This week, after Guangzhou's Nansha District issued taxi business licenses to autonomous driving companies, the Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone also announced that it would take the lead in opening up safety officers to sit in co-drivers and complete "unmanned manning". In addition, Shenzhen will also plan to issue the "Shenzhen Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Test and Demonstration Application Management Implementation Rules" within the year.
Such a dense frequency of releases can be seen in the enthusiasm of the city to support the landing of autonomous driving.
According to the analysis of international authoritative data agencies: in the future, Robotaxi will account for more than 60% of the shared travel market, and the market size is expected to exceed 1.3 trillion. Experts interviewed by Nandu Wan Finance Agency reporter also said, "Behind automatic driving + vehicle-road coordination + intelligent transportation is a trillion or even ten trillion-level emerging industries." However, under the enthusiasm, whether automatic driving can really land and avoid becoming a short-term "display" of ability has attracted much attention.
Self-driving cars on the road, the operation of the car.
Urban PK around autonomous driving
On April 28, the "Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone Passenger Car Unmanned Road Test and Demonstration Application Management Implementation Rules" was officially released, the official interpretation, this is the first time in China to carry out passenger car unmanned operation pilot, open co-driver with safety officers "unmanned" manned.
In October last year, Beijing issued the "Beijing Intelligent Connected Vehicle Policy Pilot Zone Unmanned Road Test Management Implementation Rules" clearly mentioned the direction of "unmanned manned", that is, unmanned testing allows the safety officers who were originally on duty in the driver's seat to first withdraw to the co-driver, then to the back row, and finally realize remote control outside the car.
Not long ago, Guangzhou also had new moves to support the commercialization of autonomous driving.
On April 24, Xiaoma Zhixing announced that it won the bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District, Guangzhou, and obtained the first taxi business license issued to an autonomous driving enterprise in China, which was officially included in the scope of transportation operation and management of general vehicles, and adopted the national unified taxi standardized management.
As early as July 2021, Guangzhou successively issued the "Opinions on the Policy on The Demonstration Operation Policy for the Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Autonomous Driving) in Different Mixed Environments in Different Sub-regional Trials" and the "Work Plan for Carrying Out Demonstration Operations of Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Autonomous Driving) Applications in Different Mixed Environments". According to the plan, by 2025, Guangzhou will complete multi-dimensional, comprehensive and large-scale urban traffic tests in five stages with different mixed traffic environment proportions, different participation degrees of vehicle-road collaboration, and a variety of new travel services.
Shenzhen, which is only one city away from Guangzhou, is also preparing support policies for autonomous driving.
It is understood that at present, Shenzhen has opened up about 145 kilometers of road mileage for testing, and a total of 93 road test and demonstration application notices have been issued, of which 23 are manned demonstration application notices. The new version of the "Shenzhen Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Test and Demonstration Application Management Implementation Rules" has also been publicly solicited for comments, and is expected to be issued in the first half of this year to help the rapid development of the intelligent networked vehicle industry.
In recent years, the statistical time of investment in autonomous driving enterprises in some domestic cities is until the end of 2021. Producer: Nandu Kechuang Studio.
Not only are first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen keen on autonomous driving technology, but domestic second- and third-tier cities are also enthusiastic about automatic driving.
Since the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Organizing the Pilot Work on the Coordinated Development of Smart City Infrastructure and Intelligent Connected Vehicles" in December 2020, according to preliminary statistics, 16 cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Wuxi, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Nanjing, and Jinan have become pilot cities for "double wisdom" (intelligent connected vehicles and smart cities), accelerating the deep integration of smart transportation and cities.
A golden key to open the door to trillion-level emerging industries
In 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Central Cyberspace Administration, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other eleven ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Intelligent Vehicle Innovation Development Strategy", which proposed that intelligent vehicles have become the strategic direction of the development of the global automobile industry. From a technical point of view, automobiles are gradually changing from manually controlled mechanical products to intelligent products controlled by electronic information systems.
From the perspective of industry, automobiles and related industries are fully integrated, showing the characteristics of intelligent, networked and platform-based development. From the application level, the automobile will gradually transform from a simple means of transportation into an intelligent mobile space and application terminal, becoming an important carrier of emerging formats.
From the perspective of development, some multinational enterprises have taken the lead in carrying out industrial layout, some countries have actively created a good development environment, and smart cars have become a strategic choice for automobile power.
This policy explains the value of cities promoting autonomous driving, which is like a golden key to open the door to emerging industries. As a result, the relevant cities have launched their fists and feet, and each has explored a development model.
Kong Lei, deputy director of the Management Committee of Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone and director of the Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone Work Office, once publicly stated at the electric vehicle 100 people's meeting that as the automobile industry accelerates its development towards electrification, intelligence, and networking, the future car will become a mobile intelligent terminal, computing power center and distributed energy.
The change of these three attributes determines that the car will evolve into an important node of the smart city, and will have important connections and interactions with government investment, infrastructure construction and management rules.
The relevant person in charge of the relevant government departments of Guangzhou City once introduced to the reporter of Nanduwan Finance Agency that its goal is to build a deep integration ecology of intelligent networked vehicles, intelligent transportation and smart cities. It is necessary to integrate intelligent vehicles, mobile travel and social production and life service elements, establish an ecology for the development of the all-scenario intelligent networked automobile industry, and accumulate strategic data resources for the intelligent era.
The "money scene" of autonomous driving may be more exciting.
According to the "China Autonomous Driving Market and Future Mobility Market Outlook" report released by IHSMarkit, the penetration rate of autonomous driving in the future will increase rapidly, with the penetration rate of new cars above L2 reaching at least 45% in 2025 and more than 80% in 2030. Under the current trend, it is estimated that Robotaxi will account for more than 60% of the shared mobility market in the future, and the market size is expected to exceed 1.3 trillion.
At the same time, the travel market will turn to the unmanned vehicle travel service scenario in the future, and eventually it may form a situation where 2-3 Robotaxi service providers occupy the main share of the market, or the head service providers occupy more than 40% of the market share.
"Autonomous driving + vehicle-road collaboration + intelligent transportation, behind the trillion or even ten trillion-level emerging industries, so major cities have made efforts to layout", Said Sun Chao, a researcher and doctoral supervisor at the Shenzhen Automotive Research Institute of Beijing Institute of Technology, the core attraction of autonomous driving for cities is first of all the huge imagination space, industrial scale and economic driving force behind it, and autonomous electric vehicles are the core nodes of this huge industrial chain and have a strategic position.
From hard technology to operational technology, the second half challenges the transformation ability of enterprises
Autonomous driving is an important step for cities to develop intelligence, and there are still many blueprints in the future that need to be supported and depicted by policy systems.
But for the industry, time is very tight, and the reality of the second half of the industry is very "bone feeling", and it needs to be quickly realized.
In the past, autonomous driving has been applied in some closed scenarios. Relatively speaking, although the commercial space of autonomous driving in urban operation is full of imagination, in recent years, due to the relative development of application scenarios and the involvement of topics such as travel safety, it has once attracted industry questions. To this end, autonomous driving related companies are also looking for new monetization directions.
"In the past period, the industry focused on improving the system algorithm capabilities and the level of bicycle hardware, and with the development of technology, the focus began to shift to autonomous driving operation technology." Jiang Hua, CEO of Ruqi Travel, said that for Robotaxi to truly become a service, it must be operated through the travel platform, "Because of this, two of the world's leading autonomous driving technology companies have also chosen strategic investment in Ruqi Travel." ”
"Now major cities hope to cultivate the 'Didi' in the field of Robotaxi", some insiders told the Nanduwan Finance Agency reporter that the current model of Robotaxi is actually very clear, one is like Baidu, the Internet factory integrates the industrial chain, the application of related resources, independently build Robotaxi's travel platform; the other is such as Xiaoma Zhixing, Wenyuan Zhixing and other autonomous driving enterprises with outstanding technical reserve capabilities but lack of resources at the industrial and consumer ends. Position yourself as a front-end supplier service provider or a back-end operation service provider, relying on relevant vehicle manufacturers or travel platforms to achieve commercialization.
"From the current direction of operation, everyone wants to be a platform." According to an industry source in Beijing, the current cooperation model between autonomous driving companies and car manufacturers has been relatively clear, one is out of the car, one is to give technology, and the other is to explore the launch of the city's intelligent travel platform, "In fact, it is very similar to Didi's model." "Of course, not all companies want to do this, and companies with their own technology and car-making capabilities still want to do it themselves, become a platform, and then let other related companies settle in."
Cold thinking under the enthusiasm of the industry
Accelerating the landing is the most important way for enterprises to attract government support and capital investment.
Does the continuous release of favorable policies for autonomous driving applications by multi-local policies indicate that the process of commercialization of autonomous driving has been further accelerated, and the path of business logic is clearer?
Sun Chao believes that this shows the further trust of major head enterprises and management departments in the reliability of autonomous driving technology.
However, it is not yet possible to be blindly optimistic, because as long as the safety officer is not completely eliminated, the commercialization of the scale of self-driving cars will still be hindered. The true integration of self-driving cars into life also needs to solve three major problems: high costs, the long tail effect of autonomous driving, and laws and regulations that need to be further improved.
"For autonomous driving companies, the above phenomenon is more accurate to describe with 'mixed feelings'", some practitioners in the field of automatic driving revealed to the Nanduwan Finance Agency reporter that the policy side is definitely good for the development of automatic driving technology and its commercialization attempts, and it is certainly better to "do dojo in the shell of the snail" than to be afraid of hands and feet, especially the attempt of "safety officer sitting in the co-driver" is an important symbol of the process of exploring unmanned passenger carrying;
But on the other hand, the relevant government departments are actually very clear that the healthy development of automatic driving must go to the public, to try commercial operations, to find a balance between technology, cost and related regulations, "especially in the case of many government-related departments are tightly funded, there are not so many infrastructure projects for automatic driving companies to transfuse blood, automatic driving companies either have to find another way, or resist the pressure to start 'walking independently'." An industry insider told a reporter from the Nanduwan Finance Agency.
The Beijing High-level Autonomous Driving Demonstration Zone has also made a similar public statement: the Pilot Zone has launched the final stage of the unmanned policy research work, that is, the research on the manned demonstration policy without safety personnel in the car, and in the future, it will realize that there is no one in the car through the remote assistance of the safety officer, and continue to support enterprises to carry out unmanned technology iteration and business model innovation.
However, this road is not easy to follow. Judging from the feedback from the interviewees, this involves the establishment of policies and even regulatory standards, and how to extend it to the entire city on a small scale may be a long road.
Producer: Nandu Kechuang Studio
Written by: Chen Peijun, Nanduwan Finance Society