Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Shen Zhao
In recent times, the development of the autonomous driving industry can be described as rapidly changing. Following the first taxi operation license obtained by Xiaoma Zhixing in China on April 24, on April 28, Beijing issued a notice of unmanned manned demonstration application, and the first batch of enterprises, including Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing, officially opened unmanned autonomous driving travel services. This means that the "driverless behind the wheel" driverless service is opening up for the first time in China's megacities.
Pony driverless vehicle
Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of Ai Media Consulting, said that this series of initiatives has brought dawn as a driverless enterprise that has paid silently for many years, which will greatly accelerate the process of commercialization of autonomous driving. In the future, the track of autonomous driving and its related industries may become a hot land for capital.
The first batch of 14 unmanned vehicles carried out demonstration applications
On the morning of April 28, the "Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone Passenger Car Unmanned Road Test and Demonstration Application Management Implementation Rules" was officially released, and the first passenger car unmanned operation pilot was opened in China. The first batch of 14 unmanned vehicles will be invested to carry out demonstration applications, compared with the previous "self-driving taxis" equipped with safety personnel in the main driver's seat, this time it is a pilot to open the co-driver with unmanned manned personnel.
Previously, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone formulated and issued the "Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone Passenger Car Unmanned Road Testing and Demonstration Application Management Implementation Rules" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Rules"), which stipulates that the demonstration application subjects that have obtained the notice can carry out unmanned autonomous driving demonstration applications of open roads within 60 square kilometers of the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone. On the basis of unmanned road testing, the Detailed Implementing Rules put forward higher requirements for the safety management, network and data security, and risk response of test subjects.
The first batch of enterprises to obtain unmanned manned demonstration applications include Baidu, Xiaoma Zhixing and so on. Wei Dong, vice president and chief safety operation officer of Baidu Intelligent Driving Business Group, said in an interview with Yangcheng Evening News reporter that the first batch of 10 hongqi vehicles with qualifications can start operating on the road on April 28, in addition, there are currently 30 Polar Foxes that have been approved to start testing on the road, and after experiencing the government's various examination acceptances, these 30 vehicles can also be opened to the public.
Wei Dong said that Baidu obtained the license for unmanned testing in Yizhuang in 2021, during which Baidu's unmanned vehicles have undergone a large number of complete tests within the scope of the policy area. Judging from the actual offline verification, including the effect of running on the road, Baidu's unmanned vehicle can meet the set standards, and the overall comprehensive safety can be flat or surpassed by human drivers. "That's why we can have the ability and confidence to let passengers experience unmanned open operations at this point in time." Wei Dong said.
Baidu driverless vehicles
Xiaoma Zhixing said that on October 15 last year, the company obtained the unmanned road test permit for the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone. Lou Tiancheng, co-founder and CTO of Xiaoma Zhixing, said: "Since the opening of unmanned testing, Xiaoma Zhixing is implementing technology unmanned from a number of key technical indicators to ensure the stability and technical quality of the system when handling various complex scenarios, and to make sufficient redundancy plans for rare long-tail scenarios, laying a solid foundation for the next stage of mass production. According to reports, previously, Xiaoma Zhixing has opened an unmanned test of the main driver 'de-safety officer' in Beijing, Guangzhou and other cities. In Guangzhou, Xiaoma Zhixing also opened the experience of Robotaxi, which has no one in the main driving position, to special invited users, and has completed nearly 1,000 travel orders.
The commercialization of autonomous driving has ushered in an important turning point
Commercialization is the common demand of enterprises, and it is also a key step for high-tech to move from scientific research exploration to practice. In the view of industry experts, the "de-safety officerization" of unmanned vehicles is an important node in the commercial application of the industry. Chen Liteng, a life service e-commerce analyst at the E-commerce Research Center of the Network Economic Society, said in an interview with the Yangcheng Evening News reporter: "'No driver in front of the steering wheel' is an important turning point in the development of automatic driving, a manifestation of increasing maturity at the technical level, and the starting point for commercialization. ”
There is no driver in front of the steering wheel
Zhang Yi said that the issuance of unmanned manned demonstration application notices is a huge attempt from the perspective of laws and policies, market applications, and breakthroughs in enterprises. This attempt is a test of the large-scale operation and market adaptation of driverless enterprises, which is a very big step forward.
"Since the issued unit is Beijing, the capital of China, if the driverless enterprise can successfully operate here, it will also mean that the company will take a key step in obtaining trial qualifications and even obtaining relevant licenses in relevant areas of major cities across the country in the future." Zhang Yi said that this also points out the way forward for the unmanned driving industry, and the development of unmanned driving and its related industrial chain can be expected in the future.
This also coincides with the views of enterprises, Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing both told reporters that with the issuance of unmanned manned demonstration application notices in Beijing today, more and more cities in China will also begin to encourage unmanned testing of autonomous driving.
The reporter combed and found that cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen have successively issued relevant guidance and management measures for intelligent networked vehicles as early as 2018. For example, in March 2021, the Standing Committee of the Shenzhen Municipal People's Congress organized the drafting of the "Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent And Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Solicitation of Comments)" Article 44 "Commercial Charges", which mentions that the use of intelligent networked vehicles to engage in road transport business activities can collect relevant fees. It is worth mentioning that Shenzhen even announced in February this year that the "Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent And Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Comment)" will be promulgated within this year to promote Shenzhen to take the lead in realizing the commercialization of automatic driving.
"The supervision of first-tier cities only means that the angle is slightly different, for example, which field each city wants to focus on first, this may be different, but the enthusiasm and openness of the first-tier cities in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen are basically close to the degree of enthusiasm and openness towards automatic driving." Wei Dong further said: "At the end of this year or next year, I believe that the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen will achieve commercialization. ”
More application scenarios will be connected to autonomous driving
According to the "2021 China Mobility Market Data Report", the size of the online ride-hailing market in 2021 will be about 319 billion yuan, an increase of 18.54% year-on-year. The user scale was about 452 million people, an increase of 23.83% year-on-year. In the future, the market size of hundreds of billions of yuan and hundreds of millions of user groups will become an important scene for the commercialization of unmanned driving.
On April 24, Xiaoma Zhixing just announced its bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District, Guangzhou. Unlike the commercial trial operation of autonomous driving companies in the past, which is generally carried out in a specially demarcated area, or in cooperation with taxi companies or online ride-hailing platforms, the taxi operation license obtained by Xiaoma Zhixing has opened up a new path for the commercialization of autonomous driving - to open bidding with independent entities, accept policies and regulations without discrimination, and compete in the same field as other taxi companies in Nansha District, Guangzhou. Xiaoma Zhixing will invest 100 autonomous vehicles in Nansha, Guangzhou, to provide taxi services, and its charging standards will be in accordance with the unified pricing standards of guangzhou taxis.
Chen Liteng said that unlike the previous pilot operation, Xiaoma Zhixing's acquisition of the operation license means that the maturity and safety of the automatic driving technology have reached the requirements of commercial operation, which is the commercialization of the real sense of the autonomous driving technology, which is of landmark significance.
A report from CITIC Construction Investment Securities shows that at present, the competitive pattern of driverless taxis is beginning to take shape, the competition gap between head enterprises is small, and the industry is still in the stage of incremental competition. As the next development goal of the online ride-hailing industry, driverless taxis have also attracted the layout of many enterprises. The reporter combed and found that the companies currently operating driverless taxis include Didi Chuxing, Xiangdao Travel, Cao Cao Travel and Radish Run.
"There will be a relatively peak delivery period around 2024-2025." In Wei Dong's view, some national-level supporting management measures, laws and regulations related to unmanned driving will have the conditions for implementation, and the industry will usher in a peak of release. "At that time, this track is not only the platforms of Didi and Xiaoma that we see now, but all enterprises with Internet application scenarios will definitely find ways to enter, including Meituan, JD.com and so on."
"In the past, traffic was a scene where the driver was driving a motor vehicle, and we would use our mobile phones to connect with other people more often." Wei Dong said that in the future, robots (driverless vehicles) can be networked on their own, it will connect more participants to enter the field, then all content service providers, communication operators, etc. will also enter the unmanned operation field in their own way. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Image | Courtesy of respondents
Editor-in-charge | Hang Ying