Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Zhang Hao Dong Liu
On April 28, Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing from Nansha District, Guangzhou City, 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 were allowed to provide the public with autonomous driving travel services with "no safety officer in the main driver's seat and safety officer in the co-driver's seat". This means that the autonomous driving industry is beginning to move from road testing to commercialization.
Just a few days ago, Xiaoma Zhixing announced that it won the bid for the 2022 taxi capacity index in Nansha District and will be officially put into operation in May, which is the first taxi operation license issued to an autonomous driving enterprise in China.
Autonomous driving, going north has always been at the forefront
Public reports show that at present, a relatively complete road test management system for autonomous vehicles has been formed in China, and local governments have also successively explored the "Chinese model" of automatic driving.
On April 28 last year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued a notice to identify six cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha and Wuxi as the first batch of pilot cities for the coordinated development of smart cities and intelligent connected vehicles.
Exploring autonomous driving, Beijing has always been at the forefront. On November 25 last year, Beijing officially launched the first pilot project of commercialization of autonomous driving travel services in China, and Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing became the first batch of enterprises to be allowed to carry out commercial pilot services, and they will invest no more than 100 autonomous vehicles to carry out commercial pilot services within 60 square kilometers of the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Zone.
On April 28 this year, Beijing issued a notice of unmanned manned demonstration application, which means that the "unmanned behind the steering wheel" autonomous driving service is opened for the first time in China's megacities.
Shanghai has also been actively promoting intelligent networked vehicles from technology research and development to commercial landing, leading the creation of four major autonomous driving test areas that are misplaced and complementary: Jiading District focuses on "first" and builds "L3+ highly automated driving innovation demonstration zone"; Lingang New Area focuses on "new" to create "future transportation new mode innovation demonstration zone"; Fengxian District focuses on "all" to create "full travel chain intelligent driving innovation demonstration zone"; Pudong New Area focuses on "wisdom" to create a "fusion transportation infrastructure innovation demonstration zone".
By the end of 2020, Shanghai has opened 253 autonomous driving test roads in four test areas: Jiading, Lingang, Fengxian and Jinqiao, with more than 5,000 test scenarios.
Eight "national firsts", Guangzhou has long been in action
Guangzhou also laid out the field of intelligent and connected vehicles early to capture the opportunities of the automatic driving industry. As one of the first cities in China to carry out road testing of autonomous vehicles, Guangzhou is the city with the lowest cost of automatic driving closed testing in The country, and is the first city in the country to propose the construction of a district-level pilot demonstration zone.
A series of policy documents have provided impetus for the development of intelligent and connected vehicles in Guangzhou. In July 2021, Guangzhou promulgated the "Opinions on the Policy on Gradually Sub-regional First Trial of The Demonstration Operation Policy for the Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Autonomous Driving) in Different Mixed Environments", the "Work Plan for Carrying Out the Demonstration Operation of Intelligent Connected Vehicle (Autonomous Driving) Applications in Different Mixed Environments", and the "Guidelines for the Application demonstration and Operation of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in the Field of Road Transport (Public Transportation)" and other policy documents, further clarifying the specific requirements for application demonstration operation activities. Scientifically and orderly promote the application demonstration operation of intelligent networked vehicles in the field of road transportation (public transportation).
The reporter combed and found that in the field of automatic driving, Guangzhou has won eight "national firsts": the first city to approve the 5G remote driving test, the first city to recognize the road test license of intelligent networked vehicles in other regions, the first city to issue passenger test licenses, the first city to carry out Robotaxi technology verification in batches, the first city to carry out road tests on the main roads in the central urban area, and the first city to obtain an online ride-hailing platform operating license for autonomous driving research and development enterprises. The first autonomous driving R&D enterprise in the jurisdiction to create a standardized process for the mass production of L4 autonomous driving, and the first city to issue a comprehensive specification for the city-level vehicle networking pilot zone.
According to data from the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Transportation, since 2019, Guangzhou has issued test licenses to 195 intelligent and connected vehicles under 11 test subjects, including Xiaoma Zhixing; the total mileage of road tests of autonomous driving enterprises is about 4.5 million kilometers, and there are no safety liability accidents.
Up to now, Guangzhou has carried out large-scale and comprehensive application pilots for road testing of city-level intelligent networked vehicles, and Guangzhou Nansha District has been approved to carry out the construction of pilot pilot areas.