Machine Hearts released
Machine Heart Editorial Department
Beijing is the first pilot city in China to pilot the unmanned operation of passenger cars, and Xiaoma Zhixing has become one of the first companies to open the demonstration application of unmanned autonomous driving on public roads.
Since April, the new actions of self-driving unicorn company Xiaoma Zhixing have continued.
Following the first taxi license obtained as an autonomous driving company and announced that it will invest 100 autonomous vehicles in Nansha, Guangzhou to provide taxi services within the year, Xiaoma Zhixing has made a key progress in the process of promoting the commercialization of autonomous travel services.
On April 28, Xiaoma Zhixing took the lead in obtaining the first batch of "unmanned demonstration application road test" notices in the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone, and was allowed to provide the public with an autonomous driving travel service (Robotaxi) with "no safety officer in the main driver's seat and safety officer in the co-driver's seat". Beijing has become the first city in China to start a pilot project for unmanned operation of passenger cars, and has also provided policy innovation and support for the subsequent development of unmanned testing of autonomous driving.
Peng Jun, co-founder and CEO of Xiaoma Zhixing, said: "The issuance of unmanned manned demonstration applications is a key policy node in the industry's transition from unmanned road testing to unmanned commercialization pilots, which not only has important industry significance, but also is a new breakthrough in technology from research and development to practice. The first batch of unmanned demonstration application licenses, Xiaoma Zhixing is once again at the forefront of autonomous driving technology and commercial development, laying a solid foundation for the wider market application of autonomous driving technology in the future."
Beijing Yizhuang residents will experience robotaxi travel for the first time
After obtaining the license, Xiaoma Zhixing was approved to carry out unmanned Robotaxi in the core area of 60 square kilometers of Yizhuang Economic Development Zone in Beijing. This means that Beijing citizens will have the opportunity to call an unmanned autonomous vehicle through the existing PonyPilot+ App to multiple subway stations in Yizhuang, public facilities such as parks and sports centers, as well as key business districts and residential areas.
When the driver of an autonomous vehicle without a safety officer randomly receives an order, passengers can receive exclusive prompts through the mobile app. During the drive, passengers can contact customer service remotely through the App to deal with possible unexpected problems and needs.
It is reported that as early as last November, Xiaoma Zhixing has obtained a commercial charging license for autonomous driving travel in Beijing that is "equipped with safety officers in the driver's position". Some insiders said that at present, when passengers use PonyPilot to call a car in Yizhuang, Beijing, the autonomous vehicle will drive in front of the passenger within 3 to 5 minutes, and some passengers in the early stage need to wait for half an hour to call the car. In terms of riding experience, Xiaoma Zhixing's autonomous vehicles have reached the driving level of chauffeurs.
In response to some people's concerns about the safety of driverless cars, Lou Tiancheng, co-founder and CTO of Xiaoma Zhixing, said: "The primary factor of unmanned people is definitely safety, that is, Safety First. The R&D team of Xiaoma Zhixing has been committed to the continuous improvement of vehicle safety. Today, in our operating areas, the safety of Xiaoma Zhixing's autonomous vehicles is actually comparable to the level of old human drivers. In particular, some extreme scenes, such as bad weather, rain and snow, including very complicated sections of the road during rush hour, very large intersections, etc. These are all technological progress and technological accumulation in the past few years, which have laid a solid foundation for our unmanned and commercialization."
Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone is leading the country, and Xiaoma Zhixing has repeatedly become the first batch of demonstration enterprises
The Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone has pioneered a number of policies, and Xiaoma Zhixing has repeatedly become the first batch of demonstration enterprises after policy breakthroughs, covering various test levels. Xiaoma Zhixing has successively obtained the first batch of autonomous driving passenger car and truck test licenses in the Pilot Zone, the first batch of autonomous passenger cars and truck highway test permits, the first batch of autonomous driving unmanned test licenses, and the first batch of autonomous driving unmanned demonstration application licenses issued today.
The implementation rules of this demonstration application management have introduced more comprehensive and detailed test requirements for the unmanned test of automatic driving in Beijing, and breakthroughly expanded the test scope from the original 20 square kilometers to 60 square kilometers, incorporating more abundant and complex urban road scenes, so that unmanned vehicle service providers can more quickly promote the technical attack in the unmanned field and open up the core node of the business model.
On October 15 last year, Xiaoma Zhixing obtained the unmanned road test permit in the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone, which can conduct unmanned tests in various scenarios such as unprotected left turn, multi-lane traffic, temporary construction, sand and dust, and rainwater. These technology accumulations are the basis for Xiaoma Zhixing to obtain the demonstration application license at this stage, which enables the company to successfully complete a total of 10 new detection items under the closed site test and network security test for manned scenarios in the unmanned demonstration application test technical specifications, and passed the expert review.
"Unmanned and large-scale are the next two important issues that need to be overcome in the development of autonomous driving technology. Since the unmanned test was opened, Xiaoma Zhixing is implementing technical unmanned from a number of key technical indicators to ensure the stability and technical quality of the system when dealing with 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." Lou Tiancheng said.
Global testing enhances technical prowess, and Robotaxi is moving towards a $3 trillion market
Xiaoma Zhixing has opened the unmanned test of "de-safety officer" of main drivers in Beijing, Guangzhou and other cities, and gradually expanded the scope, time and vehicle scale of the test. Among them, the company has opened the experience of Robotaxi, which has no one in the main driving position, to invited users in Guangzhou, and has completed nearly a thousand travel orders, with the purpose of collecting ride feedback, so as to quickly feed back technology research and development and service upgrades.
As of April 2022, Xiaoma Zhixing has completed a total of 200,000 kilometers of unmanned autonomous driving test mileage nationwide, carried out multiple technical verification and iteration of unmanned scenarios, and improved its capabilities in system redundancy design, remote assistance platform research and development, extreme scene processing response mechanism, fleet operation management and other links.
Pony Chi Heng's 2022 can be described as a good start. At the beginning of March this year, Xiaoma Zhixing successfully completed the Series D financing, becoming the most expensive independent autonomous driving company in China, with a valuation of 8.5 billion US dollars. According to statistics, in the five years since its establishment, Xiaoma Zhixing has basically maintained 1-2 financings per year, and investors include Sequoia Fund, China FAW, Toyota, Sidao Capital, etc.
Xiaoma Zhixing has a full-stack self-developed L4 automatic driving technology, and last year also released the sixth-generation automatic driving system, which is installed on Toyota's S-AM MPV model, which is enough to reflect that Xiaoma Zhixing's automatic driving technology has reached sufficient maturity and stability.
CITIC Securities Research Report believes that if calculated in the 2040 forward, the potential market space of Robotaxi is about 3.2 trillion yuan, and the total market space of other commercial vehicles for autonomous driving is about 3 trillion yuan, of which the urban special vehicle market has about 1.9 trillion yuan of automatic driving space, about 900 billion high-speed scenes, and about 100 billion closed scenes. With the gradual improvement of laws and regulations, the continuous progress of autonomous driving enterprises' own technologies, the gradual maturity of the upstream of the industrial chain, and the close cooperation between downstream OEMs and the scene party, the landing speed of automatic driving may accelerate.
At present, the entire autonomous driving track has entered the second half, whether it can complete the key market layout and seize the opportunity of commercial landing, truly achieve large-scale revenue, has become the key to the automatic driving company to win this event.
Pony Chi Heng's autonomous driving is still moving towards the "next sea of stars".