The new regulations have been continuously promulgated and interpreted by many experts.
Author: IT Times reporter Mao Yu
Edited by Hao Junhui and Sun Yan
On December 5, the Ministry of Transport officially issued the "Guidelines for Transportation Safety Services for Autonomous Vehicles (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines), which is superimposed on the recently issued "Technical Guidelines for Highway Engineering Facilities to Support Autonomous Driving", which means that the transportation industry has officially "accepted" autonomous vehicles.
However, "individual consumers are still unable to purchase L3 or L4 autonomous vehicles in the short term, firstly, because there are no detailed enough criteria to determine which car companies have achieved such technology."Second, even if it is reached, L3 or L4 level vehicles can only be supplied to some first-class business units in the short term, such as the transportation department. Zhu Xichan, a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Automotive Engineering of Tongji University, told the IT TimesAt present, more and more cities are opening autonomous driving test sections, but these regulations and regulations are aimed at vehicles that will be used by the transportation department or other business entities, and do not involve individual consumers.
In fact, it will still take a long time for individual consumers to completely "let go" in China (here referring to L4 and above autonomous driving technology).
On November 17, the four ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Carrying out the Pilot Work on the Access and Road Access of Intelligent Connected Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). The notice pointed out that for the intelligent networked vehicle products that have obtained the access permit, the pilot road traffic will be carried out in the limited area, and the vehicles used for transportation operations shall meet the operation qualifications and operation management requirements of the competent transportation department.
Zhu Xichan explained that there is no specific standard to clearly define L3 and L4 autonomous driving technologyChina's mass-produced models are generally in the L2 level of assisted driving stage, and some brand sales will promote their products at the L2 level, "New energy vehicles, including Tesla and Wei Xiaoli, can only be judged to be L2 level at present." ”
Xpeng Driver Assistance.
The notice of the four ministries and commissions is to let car companies declare L3 or L4, and the specific evaluation criteria The four ministries and commissions should also set up a special class for technical evaluation, but whether the declaration can be successful will not be known until next month at the earliest. Zhu Xichan said that judging from the noticeEven if the car company successfully declares, autonomous vehicles with L3 or L4 standard technology will not be sold to individual consumers for the time being, but will be sold to business units with ** and state-owned assets as the main body, "may be invested in the driverless taxi or logistics and transportation industry." ”
The above views are also confirmed in the "Guidelines for Transportation Safety Services for Autonomous Vehicles (Trial)", which mentions that the use of autonomous vehicles on highways (including highways), urban roads and other roads used for social motor vehicle traffic, engaged in urban bus (tram) passenger transport, taxi passenger transport, road general cargo transport, road passenger transport business activities and other services, applicable to this guide.
Individual consumers have not been able to buy autonomous vehicles in a short period of time, firstly, based on the complex road traffic conditions in China, the technology for L2 assisted driving level still needs to be carried out by hand on the steering wheel. Second, it is difficult to determine the accident liability of autonomous vehicles. Zhu Xichan mentioned that the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and other regions already have L2 assisted driving can take off the steering wheel, Tesla, GM, Ford and other models are among them.
The new domestic driver regulations for L2 combined assisted driving are expected to be issued by the end of this year. An industry insider who has been engaged in the autonomous driving industry for many years told the IT Times.
The Level 3 driving automation (conditional automatic driving) and Level 4 driving automation (highly autopilot) functions specified in the Notice are also explained in the national standard "Classification of Automobile Driving Automation" (GB T 40429-2021).
Level of driving automation refers to the continuous performance of all dynamic driving tasks by the system under its designed operating conditionsLevel of driving automation refers to the continuous execution of all dynamic driving tasks and the automatic execution of the least risk strategy by the system under its designed operating conditions.
Level 4 driving automation is defined as the ability to continuously perform all dynamic driving tasks under designed operating conditions, with the automation of least-risk strategies when needed. This means that in certain scenarios and conditions, the system has full control over the vehicle's movement without the driver being involved in the driving process at all times. Unlike Level 3 autonomous driving systemsLevel 4 Driver Automation allows the driver to choose not to respond when it is required to intervene. Level 3, on the other hand, requires the driver to intervene.
On the surface, "whether the driver is involved" is the main criterion for judging L3 or L4, but a closer look will find that Level 4 driving automation requires the automatic implementation of the least risk strategy when needed. Zhang Xiang, a visiting professor at Gongqing Vocational College of Science and Technology, told the IT Times.
In response to questions such as how to determine autonomous driving technology, a reporter from IT Times called the Shanghai Motor Vehicle Testing and Certification Technology Research Center, and the other party told the caller that it only received technical testing related information, and could not answer questions such as how to detect it.
In addition to the policy, autonomous driving technology is still the top priority of the outside world. From the hardware point of view, Tesla has adopted the method of pure visual sensing of cameras, while other car companies, including Huawei and Wei Xiaoli, have adopted the design scheme of camera + radar;From the perspective of software, each car company is also equipped with its own assisted driving operating system.
Just recently, Tesla announced the release of the Full Self-Driving (FSD) V12 update to employees. The main update is that the vehicle is controlled by a neural network and artificial intelligence, rather than hard-coded by engineers. From computer vision to driving decisions, neural networks will be controlled.
Tesla's use of a purely visual approach is because the United States is vast and sparsely populated, and cameras are sufficient. However, the domestic road conditions are complex, and the configuration of high-precision map + lidar may be more suitable for Chinese roads, and Tesla will also explore such a configuration in the future to adapt to Chinese roads. ”Zhang Xiang believes that if it is completely open to the road like the United States, it will take at least about 5 years in China.
Level 3 has long been considered to be a watershed between assisted driving and autonomous driving, because after Level 3, the driving leadership gradually shifts from the driver to the autonomous driving system, which will cause difficulties in determining liability for driving accidents.
For autonomous driving accidents above Level 4 and above, a data report 90 seconds before the accident needs to be submitted to determine whether the vehicle is responsible or the person who was hit is responsible. An industry insider told the IT Times that it is difficult to determine the responsibility for accidents involving driverless vehicles, "L3 is even more difficult to determine responsibility than L4." ”
According to the person, the L3 level requires the ultimate driver to intervene, but it is far more difficult to evaluate the results of human misconduct than to define the misbehavior of a machine. If the L3 system issues a takeover command and the driver fails to take over in time, the car company may not be responsible. "In contrast, L4 is easier to judge responsibility. Because, under certain circumstances, the driver does not need to take over the vehicle, and to a large extent, the responsibility for the accident will be determined to the car company. Therefore, whether car companies can bear the accident liability risk brought by vehicles on the road after L4 is fully liberalized, I believe it is also necessary to carefully consider, which will directly affect the reputation of enterprises and subsequent expenses. ”
Although the determination of responsibility is a difficult problem, there are still positive signals in China.
At present, many provinces and cities in China have opened autonomous driving city test roads, including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Gansu, Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuxi and other provinces and cities. As of September this year, more than 15,000 kilometers of intelligent networked vehicle test roads have been opened across the country, with a total road test mileage of more than 70 million kilometers.
The regulations, notices and measures that have been promulgated one after another are conducive to exploring and collecting data related to autonomous driving, and by continuously filling the data pool, the relevant laws and regulations are constantly improved, laying the foundation for subsequent liberalization and reasonable supervision.
Autonomous driving, the days of "crossing the river by feeling the stones" are coming to an end.
Typesetting Ji Jiaying.
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