On April 12, a news item "where is the blockage of Shanghai's material distribution" "ran" on the hot search. When the reporter asked this question at the press conference on the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on the same day, Liu Min, deputy director of the Municipal Commission of Commerce, introduced that many riders could not take up their posts because of the sealing and control, so that the citizens felt that the terminal delivery was not smooth...
When the press conference heard here, some netizens commented: When will unmanned delivery vehicles replace riders?
In fact, in order to release manpower, alleviate the overload of community workers, and further realize "contactless distribution", unmanned delivery vehicles have become a scientific and technological force in Shanghai's fight against the epidemic.
With the accumulation of anti-epidemic experience in the past two years, unmanned distribution has reached the level of scene operation. With the policy of Dongfeng and the heat of capital, as well as the maturity of the industrial chain, unmanned delivery vehicles will usher in greater development space in the next three years.
Science and technology anti-epidemic: unmanned distribution initially has the level of scene operation
As Shanghai's epidemic prevention and control work enters a critical stage, most residents will face the problem of insufficient transportation capacity in the process of shopping, and the scientific and technological forces in logistics and transportation are also playing an increasingly important role in the epidemic.
Image source: Jingdong blackboard official micro
On April 10, at the press conference on the prevention and control of the epidemic in Shanghai, Wang Wenbo, vice president of Jingdong Group, said that Jingdong Logistics continued to increase investment in transportation capacity and use intelligent logistics technology to improve efficiency, and has dispatched a large number of the latest fifth-generation unmanned intelligent express vehicles to carry out contactless distribution in the sealed area, and will continue to add unmanned vehicles in the follow-up.
Last week, Mao Fang, vice president of Meituan, introduced at a press conference on epidemic prevention and control in Shanghai that a batch of automatic delivery vehicles (Meituan Magic Bag 20) dispatched by Meituan from Beijing have been put into use in Shanghai. At about the same time, some netizens released relevant videos: At the Meituan site in Kangqiao, Pudong, the Meituan small yellow car has been put into use to help community volunteers solve the "last kilometer".
Not only the top Internet giants, but also autonomous driving startups have joined the fight against the epidemic and supported Shanghai in the form of technology. For example, on April 6, the little magic camel of Zhixing has entered the Shanda Garden in Xuhui District to distribute express delivery, daily necessities, medicines and epidemic prevention supplies to residents to help the community fight against the epidemic; neolithic unmanned vehicles mainly provide unmanned vegetable sales services after entering a number of closed communities in Shanghai...
According to the official introduction, the above-mentioned unmanned delivery vehicles basically have L4 level automatic driving capabilities, which can meet the needs of epidemic prevention materials distribution from single point to multi-point; vehicles are equipped with laser radar, high-definition cameras and other sensors to ensure the safety of automatic driving capabilities. After completing the preliminary vehicle commissioning and road condition tests, the vehicle can drive autonomously according to the route instructions and complete the delivery task without contact, minimizing the risk of personnel exposure.
On the whole, relevant technology companies are intensively deploying unmanned distribution in the Shanghai epidemic, and to a certain extent, they have the level of actual scene operation.
Meituan automatic delivery truck on the way from Beijing to Shanghai; Image source: Hesai Technology
Compared with the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, the level of the domestic unmanned delivery vehicle industry has improved to a certain extent. In the view of the analysts of the Gaz Automotive Research Institute, the technology companies represented by Ali, JD.com, Meituan, etc. continue to combine their own advantages in e-commerce logistics, supermarket express delivery, takeaway and park logistics, and constantly test related unmanned distribution products on a large scale, and the stability and reliability of products have been greatly improved.
Kong Qi of Jingdong Group has publicly introduced that through the practice of Wuhan, the company realized that the test data of Yizhuang's unmanned delivery vehicle has the ability to be remotely deployed and generalized - Beijing's code and parameters can be completely separated from security officers in Wuhan to do tasks, and there is no need for special technical personnel.
During the epidemic in Guangzhou last year, JD.com accumulated more experience in remote deployment. "The whole process is basically foolproof, we can complete this task in a closed loop," Kong Qi said bluntly.
It is true that with the increase in the number of unmanned delivery vehicle practices, enterprises can quickly iterate products through user feedback data. Taking Meituan as an example, this is the seventh time that its automatic delivery vehicles have rushed to the front line to support the fight against the epidemic, and before that, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu and other places have left the figure of small yellow cars.
Multiple benefits, unmanned distribution potential energy enhancement
In fact, in addition to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, unmanned distribution involves important areas such as people's livelihood and is an important engine driving the digital economy. In recent years, the rise of express delivery, takeaway and other industries, the mainland's current logistics, distribution end of the market demand is huge. Taking the express delivery industry as an example, in 2021, the mainland express delivery business volume reached 108.3 billion pieces, an increase of 29.9% year-on-year, and the number of parcels accounted for more than half of the world. In the face of the market of 100 billion, according to relevant research, the phenomenon of insufficient supply of couriers will exist for a long time in the future - the gap of couriers will be about 1 million people after 2021.
In view of this, traditional logistics companies and autonomous driving startups have entered the market to develop unmanned delivery vehicles to achieve the purpose of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
At the same time, the benefits at the industrial chain, policy and capital levels also allow unmanned distribution to usher in the opportunity to show their fists.
In the past two years, with the unmanned vehicle delivery service successively entering the test field including takeaway, express delivery and other scenarios, the industrial chain related to unmanned delivery has initially taken shape. Specifically, the upstream key parts suppliers of unmanned delivery vehicles have developed rapidly, such as Hesai Technology, Horizon and other parts manufacturers; the midstream (solution company) has both technology accumulation and capital and resource advantages, such as Jingdong and start-ups; the downstream is mainly traditional distribution service providers, distribution demand side, there is a steady stream of distribution demand, such as: Ali, Meituan, etc.
Image source: Shanghai Jiading WeChat
At the policy level, in the "14th Five-Year Plan" important planning, including the "14th Five-Year" Digital Economy Development Plan, the "14th Five-Year Plan" Modern Comprehensive Transportation System Development Plan, the "14th Five-Year Plan" Urban and Rural Community Service System Construction Plan, etc., the R&D and application of unmanned distribution has been mentioned many times. To a certain extent, this can also show that the industrial value and application direction related to unmanned distribution are recognized by the state.
Especially after unmanned distribution gradually enters the trial stage, local governments further release directional and regional management programs. Taking Beijing as an example, Yizhuang and Shunyi have successively formulated the Implementation Rules for the Management of Unmanned Delivery Vehicles and the Implementation Guidelines for the Management of Unmanned Delivery Vehicles, giving unmanned delivery vehicles the corresponding right of way and accelerating the commercialization of large-scale scenario applications of unmanned delivery.
From the perspective of capital, unmanned distribution companies will usher in a wave of financing boom in 2021. According to the public information of incomplete statistics, in 2021, the financing of unmanned distribution enterprises was 14 times, an increase of 3.5 times compared with 2020; the amount of financing exceeded 3 billion yuan, an increase of more than 15 times compared with 2020. Moreover, many well-known investment institutions, including Chentao Capital, CICC Capital, Hillhouse Capital, etc., have layouts.
Image source: Mitsuru Chi Heng
Entering 2022, the certainty of the unmanned delivery track will be further enhanced, the capital heat may continue to climb, and the industry may be closer to the outlet. On April 12, the official announcement of the end of the wisdom bank announced that it had obtained hundreds of millions of yuan of A+ round financing. This round of financing was led by the Bank of China's direct investment platform "Bank of China Group Investment Co., Ltd.", and Shougang Group's Shoucheng Holdings followed. It is reported that the funds raised in this round will be used to strengthen the investment in autonomous driving research and development and the construction of the talent system of The Wisdom Walk, and help the company further establish barriers to competition in the industry.
It will take time before the real mass production lands
"Although unmanned delivery is gradually approaching, it still needs a process to truly commercialize the landing." Ms. Zhao, who focuses on the field of unmanned driving, said in an interview with Gaz Motors.
According to the views of industry insiders, if you want to open up the last mile without obstacles, you need to have more breakthroughs in technology and cost. The relevant views held by the analysts of the Gaz Automotive Research Institute include that there is still room for the decline in the cost of unmanned delivery vehicles in some enterprises, coupled with the high costs of vehicle operation, manual services and monitoring services, it is difficult to meet the low-cost needs of the scene user demand side; unmanned delivery vehicles are still unable to cope with unexpected scenarios and instant events, and there are security risks.
Many people's initial impression is that the unmanned delivery vehicle track has the advantages of low speed, cargo and commercial at the same time, and is more technically achievable, but now it seems that in order to achieve commercialization, the technical requirements of unmanned delivery vehicles are not lower than those of passenger cars.
Image source: Ali
Last month, some netizens posted pictures on the Internet: On the campus of Henan University, Ali's "little wild donkey" used for unmanned delivery unfortunately drove into a piece of undried cement ground that had not been under construction, overturned on the spot, and caused students to laugh and watch.
Generally speaking, the reasons for the "little wild donkey" overturning are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: on the one hand, the camera and lidar have not been able to identify the wet cement floor in the daytime scene; on the other hand, for the "little wild donkey", the wet cement ground belongs to the blind spot scene of the current test, similar to the "long tail scene". Long-tail scenes refer to many types, low frequency or sudden scenes, such as vehicles running red lights, pedestrians crossing the road, etc., which will bring challenges to the passage of unmanned delivery vehicles.
It is true that for urban scenes, although the driving speed of unmanned delivery vehicles is low, in non-motorized lanes, because of the interaction between pedestrians and vehicles, the situation that the perception algorithm needs to deal with will be even more challenging.
So, if the environment for unmanned vehicles is set up in a closed park, will the effect be very good? The answer may not be as optimistic as we might think. Some entrepreneurs said in an interview with reporters: "The industrial park does not have established vehicle and pedestrian driving norms, but it will make unmanned logistics vehicles encounter more obstacles." ”
Image source: Neolithic unmanned vehicle
Looking at the cost, the price is still an important factor restricting the large-scale application of unmanned delivery vehicles. According to the prediction of Chentao Capital, the cost of unmanned delivery vehicles will vary greatly depending on the model (chassis + top), sensor scheme, and calculation platform choice, and at present, some companies can achieve a vehicle cost of about 200,000 to 250,000 yuan, and some companies have a vehicle cost of about 500,000 yuan, and there is still room for optimization.
However, as mentioned earlier, the upstream parts suppliers of unmanned delivery vehicles are developing rapidly, which also means that there should be more room for cost reduction in their follow-up. On the one hand, independent parts and components enterprises in the supply chain more and more involved, domestic chips, computing platforms, chassis and lidar and other components of the stability has been improved, unmanned delivery vehicles can use the advantages of localization to reduce costs; on the other hand, with the continuous advancement of mass production plans, the hardware cost of unmanned delivery vehicles will also be reduced with the increase in the scale of procurement.
Ms. Zhao and the above-mentioned entrepreneurs also basically agree with Chentao Capital's point of view: in the next 3 years, the cost of unmanned delivery vehicles may gradually drop to less than 100,000 yuan. At that time, the mass production of unmanned delivery people may usher in an inflection point.
All in all, the vigorous development of autonomous driving technology is a major trend in the industry, and unmanned distribution is also a track that is expected to usher in an outbreak. Although the technology and commercialization process needs to be optimized, in view of the vast market and perfect industrial chain, as well as the "East Wind" at the policy and capital levels, unmanned distribution leaves people with more room for imagination.