Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
Author | Mumi
Edited by | Xiaohan
How far is Robotaxi from being truly commercialized?
In the past few years, the autonomous driving industry has developed rapidly, the speed of technology iteration has been accelerating, and capital, talent, and various entrepreneurial stories have poured into this track, but commercialization is still a mountain in front of everyone's eyes.
Autonomous driving companies have suffered from the fact that autonomous vehicles can only be tested and cannot be mass-produced on a large scale, and have been operating for a long time. Entrepreneurs on this road, while climbing the self-driving Everest, struggle to explore the thorny path of commercialization.
Recently, Xiaoma Zhixing took the lead in coming up with an answer to break through the dilemma of commercialization of autonomous vehicles.
On April 24, Xiaoma Zhixing announced that it won the bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District, Guangzhou, and will invest 100 autonomous vehicles to provide taxi services. This is the first taxi operating license issued to an autonomous driving enterprise in China.
Xiaoma Zhixing won the bid for the Taxi Capacity Index in Nansha, Guangzhou
But this is not the first time that Xiaoma Zhixing has made progress in the commercialization of Robotaxi, as the first batch of autonomous driving demonstration enterprises in the Beijing Economic Development Zone last November, Xiaoma Zhixing has been approved to carry out the commercial trial operation of autonomous driving, but at that time, the commercial operation of Xiaoma Zhixing still belongs to the scope of automatic driving testing.
The latest policy of the Guangzhou Municipal Government shows that Guangzhou allows autonomous vehicles that meet the safety technical requirements of the city's intelligent networked vehicle demonstration operation to provide taxi operation services, which means that autonomous vehicles are officially included in the transportation operation and management of general vehicles, and the national unified taxi standardization management is adopted.
In other words, the new fleet of Xiaoma Zhixing has jumped out of the original Robotaxi test car category and begun to truly face the "human taxi" on the market. It can be said that the clarion call for accelerated commercialization in the autonomous driving industry has once again sounded.
First, landed in Guangzhou Robotaxi into a real taxi
In late spring and early summer, Guangzhou is hot and humid, making people want to go to the beach and blow the salty, wet and cool sea breeze. At present, the people of Yangcheng, who cannot go to Sanya, may want to go to Nansha for a visit.
In the past year, on the streets of Nansha, from time to time, there will be some unmanned vehicles with empty driving seats passing through. Now these unmanned vehicles have officially joined the ranks of taxis – Xiaoma Zhixing has been allowed to invest 100 autonomous vehicles in Nansha, Guangzhou, to provide taxi services.
It is expected that from May, Xiaoma Zhixing will start charging operation of self-driving taxis in the entire area of Nansha in 803 square kilometers, and gradually expand its services to other parts of Guangzhou, benefiting more Guangzhou citizens.
According to official information, passengers can use the service and complete the payment through the PonyPilot+ App of Xiaoma Zhixing, the service period is from 8:30 to 22:30, and the charging standard is according to the unified pricing standard of taxis in Guangzhou.
Xiaoma Zhixing self-driving taxi will operate in Nansha, Guangzhou
Mo Luyi, vice president of Xiaoma Zhixing and head of the Guangshen R&D Center, said in a recent media interview that this time the taxi operation license jumped out of the category of ordinary test vehicles and was the first license issued for a formal operating vehicle.
Last year, Xiaoma Zhixing also obtained the pilot license for commercial charging for autonomous driving in Beijing, but it was still within the scope of testing vehicles at that time. The policy background of the driverless taxi launched by Xiaoma Zhixing in Guangzhou is that Guangzhou officially launched the pilot of autonomous driving mixed driving last summer.
In the next few years, Guangzhou will gradually introduce autonomous vehicles and general vehicles in the demonstration area for commercial operation in the demonstration area in stages.
In this sense, this progress by Pony Chi Heng means that the Robotaxi has truly become an officially recognized taxi, which makes a clear distinction from the previous self-driving development test vehicles – from testing to operation, which is indeed a key step in the commercialization of autonomous driving.
Second, the technology stands on the ground The automatic driving system continues to iterate
Looking back at the more than 1,900 days that Ma Zhi has walked, an important basis for the company to take the lead in the commercialization process of Robotaxi is that its own technology is tough enough.
Just at the beginning of this year, Xiaoma Zhixing has preemptively released its sixth-generation automatic driving system. The system aims at the mass production design of the vehicle rules, and by introducing solid-state lidar and Nvidia Orin chips, it makes up for the shortcomings of the conventional autonomous driving system that is difficult to regulate and costly. At the same time, it is also highly integrated, lightweight and aesthetically pleasing in its shape design, and can be integrated with the original car.
In order to meet the requirements of vehicle-level mass production, the team of Xiaoma Zhixing has developed 24 core hardware modules on its own, and has made a number of breakthroughs in performance improvement and cost control, including a computing platform that fully adapts to the automatic driving function and a signal light recognition camera.
Xiaoma Zhixing CTO Lou Tiancheng said that the scale requirements of automatic driving technology can achieve automatic driving in a sufficiently large range, reduce costs, and meet commercial needs.
At present, autonomous driving technology is on the eve of large-scale mass production applications, and companies are constantly expanding the scale of testing and trial operations in order to seize the opportunity in the future era of unmanned driving. Obviously, the latest self-driving system launched by Xiaoma Zhixing is aimed at the outlet of mass production. Wang Haojun, chief operating officer of Xiaoma Zhixing and head of the Shanghai R&D Center, told Chedong that the autopilot system of vehicle-level mass production will be put into use at the end of this year and early next year.
Thanks to the excellent technical strength, Xiaoma Zhixing also showed many highlights in the road test.
In terms of test mileage, according to the three-party real-time data supervision statistics of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in Guangzhou, by the end of 2021, Xiaoma Zhixing will carry out the first test mileage in Guangzhou, contributing more than half of the test mileage of automatic driving in Guangzhou. Among them, the automatic driving mode accounted for 98% of the test mileage accumulated by Xiaoma Zhixing, exceeding the industry average by 70.6%.
In the middle of last year, Xiaoma Zhixing also officially announced that it had launched a fully unmanned autonomous driving road test in Guangzhou to remove the safety officer, and its unmanned vehicle could cope with even challenging weather conditions such as heavy rain, sandstorms and smog weather.
After announcing the opening of the completely unmanned vehicle, the official of Xiaoma Zhixing also released a video, Peng Jun, co-founder and CEO of Xiaoma Zhixing, and Lou Tiancheng, co-founder and CTO of Xiaoma Zhixing, personally experienced Xiaoma Zhixing's fully driverless vehicle in Guangzhou.
As can be seen from the video, The unmanned vehicle of Xiaoma Zhixing can accurately monitor the condition of vehicles, electric vehicles and pedestrians on the road, and plan the most suitable vehicle driving trajectory and make stable driving behavior.
Throughout the experience process, the vehicle did not have sharp braking and hesitation, and the driving process of the vehicle was very smooth, and it could also solve more unexpected situations. Peng Jun even took a nap in the process of experience, and Lou Tiancheng once picked up his mobile phone to reply to the message, this detail also truly reflects two points, one is that the comfort of the vehicle is very high, and the other point also reflects the absolute trust of the two founders in their own technology.
In addition to passenger cars, the technical strength of Xiaoma Zhixing in the field of self-driving trucks is also obvious to all. Not long ago, Xiaoma Zhixing released a video of nearly 6 hours of self-driving truck driving, the whole 405 kilometers, through 5 highways, in and out of the ramp 9 times, through 13 tunnels, the longest tunnel is 4.2 kilometers, and there is no record of takeover.
And in the nearly six-hour journey, the self-driving truck also encountered bad weather such as rain and fog, frequent splashes of water, and common scenes such as night driving, tunnel traffic, large curvature ramps, faulty cars crowding the lanes, and slow cars in front.
However, in the face of complex and diverse working conditions, Xiaoma Zhixing's self-driving truck accurately identified 4806 dynamic traffic participants, and also executed 4235 steering commands, 1052 acceleration and braking instructions, and finally successfully completed the driving task.
It can be said that doing a solid job in technology and polishing its own products is one of the important factors for Xiaoma Zhixing to win this license.
Third, make the circle of friends go hand in hand with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain
Of course, in addition to doing a good job in technology, for autonomous driving companies, another important part of commercialization is how to open up the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain.
In terms of front-loading and mass production, Xiaoma Zhixing has established close cooperation with Toyota, Hyundai, GAC, FAW and other car companies, accumulating valuable experience for the front-loading mass production of driverless cars.
For example, the latest generation of Robotaxi in China is based on Toyota Lexus RX, the sensor suite and the body are integrated, and the installation, calibration and testing of the sensor are completed when the vehicle is off the line, ensuring the safety and reliability of the unmanned vehicle from the hardware.
Pony Zhixing's autonomous vehicle
On the travel platform, Xiaoma Zhixing has also established its own circle of friends. In November last year, Xiaoma Zhixing announced that it has cooperated with GAC Group Ruqi Travel to jointly promote the commercialization of Robotaxi. Just a few days ago, after Xiaoma Zhixing obtained the first self-driving taxi capacity index in Guangzhou, the company once again announced that it had reached a cooperation with Ruqi Travel, a mobility platform under the GAC Group, to build a fleet of 100 self-driving taxis and open Robotaxi operations in Guangzhou within the year.
In terms of cooperation with parts manufacturers, Xiaoma Zhixing also adopts NVIDIA's DRIVE Orin system-level chips, launches a computing unit solution with different computing power configurations, and bases on one or more Nvidia Orin system-level chips and NVIDIA vehicle-grade Ampere architecture GPUs, which can meet the application of a variety of automatic driving scenarios and their redundant systems, and accelerate the large-scale mass production of Xiaoma Zhixing passenger car and commercial vehicle autonomous driving technology.
In terms of high-precision map cooperation, in March this year, Xiaoma Zhixing also announced that it had reached a cooperation with NavInfo, once again winning the industry's leading supplier partner.
In general, the "circle of friends" of Xiaoma Zhixing is gradually expanding, and the increasingly complete travel-related industry chain ecology has also played an important role in promoting the development of Xiaoma Zhixing - for example, it has cooperated with NVIDIA, NavInfo and other head supplier companies to provide software and hardware guarantees for Xiaoma Zhixing to build a mass-produced automatic driving system; and active cooperation with the travel platform has ensured that Xiaoma Zhixing's self-driving taxis can quickly reach a wider user base, quickly provide travel services, and accumulate commercial experience.
Fourth, the industry's top students lead the technology landing process all the way
Since its establishment five years ago, Xiaoma Zhixing has almost been the "other person's child" in the autonomous driving circle.
The two founders, Peng Jun and Lou Tiancheng, are both technical bulls from the class, and the industry's well-known names - Peng Jun was once a T11 engineer of Baidu, and Lou Tiancheng was once Baidu's youngest T10-level employee, and was also known as the "Landlord of the Building". Under the call of these two technical bulls, Xiaoma Zhixing has formed a team with very outstanding technical ability.
In June 2017, after only more than half a year of establishment, Xiaoma Zhixing obtained the California autonomous driving road test license, opened the United States public road test, and in October of the same year, it also opened the road test of automatic driving in Guangzhou, and landed China's first normalized operation of the automatic driving fleet in Guangzhou in 2018. A year and a half after its establishment, Xiaoma Zhixing won the first T3-level autonomous driving test license in Beijing...
It can be said that Xiaoma Zhixing has been an excellent student in the industry all the way. In terms of commercial breakthroughs, it has also become the first batch of demonstration enterprises in many places after the breakthrough of autonomous driving commercialization policies with its own excellent technology and continuous accumulation of commercial operation experience.
On November 25, 2021, Beijing opened the country's first pilot of autonomous driving commercial services. At that time, the industry generally believed that Beijing took the lead in opening up payment, which meant that the industry officially opened the timeline of verification of the commercial model of autonomous driving, and the technology would also enter the travel service market in a more product-oriented form.
As one of the first enterprises to obtain permission for pilot operation, Xiaoma Zhixing will also transition its PonyPilot+ autonomous vehicles from free experience to paid experience service in the normal operation of the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone (Yizhuang).
In November 2021, Xiaoma Zhixing launched a pilot project for the commercialization of Robotaxi in Beijing
In less than half a year, Xiaoma Zhixing obtained a taxi road transport business license in Guangzhou.
It is worth noting that Xiaoma Zhixing is the first batch of demonstration enterprises after Guangzhou officially launched the pilot of autonomous driving mixed driving in July last year. According to the Guangzhou Municipal Government's "Opinions on the Implementation of the Demonstration Operation Policy for the Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Autonomous Driving) in Different Mixed Environments in Different Mixed Environments" and other policy documents issued by the Guangzhou Municipal Government last year, the pilot areas for road testing of intelligent and connected vehicles in Guangzhou such as Nansha District will gradually carry out mixed pilots.
On January 6 this year, Nansha District of Guangzhou Issued the "Implementation Rules for road testing of intelligent and connected vehicles in Nansha District (Trial)", proposing that if the total driving mileage of no less than 200,000 kilometers has been completed in the three-level test section of Guangzhou City, and no active liability traffic accident or loss of control has occurred, demonstration operations can be carried out in accordance with relevant regulations, and priority will be given to supporting vehicles that meet the safety technical standards (passenger cars) of the mixed-driving pilot to carry out autonomous taxi demonstration operations in the area.
Thanks to the excellent test data, Xiaoma Zhixing became one of the first self-driving companies to win the taxi capacity index under the background of the mixed driving pilot, and once again walked in the forefront of the industry.
Conclusion: The pace of commercialization of autonomous driving is accelerating
As the pace of iteration of technology and commercialization in the autonomous driving industry continues to accelerate, more and more autonomous vehicles are pouring into people's daily lives.
As the first self-driving company in China to obtain a local taxi business license, Xiaoma Zhixing can be said to have taken a key step on its own autonomous driving commercialization road. For the entire autonomous driving industry, this signal released by the Guangzhou Municipal Government also shows the recognition and support for autonomous driving technology, and it is believed that in the near future, larger-scale autonomous driving commercialization will be carried out faster.