On February 14, Radish Capacity (Shenzhen) Technology Co., Ltd. was approved as a demonstration application of intelligent networked vehicles in Shenzhen. Three days later, Baidu Apollo's self-driving travel service platform "Radish Run" was officially landed in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, and provided automatic driving demonstration application travel services for the public.
According to the plan, after the "Radish Run" opens the normalized demonstration application in Shenzhen, users can experience the autonomous driving travel service through the "Radish Run" App, and nearly 50 stations will be opened initially, and the running time will last from 9:00 to 17:00. The demonstration application route covers core areas such as Shenzhen Bay MixC, Poly Cultural Plaza, and Talent Park, and can provide artificial intelligence travel services for surrounding living areas, commercial areas, leisure and cultural areas, etc.
It is understood that the running route of "Radish Run" will continue to expand in the future. It is estimated that by the end of 2022, the scale of stations in the travel service area will reach more than 300, which can better meet the daily travel needs of local residents such as public transportation connection and holiday business circle transfer.
In fact, Baidu Apollo is the first enterprise to enter the field of automatic driving in China, with industry-leading technology and mature autonomous driving solutions, and its total test mileage so far has exceeded 21 million kilometers. Baidu Apollo's self-driving travel service platform "Radish Run" has also opened manned test operation services in seven cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Changsha and Cangzhou.
Although the open operation of Radish Run in Shenzhen's Nanshan District is still a free service, it has already taken the first step towards commercialization in Beijing. In Xiao Lei's view, Radish Run is the closest to achieving commercial profitability of an autonomous travel service provider.
Radish run fast, the closest to profitable Robotaxi company
As early as November 25, 2021, Beijing announced the opening of the country's first pilot for the commercialization of autonomous mobility services, which means that Robotaxi operators can carry out paid travel services in the pilot area. Thanks to the support of the policy, Radish Run got the first order of Robotaxi commercialization at the first time, becoming the first autonomous driving travel service provider in China to achieve commercialization.
According to Baidu, the number of orders for Radish Run in Q3 of 2021 reached 115,000, with an average daily order of more than 1,300 orders. Especially after the World Congress, more than 50,000 orders were ordered in a single month in September. If the average monthly order volume increases by 30% month-on-month, the average daily order volume of radish fast running Q4 will reach 1500 orders, and the total number of orders in a single quarter is expected to exceed 150,000. This also means that the cumulative order of radish fast running in the second half of 2021 will exceed 270,000 orders.
You know, Waymo, as the world's first leader in the Field of Robotaxi to achieve commercial operation, reached a fleet size of 615 vehicles in August last year. Some insiders predict that Waymo's annual order volume in 2021 is only about 160,000.
As an alternative to online ride-hailing and taxis, RoboTaxi's order volume is a key indicator of whether it can gain consumer recognition in addition to technology. Judging from the estimated results, Radish Run has significantly led Waymo in orders and become the first in the field of roboTaxi's large-scale operation.
Even if Radish Fast Has surpassed Waymo in commercial operation orders and become the closest self-driving travel service provider to profitability, it is still quite far from achieving profitability. Of course, the so-called long way from achieving profitability is not just an individual phenomenon that appears on the radish fast run, but a problem for the entire Robotaxi industry.
Commercial operation is easy, but large-scale operation is difficult
According to the statistics of the national online ride-hailing regulatory information exchange platform, a total of 704.203 million orders were received in January this year, an increase of 5.3% compared with 681.23 million in December last year. In addition, the "2021 Travel Industry Market Insights" data released by Wilson Auto Intelligent Decision shows that the transaction volume of the mainland online ride-hailing market in 2021 will reach 296.3 billion yuan. You know, in the future, Robotaxi will replace not only the traditional ride-hailing market, but also a more traditional taxi market.
Essence Securities once measured the market size of domestic Robotaxi with the formula of "total passenger mileage x penetration rate x unit price". Among them, the total mileage of domestic passengers is expected to reach 10 trillion kilometers in 2030, and the penetration rate of Robotaxi is expected to reach 6% to 22%, with a unit price of 2 yuan / km. This means that the mainland's RoboTaxi industry is expected to reach a market size of 1.2 trillion to 4.4 trillion yuan by 2030.
However, compared with the order volume of 700 million orders a month in the online ride-hailing market, the order volume of 270,000 orders for radish fast running in half a year is not even a dime. In Xiao Lei's view, the reason why online ride-hailing can obtain a large number of orders is mainly because it has a huge market size.
Although Radish Run has become a leader in Robotaxi's commercial operations, it is still in its infancy. The leader of RoboTaxi's commercial operation is still like this, and the achievements of other domestic counterparts in commercial operation are not to be said.
Interestingly, from the perspective of profitability, Baidu Apollo can be said to be the most expensive self-driving travel service provider in China, and it is also the most eager to make money.
In order to mass-produce, Baidu Apollo racked its brains to reduce costs
As we all know, due to Robotaxi's aggressive technology route, no self-driving mobility service provider has been able to make a profit so far. As a self-driving travel service provider under Baidu Apollo, Radish Run has a financially strong Baidu as a backer, so it basically does not have to worry about money in the development process. However, Baidu Apollo, which is not bad for money, is always racking its brains to think about how to open source and reduce expenditure.
In order to achieve large-scale mass production and cover the market as soon as possible, Baidu released the Apollo Moon, a fifth-generation shared unmanned vehicle, as early as June 2021. The vehicle cost of this model, including the car and the L4 level automatic driving kit, is only 480,000 yuan, and its cost has entered the operating cost range of the online car for the first time, which is only one-third of the average cost of the L4 level autonomous driving model in the industry.
In terms of operating costs, Xiao Lei learned through a conversation with a double-shift taxi driver in Guangzhou that his turnover last month was about 14,000 yuan, and after removing the cost of class property (share money), social security, charging, parking and other expenses, the average monthly income that could be obtained was about 6,000 yuan.
From the perspective of taxi and online ride-hailing operators' profitability, assuming that the cost of traditional taxi vehicles is 150,000 yuan, the operating cycle of each taxi is 5 years, the monthly revenue capacity is 28,000 yuan, and the labor cost of 12,000 yuan per month needs to be spent, then each taxi can make a profit of 810,000 yuan in 5 years. ( Reference formula: monthly revenue * operating cycle - vehicle cost - (driver cost * operating cycle) = profitability of a single taxi for 5 years)
If you bring in the above-mentioned bicycle turnover of 28,000 yuan of data calculation, because Baidu Apollo Moon can achieve unmanned driving, and does not need to spend labor costs, so it only needs to remove 480,000 yuan of vehicle costs in 5 years of operation, and it can make a profit of 1.2 million yuan in 5 years. (Refer to the formula: monthly revenue * operating cycle - vehicle cost = Profitability of Baidu Apollo Moon in 5 years)
Since the factors taken into account in the above formula are not comprehensive, the data obtained are for reference only. Nevertheless, if Baidu Apollo Moon can control the cost of the vehicle within 480,000 yuan, its profitability can also be imagined.
Of course, for the above formula to be valid, there must be two prerequisites, otherwise everything is empty talk. First, Baidu must obtain enough official licenses for government licenses to operate on the road; second, Baidu Apollo Moon must have the ability to mass-produce and quickly cover the market.
Note: The material for this article comes from the Internet