Image source @ Visual China
Text | OneDU Finance
Recent news has made people feel that the pace of commercialization of autonomous driving is getting faster and faster.
On April 19, the self-driving company Millima Zhixing, which was independently formed by the former Intelligent Driving Development Department of Great Wall Motors, released a terminal logistics automatic delivery vehicle- The Mo moose 2.0, priced at 128,800 yuan, pulling the price of such products to the level of 100,000 yuan for the first time.
On April 24, Xiaoma Zhixing obtained the "Taxi Business License", becoming the first autonomous driving enterprise in China to obtain a taxi business license. Xiaoma Zhixing was allowed to invest 100 autonomous vehicles in Nansha, Guangzhou, to provide taxi services, and the pricing was the same as that of ordinary taxis in Guangzhou.
On April 28, Beijing issued a notice of unmanned manned demonstration application, and Baidu and Xiaoma Zhixing obtained pilot qualifications. Within 60 square kilometers of the Yizhuang Development Zone, "unmanned" eliminated the safety officers in the main driver's seat of the vehicle and moved to the passenger seat.
These news convey the latest developments in hardware costs, commercial charges, and labor costs in the autonomous driving industry.
The commercialization of autonomous driving, a bit like the story of "the wolf is coming", has been shouted many times, the wolf (real commercialization) has not yet come, but people believe that it has always been there, and it will come. Before it comes, we need to see a few questions.
01 Ripening or natural ripening
The commercialization of autonomous driving is affected by at least four dimensions: policy, capital, technology, and market.
The policy is undoubtedly actively supported. At the national level, it involves multiple dimensions such as industrial planning, technical specifications, standard formulation, and management norms. Among them, important policies involving testing, landing and commercialization include the "Management Specification for Road Testing of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (Trial)" in 2018, the "Management Specification for Road Testing and Demonstration Application of Intelligent Connected Vehicles in 2021 (Trial)" and the "Three-Year Action Plan for the Construction of New Infrastructure of the Internet of Things (2021-2023)".
At the local level, Beijing, Shanghai, Henan, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Anhui, Hubei, Fujian and other places have clearly proposed policies related to the construction of autonomous driving commercial application demonstration zones.
However, on the whole, the attitude of the policy is relatively cautious, and it is gradually opened up, and under the premise of safety and compliance, it is close to commercialization step by step. With the latest policy, Guangzhou has issued taxi license plates to autonomous vehicles, and Beijing has allowed "no one behind the steering wheel", that is, the main driving position of the autonomous vehicle can be without safety officers, but the co-pilot position also needs someone. These two are already no small breakthroughs.
Why is "unmanned" so important? For autonomous driving, the cost of drivers can be truly profitable. Otherwise, the high hardware cost + the labor cost of the safety officer, the cost of the self-driving taxi business is too high, it is difficult to make a profit.
In terms of capital, capital's enthusiasm for autonomous driving is also high, but it has also reached the stage of harvesting fruits.
The first peak was from 2015 to 2018. Around 2015, a number of autonomous driving companies were born, and the valuation of the project rose. According to the data of the Nandu Intelligent Automobile Industry Ecology Research Group, in the past four years, the number of investments in the field of autonomous driving has been 17, 32, 55 and 76 respectively.
2019 to 2020 is relatively low, but also maintained more than 50 investments. Entering 2021, the field of autonomous driving has once again ushered in a peak. According to the data of Yiou Think Tank, 2021 is the time period for intensive financing of head autonomous driving companies, with a total investment and financing amount of 57.5 billion yuan and 107 financing times.
If the first wave of peak, capital is looking at the track dividend, first take the target of automatic driving and then say. Financing from 2021, then, is more about the potential for commercialization. Moreover, in 2021, some autonomous driving companies have been listed one after another, and the capital has reached the time to cash out.
Some insiders said that the basic financing of autonomous driving companies established in 2015 and 2016 has entered the C and D rounds. Compared with other industry companies entering this stage, only self-driving companies have a pitifully small revenue. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on the commercialization of various companies.
As a result, Baidu, Xiaoma Zhixing, Wenyuan Zhixing, Yuanrong Qixing, AutoX, Momenta and other companies launched Robotaxi business in China, hoping to take the lead in the commercialization of autonomous driving manned vehicles.
In terms of technology, Gartner's emerging technology maturity curve released in 2019 predicts that the realization of L4 autonomous driving technology will take more than 10 years. L4 means that in most good road conditions, the car is fully autonomous.
However, for autonomous driving to be on the road on a large scale, 5G communication is also needed, as well as the coordination of roadside and cloud intelligence, and the integration of vehicles and roads and clouds has just begun.
The market dimension is mainly the user's acceptance of autonomous vehicles. Last year, J.D. Power and the Global Times jointly released the "2021 China Consumer Self-Driving Confidence Index Survey". When asked if they would buy driverless cars, more than half of consumers said they would "wait and see for a while and then consider it," 12 percent said they "don't consider buying at all," and only 1 percent were "very willing to buy."
Concerns about safety are the biggest contributor to acceptance of autonomous driving. In August last year, after the owner of the NIO ES8 activated the automatic driving function (NOP pilot status), a traffic accident occurred and unfortunately passed away, triggering a new round of concerns about the safety of automatic driving.
Not long ago, Tan Xuguang, chairman and CEO of Weichai Group, said that unmanned driving is a flicker. "Assisted driving is the hope that certain environments can be achieved. Heavy trucks are assisted driving, it is impossible to have no one! Don't listen to them, what L1 is OK, L2 is also so-so, L3 is impossible. ”。
This is actually the real reaction of the market to the contradiction of autonomous driving: it welcomes new things, but also is full of worry and doubt. From raising market awareness, to building consumer confidence, to facilitating purchases, autonomous driving is bound to go through a long and challenging process.
If commercialization is the fruit of autonomous driving, then, from the above four dimensions, in addition to funds, the other dimensions are not very mature. However, the pressure of capital and the pressure of market competition have played a role in promoting ripening and accelerating the commercialization process of automatic driving.
02 Manned or loaded
Standing on the eve of commercialization, autonomous driving is also facing different road options. Some choose low-speed, load-carrying scenarios, such as Millima Zhixing, focusing on automatic distribution of terminal logistics; some choose high-speed, manned scenarios, such as a number of Robotaxi businesses that are being promoted.
When Baidu controlled the cost of autonomous vehicles carrying people within 500,000, Zhixing controlled the autonomous vehicles carrying objects at the level of 100,000. Zhang Kai, chairman of The Wisdom Bank, said that he hopes that the launch of Little Devil Camel 2.0 "can further accelerate the industry process of large-scale commercial use of terminal logistics automatic delivery vehicles".
The application scenarios of autonomous driving in terminal logistics mainly include e-commerce, takeaway, express delivery, and fresh delivery. At present, with the rising cost of labor, especially the formalization of social security for delivery workers in the future, platforms will face higher and higher cost pressures, and turning to tireless self-driving robots has become an important choice. Meituan, JD.com, Cainiao and other "big distribution households" are vigorously developing the automation of terminal distribution.
So, why is $100,000 a major step forward? According to media reports, the average comprehensive cost of front-line employees of JD Logistics is about 110,000 yuan per year. In First-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, there are not a few meituan takeaway brothers who earn tens of thousands of dollars a month. The price of 128,000 yuan for the little magic camel, plus maintenance costs, is only slightly higher than the labor cost. After a one-time hardware investment, perhaps two or three years later, the comprehensive cost of the enterprise can be comparable to the use of labor.
In June 2021, a survey by Chentao Capital showed that the cost of unmanned delivery vehicles in some enterprises at that time could be about 200,000-250,000 yuan, and some enterprises were about 500,000 yuan. In the next 3 years, the cost of unmanned delivery vehicles will gradually drop to less than 100,000 yuan, and the unmanned delivery track will take the lead in ushering in an outbreak.
Moreover, the repeated epidemics have stimulated the demand for "unmanned" terminal distribution. In Shanghai, meituan, JD.com, Ali, Millima and many other automatic delivery vehicles have participated in the fight against the epidemic. Unmanned delivery vehicles have a stronger load capacity and higher distribution efficiency, which has "shown its skills" in Shanghai's fight against the epidemic. The relevant person in charge of Meituan said that in the oasis Kangcheng community as an example, volunteers use a small trailer to deliver a trip for about 30 minutes, and the automatic delivery car only takes 10 minutes. So far, Meituan's automatic delivery vehicles have accumulated more than 180,000 delivery orders in Shanghai's anti-epidemic supply, and the single-day delivery capacity has reached nearly 20,000.
Data show that the total market size of express delivery and instant logistics terminal distribution in 2021 has exceeded 300 billion yuan. There are three main types of business models for terminal delivery autonomous driving: First, to serve internal needs and internal settlement, such as JD.com and Meituan. The second is to provide unmanned delivery and collect delivery service fees, such as white rhinoceros, millima chi heng and so on. According to the data in June 2021, the unit price of fresh and retail instant delivery at that time was about 7-9 yuan / single, and the unit price of express delivery was about 1-2.5 yuan / piece. The third is vehicle sales, leasing, software and hardware solutions charging, such as Neolithic, Yishi Technology.
From the perspective of safety, market demand and economics, the commercialization path of autonomous driving in the terminal distribution market is relatively clear and easy to land. So, in the autonomous driving track, there are many companies that have put the focus of commercialization here. Wu Gansha, co-founder and CEO of Yishi Technology, said not long ago: "The revenue brought by unmanned delivery vehicles currently accounts for the highest proportion of the company, and it will also be a focus of the company's commercialization in the second half of this year. ”
Compared with low-speed and loaded objects, the higher is the high-speed, manned scene, which is typically represented by Robotaxi, that is, self-driving taxi. This is currently more invested by autonomous driving companies, and it is also the most commercialized in them.
In China, Robotaxi is also growing rapidly under the gradual liberalization of policies. After experiencing changes from designated road sections to specific areas, from safety officers as the main driver to being co-drivers, from special management to ordinary taxi management, step by step into life.
According to the McKinsey research report, China will be the world's largest autonomous driving market, with total sales of autonomous vehicles reaching $230 billion by 2030 and orders for autonomous driving-based mobility services reaching $260 billion. In 2025, the cost of Robotaxi will be equal to that of ride-hailing and taxis, and since then, the cost of Robotaxi will be reduced year by year, and it will gradually replace manually driven taxis.
Ruqi Travel, a subsidiary of GAC, cooperated with Xiaoma Zhixing and Wenyuan Zhixing to carry out the establishment and operation of the Robotaxi team. SAIC's Xiangdao Travel and Momenta, Geely's Cao Cao Travel and Yuanrong Qixing have also launched similar cooperation.
"If driverless people want to make a profit, they must realize the profitability of bicycles, and this premise is to be able to drive unmanned, and the current model of vehicle operation with safety officers cannot make money, and even lose money than the ordinary model." Wenyuan Zhixing COO Zhang Li believes that in the taxi cost structure, the driver cost accounts for about 60%, if it is impossible to replace the driver, the business model of driverless Robotaxi is not established.
In March, Waymo said it was ready to deploy truly fully autonomous vehicles without safety officers on the streets of San Francisco. With the launch of the unmanned manned demonstration application in Beijing, China should not be far from the "safety officer" of automatic driving.
"Last year, the cost of the hardware vehicle has reached 480,000 yuan, according to the 5-year depreciation apportionment, the cost of this car a month is 8,000 yuan, and there is an opportunity to start doing business in the car market." He judged, "In the next 2-3 years or so, we believe that there is an opportunity to achieve unmanned commercial profitability at a single point." ”