The ride-hailing industry is getting more and more involved, and the wind of unmanned driving is getting stronger and stronger. Whether it is at the policy level or the trend of online car-hailing platforms, unmanned driving is getting closer and closer to us!
At the policy level –
In July 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued the Guidelines for the Construction of the National Internet of Vehicles Industry Standard System (Intelligent Connected Vehicles) (2023 Edition), proposing to establish an intelligent networked vehicle standard system that adapts to the national conditions of the mainland and is in line with international standards in stages.
In November of the same year, the four departments jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work of Intelligent Connected Vehicle Access and Road Access", aiming to promote the function and performance improvement of intelligent networked vehicle products and the iterative optimization of industrial ecology, accelerate the industrialization process of intelligent networked vehicles, and promote the high-quality development of the intelligent networked vehicle industry.
In December, the Ministry of Transport issued the Guidelines for Transportation Safety Services for Autonomous Vehicles (Trial) to guide the new development stage of normalized operation services for autonomous vehicles.
At the local level –
Up to now, 51 cities have introduced autonomous driving pilot demonstration policies, of which Shenzhen, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces and cities have formulated autonomous driving-related local legislation, among them, Hangzhou will become the implementation of the "Hangzhou Intelligent Connected Vehicle Testing and Application Promotion Regulations" from May 1, becoming the first provincial capital city in the country to support autonomous vehicles on the road with local regulations.
At the same time, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and other places have carried out pilot demonstrations of open roads without drivers. For example, Wuhan has supported the normalization of nearly 500 driverless vehicles in 12 administrative regions, Beijing has been actively promoting the demonstration zone 3.0 on the basis of expanding new application scenarios such as Daxing Airport, and Hangzhou has officially announced to the whole country that the city's built-up areas are open to intelligent networked vehicle testing and application, including Shangcheng, Gongshu, West Lake, etc., totaling 3,474 square kilometers, making it the first megacity in the country to open up the whole city, serving a population of more than 10 million.
Under the policy increase, various enterprises are also cooperating to deploy and promote the implementation of unmanned driving technology. In addition to the acceleration of the layout of pioneers such as Radish Express and Pony.ai, the "main forces" of online car-hailing such as Didi Chuxing, T3 Travel, and Ruqi Travel are also making efforts to drive unmanned online car-hailing, which will bring new impetus to the saturated online car-hailing track.
On April 7, Didi announced the establishment of a joint venture with GAC Aion, and plans to launch the first commercial L4 model in 2025, which will be launched in batches and in an orderly manner, and will be connected to the Didi Chuxing network in the form of hybrid dispatch to accelerate the large-scale and commercial implementation of unmanned driving.
T3 Travel and Qingzhou Intelligent Aviation have launched the public operation of Robtaxi, and plans to reach 1,000 L4 autonomous vehicles in commercial operation by the end of 2026.
In the eyes of industry insiders, the unmanned driving industry has entered the eve of commercialization, and it is also a critical period for large-scale landing. Some optimistic views believe that the commercialization of driverless online car-hailing can be realized in the past 2~3 years, but the ideal is very full, the reality is very skinny, and the popularization of unmanned online car-hailing still has many problems such as technology, safety, cost, and user acceptance.
The first is technology, which is currently divided into 6 levels from L0 to L5 according to the degree of unmanned, and only L4 or above is truly unmanned, but the current technical level of autonomous driving is generally at the level of "infinitely close to L3". In order to achieve the large-scale implementation of L4 autonomous driving online car-hailing, it is not only necessary to solve the manufacturing and production problems of the hardware and system of the car itself, but also to solve the identification problem of different road conditions.
The second is cost. Why are online car-hailing platforms aiming at unmanned driving, its main purpose is to save the current operating costs, each online car-hailing platform wants to get a piece of the pie from unmanned driving, but not everyone can eat meat, because the R&D and manufacturing costs of unmanned online car-hailing are too high. It is understood that the cost of Baidu's fifth-generation unmanned car Apollo Moon is 480,000 yuan, and the cost of most modified cars used in the "Carrot Run" driverless taxi platform is 100 to 2 million yuan.
The third is security. As mentioned earlier, the current unmanned technology is not mature, coupled with complex road conditions, congested traffic, and imperfect related supporting construction. In the past two years, there have been a number of driverless accidents, and the current consumer trust in them is not high.
There are various signs that there is still a long way to go before the large-scale operation of driverless online car-hailing. However, the blockbuster news came, on the afternoon of April 28, Tesla Musk arrived in Beijing, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade President Ren Hongbin met with Musk, some media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Tesla will cooperate with Baidu Maps to use the advanced assisted driving map it provides to promote the application of FSD in the Chinese market.
Previously, on April 20, Musk also replied to questions from netizens on social platforms and said that Tesla's FSD may soon be able to enter China.
Once Tesla's FSD successfully enters the Chinese market, it may become a strong competitor to the autonomous driving solutions of China's local car companies, and is expected to become a "catfish" in the domestic autonomous driving industry again.
At present, when the price war of autonomous driving of local car companies in China is hot, the price competitiveness of Tesla's FSD is very limited. If Tesla does not reduce the subscription price of FSD, even if the North American insurance model is moved to China, it will not be able to boost FSD sales.
Industry insiders believe that if Tesla FSD enters the Chinese market, the first step is to reduce prices. As can be seen from Tesla's official website, on April 21, Tesla has lowered the price of the FSD package sold in the United States, from $12,000 to $8,000. This price reduction is seen as Tesla's active attempt on the road to commercialization of autonomous driving technology, and the price reduction will also improve Tesla's competitiveness in the field of autonomous driving, further driving its market share growth.
Lowering prices - increasing penetration - diluting costs - lowering prices again, the price war triggered by Tesla's series of price cuts on cars may be repeated in the field of unmanned driving.
Once Tesla's FSD is the first to scale in China, it will have both technical and price advantages. In order to compete with it, China's local car companies are bound to fall into a new round of involution, which may significantly reduce the cost of driverless vehicles, and at that time, the two major obstacles to the large-scale promotion of driverless online car-hailing - technology and cost may also be solved.
It won't be long before the shared travel market will gradually shift to the unmanned car travel market, and an unmanned online car-hailing may not be far away. As a practitioner, the crisis is really coming!