality services.
After liberating sufficient labor costs, service quality will inevitably become the focus of enterprise competition. At that time, the quality of unmanned delivery equipment, and the associated customization services, will become the key to influencing the stickiness of end-consumer users.
Of course, judging from the current level of development of autonomous driving technology, there is no need to worry about the risk of industry shock at least for several years. In this way, it is inevitable to reminiscent of the regional unmanned taxi that has recently been opened by Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing for commercial landing tests.
In the two major autonomous driving market segments that opened stage tests in the same period, who can be the first to fully commercialize?
Unmanned delivery or unmanned driving, which comes first?
In any case, unmanned logistics distribution in the current period, like the driverless passenger car, is in a very early stage.
In a market with trillions of width potential, each category of segments has an immeasurable prospect. From the database of Tianyancha, it can be found that the number of companies dedicated to the driverless track has reached 10,168, and it is all over the world.
If we compare the two industries with large-scale commercialization as the standard, Chezhi Driving believes that it is likely that Zhongtong Express, which temporarily represents the practical application prospects of autonomous driving technology in the logistics industry, will achieve real large-scale commercialization earlier than Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing, which have come out on top in the regional unmanned taxi track.
After all, from the perspective of user experience, the grass-roots logic of unmanned delivery is "robots send me things", while the logic of unmanned driving is more like "robots take me out". A passive acceptance of services, an active surrender of control, based on the current stage of the user group's incomplete trust in AI technology, to exclude themselves from the robot action chain, may be more acceptable to people.
From the perspective of business logic and technology, we can compare from two aspects:
1. Under the premise of commercial use, the demand for autonomous driving technology is different.
The most ideal state of unmanned delivery and unmanned driving should be based on automatic driving technology above L4 level. However, even at the same technical level, the difficulty in practical applications is very different.
For example, the first regional unmanned taxi commercial landing project in China, "Radish Run", in addition to realizing the "unmanned" of the driver, the passenger's riding experience, safety and security, transaction payment and other links are all issues that need to be considered. This also involves autonomous driving, smart cockpits, insurance design and other more and more complex areas.
The main body of unmanned delivery is the cargo, in addition to driving on the motorized road, there is little interference from human factors in the entire transportation link. Unmanned delivery vehicles only need to consider the speed of transportation and the safety of goods, and do not need to focus more on transportation, which is relatively simple.
2. The difference between manned costs and freight costs also determines that the cost of unmanned distribution consumes less, which is more conducive to achieving profitability.
In the passenger car business, it is more for individual users, the interval between single services is shorter, and the income from single service is lower. This also means that maintenance, depreciation and other expenses will increase simultaneously, and it is necessary to rely on the accumulation of order quantities to balance revenue.
And unmanned driving does not mean that there will be absolutely no safety accidents, and the operator also bears the corresponding responsibilities and risks.
In contrast, in the freight business of logistics and distribution, the main consumer group is enterprise users, the interval between single business is longer, and the price and income of a single service are higher. At the same time, after the realization of complete unmanned driving, the long-term transportation process also greatly reduces the accident caused by the personal factors of the freight driver.
On the whole, unmanned logistics distribution, and the various chain reactions it brings, will come to our lives at a very fast speed. Although there are bright and bumpy roads ahead, I still hope that 2022, which gathers the expectations of many autonomous driving-related industries for the future, can also become a year of rapid development of unmanned distribution.