Since the beginning of 2020, the central Chinese city of Wuhan may now be on the cusp of global recognition for a number of reasons: it has the world's largest fleet of autonomous vehicles. Wuhan is gradually evolving into an important testing center for emerging technologies, critical infrastructure, and regulatory environments for autonomous driving in China.
Analysts say the progress made by Chinese companies and regulators in Beijing poses new challenges for the West. The West has lagged behind China in the field of electric vehicles, and now it is seeing significant progress in autonomous driving technology.
Raymond Zeng, an automotive technologist at Bain & Company in Shanghai, said: "It's hard to assess accurately, but from a technology readiness and availability perspective, [China] probably won't be a year or two behind." "The momentum to close this gap is quite strong," he noted. ”
China launched commercial driverless development in 2013, about five years after the United States. However, as of September last year, China's self-driving cars had traveled 70 million kilometers, the same as in the United States, according to Bain & Company.
In Wuhan, 500 robo-taxis, mostly operated by Google's Chinese rivals, recorded more than 730,000 rides last year. By comparison, Waymo, the self-driving car developer of Google's parent company Alphabet, totaled more than 700,000 orders in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles last year. Waymo told the Financial Times that it owns "hundreds of cars" in each of its three fully autonomous regions.
The safety of self-driving cars has been in the spotlight since early October, when a robotaxi operated by Cruise, GM's driverless car division, collided with a pedestrian and subsequently dragged the pedestrian 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco.
GM halted the division's work, and regulators are investigating the case, questioning the technical limitations previously disclosed by the company and how the incident was handled.
In China, the Wuhan robo-taxi project reveals a persistent conservative attitude towards safety.
Touting itself as a "fully driverless car", it insists that there were no major accidents during the trial. However, a visit to the company's self-driving center in Beijing in June revealed that each robo-taxi is remotely monitored by people sitting in an arcade-like driving station, ready to intervene to meet regulators' requirements.
But the exact number of people remotely monitored by each car was declined. The American company stressed that its fully autonomous vehicles "are responsible for making every driving decision on the road and do not rely on a human driver, whether in the car or remotely".
For example, if a Waymo vehicle detects that the road ahead is closed due to construction, it may pull over and request confirmation from our fleet response experts before taking an alternative route. Our experts can then confirm that the vehicle is correctly perceiving the construction area and communicate the lane closure to the rest of the fleet. ”
Zhang Yaqin, dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence Industry at Tsinghua University in Beijing, warned that China would remain "very, very cautious" until it is confident that the vehicles are safe. "It's about human life ... For it to be rolled out on a large scale, it must be 10 times safer than a human driver. ”
In addition to Wuhan, domestic competitors such as Pony.ai and AutoX have established a series of test zones in several cities in China. Many electric vehicle manufacturers in China, including BYD, the world's largest salesman, also have in-house teams in the field of autonomous driving, working on the development of advanced driver assistance systems, which are pioneers in autonomous driving technology.
Tu Le, founder of Sino Auto Insights, said that the United States is still ahead of China in key areas of autonomous driving, including technologies such as machine learning and sensors. "China has a strong leadership team, but the average employee is often not as experienced as their U.S. counterparts," he noted. However, Bain & Company's Zeng Raymond said China is moving towards a "tipping point" for large-scale commercialization of key technologies around 2027 due to the scale of commercial trials. Bain & Company expects a similar timeframe to complete the legal framework for liability and insurance and to improve the associated road and telecommunications infrastructure.
The ability of companies to leverage urban roadside cameras, traffic lights, and other infrastructure networks within cities, as well as extensive 5G coverage and digital maps, has bolstered confidence in China. Experts say that while such networks have received international criticism for mass surveillance by Chinese security agencies, they offer a clear advantage over other jurisdictions for driverless car developers.
Zhang Yaqin of Tsinghua University warned that China would remain "very, very cautious" until it was convinced that the vehicles were safe. "It's about human life ... For it to be rolled out on a large scale, it must be 10 times safer than a human driver. ”
In addition to Wuhan, a number of domestic competitors, such as Pony.ai and AutoX, have set up a series of test zones in cities across China. Many electric vehicle manufacturers in China, including BYD, the world's largest salesman, also have in-house teams dedicated to developing advanced driver assistance systems, which are pioneers in autonomous driving technology.
A global survey of self-driving car executives released by McKinsey this month shows that the industry is in a state of flux. Expectations for driverless development have been extended by about two years to achieve commercially viable robotic axes around 2030. In the U.S. and China, the industry will need billions of dollars in investment (mostly algorithms and perception software) to prove that the technology is safe. However, the same McKinsey survey shows that by 2021, nearly 60% of industry leaders expect North America to beat China in developing driverless car technology. Respondents now see the two as "evenly divided".
This is evidence of China's progress... Driven by factors such as strong support; increased investment in research and data availability; and consumer receptivity to the adoption of new technologies. McKinsey analysts said.
Professor Zhang of Tsinghua University in Beijing, a former executive who led the development of the company's open-source driverless car software, Apollo, called for a push and industry push to expand the Wuhan project to the entire city — which now covers one area, about a quarter of the city's population of 10 million. This extension will allow the vehicle to learn how to deal with all the dangers of city driving. "If the car could drive in Wuhan... I'm pretty sure it can drive in any other city in the world. He said. The current executive declined to be interviewed. Passengers in Wuhan robo-taxis sit in the back seat with a Plexiglas screen behind them to deter any urge to try to take back control of the vehicle.
Regulatory approval is also being sought to roll out its next-generation steering wheelless robo-taxi iteration, paving the way for a complete redesign. In recent months, Beijing has taken a more pragmatic approach to regulation, which was previously largely the responsibility of local governments. In November, guidelines were issued for localities** to follow when setting up driverless car pilot projects. This was followed in December by the introduction of new safety guidelines on the use of autonomous vehicles in public transport.
At the same time, given China's strict domestic system of protecting geospatial and customer data, analysts generally agree that multinational companies trying to enter China's driverless car industry face significant challenges. Tom Nunlist, an expert on technology regulation in China at Trivium, a Beijing-based consulting firm, noted that Beijing's tightening of regulations reflected a "balanced" approach aimed at addressing security concerns while avoiding unnecessarily slowing the pace of technological development. "China is eager to win this race," he said. "Indeed, China wants to maintain its leading position in this field of technology. ”
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