Once upon a time, too many sci-fi movies have instilled in us scenarios where driverless cars will be achieved in the future. Nowadays, driverless driving has also become one of the important directions of research and development of car companies. Whether at home or abroad, entrepreneurs and researchers are working in full swing from L2 level intelligent driving assistance to L5 level fully unmanned driving.
With the increase in vehicle-level hardware and the frequency of road tests, autonomous driving has completed its initial stage. Last December, Waymo announced that it would partner with Geely to launch the steering-wheelless RoboTaxi model Zeekr; Cruise's origin model also removed the steering wheel. This is all a sign that it is about to achieve full driverlessness.
On the driverless road, the California Transportation Authority DMV is worth paying attention to. Because California has the largest number and longest-running global self-driving companies, a large amount of driverless test data is collected here every year, and DMV is also the first fully driverless license issuing agency.
In 2020, Antu AutoX obtained the world's second and China's first fully driverless license in California. In 2021, Baidu, Wenyuan WeRide, and Pony Pony also obtained driverless licenses issued by the California DMV.
The progress of driverless technology companies in the full unmanned license is gratifying, but there are many twists and turns in the process from testing to real landing. According to dmV official statistics, in terms of autonomous driving accidents in 2021, Wenyuan Zhixing has 3 cases, Xiaoma Zhixing has 2 accidents in 2021, 4 car accidents have occurred before 2021, and all other Chinese players have not had accidents.
Reuters also reported that a serious car accident in October 2021 caused DMV to suspend its all-unmanned test license. This also makes the road of driverless driving full of challenges, requiring enterprises to be cautious and brave.
On February 10, 2022, the California Transportation Authority DMV released a new 2021 full-year autonomous driving data, which has become a hot topic of discussion. China and the United States continue to dominate the list.
It is not difficult to see from the list that Chinese companies are at the top, and the highest ranking this time is the Chinese company AutoX Antu. The company officially opened for trial operation in January 2021. In November 2021, it was announced that it would achieve full coverage of 168 square kilometers of driverless driving in the entire pingshan district of Shenzhen.
Not long ago, the company also said that its unmanned car RoboTaxi has exceeded 1,000 units, becoming the world's largest fully driverless RoboTaxi fleet, which is indeed a hardcore company among unmanned driving companies.
However, although AutoX Has the highest takeover mileage MPI, its self-driving vehicles in California are not the largest. Instead, Waymo has the most, which shows that autoX Hastu's testing time and frequency are quite high.
AutoX Is currently tested and operated using Chrysler Grand Jaylon models, which are equipped with 6 lidars, which is one of the most advanced hardware layouts in the industry. Because, in addition to Pony and Yuanrong Qixing DeepRoute announced that they would abandon rotary lidar and use one-way radar embedded in the body, other head players also chose rotary lidar. This may be the industry's currently recognized self-driving hardware solution.
Although various autonomous driving companies have certain experience and achievements, in fact, the progress of large-scale landing of unmanned driving is not as expected, and many companies in the industry have also begun to walk on "multiple legs".
Unlike autonomous vehicles that land in specific scenarios and low-speed scenarios, RoboTaxi faces higher challenges in safety, technology, and policy licensing, and there are always difficulties in commercialization due to large investment and vehicle costs. We saw Waymo build a factory; Cruise received a $5 billion credit from GM Finance last year for mass production of the Fully Driverless Origin released in January 2020; and AutoX Antu topped the DMV's latest autonomous driving report list, all of which are glossy appearances, but in reality, they all have countless challenges to solve.
There is no doubt that the driverless industry is at the intersection of the automotive industry, the transportation industry, and the technology industry, which contains great changes in the development of contemporary science and technology, and also nurtures huge commercial and social values.
In this DMV global ranking, Chinese companies have achieved proud results, reflecting the absolute status of Chinese companies in the future RoboTaxi and even the autonomous driving industry. We have technical reserves, but also improve the commercialization capabilities, in the field of automatic driving we also have national self-confidence, these advanced autonomous driving enterprises report card also proves that the power of a strong country is unstoppable. (Tasting play)